Two accounts, one strategy, and no desire to place every trade twice. That is the problem a copier solves, and FX Blue's Trade Mirror solves it without a subscription. It is part of the free FX Blue tool set for MetaTrader, and it has been around long enough that the edge cases are well understood.
How the sender and receiver model works
Trade Mirror is an expert advisor. You attach it to a chart on the sending account with the mode set to send, and to a chart on each receiving account with the mode set to receive. When a position opens, closes or is modified on the sender, the receivers reproduce it.
The copying happens through a shared channel that both terminals can reach. In the simplest and most reliable configuration, that means the terminals run on the same machine, and the copy is effectively local. FX Blue also supports copying between machines, which introduces a network hop and everything that comes with it.
Because it is an EA rather than a bridge, both terminals must be running, both must have automated trading enabled, and the chart holding the EA must not be closed. Those three conditions cause most of the support questions. The general mechanics of copiers, including the difference between EA-based and server-side approaches, are covered in the trade copiers explainer.
Sizing: the setting people get wrong first
The receiver does not have to trade the same lot size as the sender. Trade Mirror offers several sizing modes, and picking the wrong one is the most common cause of a copied account behaving nothing like the original.
| Mode | Behaviour | Watch for |
|---|---|---|
| Same lots | Receiver trades the identical volume | Ignores account size differences entirely |
| Multiplier | Sender volume times a fixed factor | Drifts as the two balances diverge |
| Balance ratio | Scales by the ratio of the two balances | Rounds to the broker's volume step, so tiny accounts round to zero or to the minimum |
| Fixed size | Every copied trade uses one set volume | Destroys the sender's own position sizing logic |
Balance-ratio copying onto a small account runs into the minimum volume floor. If the maths says 0.004 lots and the broker's minimum is 0.01, the receiver either takes more than double the intended risk or takes nothing, depending on the rounding rule. Work through the arithmetic with the position sizing guide before assuming the ratio will do what you want.
What actually breaks it
The failures are boring and almost all environmental.
Terminal sleep is first. A copier on a home laptop stops the moment the machine suspends, and the receiver misses everything until it wakes. That is the main argument for a VPS, and the forex VPS guide goes through the specification that actually matters for this workload, which is uptime and proximity to the broker rather than raw processing power.
Symbol naming is second. Brokers add suffixes: EURUSD on one, EURUSD.m or EURUSDpro on another. If the receiver's broker uses a different convention, the copier needs the mapping configured or it will simply fail to find the instrument. Anyone copying between two different brokers should test this with a single micro trade before trusting it.
Execution differences are third. The receiver's fill will not match the sender's exactly. Different spread, different latency, different liquidity, and on fast news the gap widens. This is normal, it is not a bug, and it is described in the slippage explainer. Over hundreds of trades the divergence is measurable, which is why a copied account's published curve never sits exactly on top of the source.
Copying someone else's trades into your account does not transfer their risk management to you. Your leverage, your balance and your broker's margin rules are yours. A drawdown that is comfortable on the sending account can be an account-ending sequence on the receiver if the sizing mode was set carelessly.
Where a free copier stops being enough
Trade Mirror is aimed at a person copying their own accounts, or a small group who trust each other. It has no billing, no subscriber management, no per-subscriber risk controls, and no audit trail you could hand to a compliance officer.
The moment you are copying to paying clients, those absences become the whole problem. You need to know who is subscribed, when they joined, what they paid, what was copied to them and what happened when a copy failed. That is a different product category, and it is why commercial copiers charge. The distinction is set out in the piece on copy trading and signal providers, and if you are running this as a business rather than for yourself, copy trading risk settings covers the per-follower controls a free EA does not offer.
A sensible test before you rely on it
Set both terminals up, use the smallest volume the brokers permit, and place four trades over a session: a market buy, a market sell, a modification of the stop, and a partial close. Confirm each one reproduces correctly on the receiver, and record the fill difference on each. Then leave it running for a week and check nothing dropped overnight. That hour of testing prevents the version of this story where a trader discovers at month end that half the trades never copied.
Copying trades, free or paid, is still leveraged trading with a high risk of loss. The tool moves orders. It does not improve them.
"A copier is only as good as the machine it runs on. People blame the software for missed trades when the real cause was a laptop that went to sleep at two in the morning."
— Alex Onta, Executive Director, SINGUARD
Key Takeaways
- Trade Mirror runs as an EA on both accounts, so both terminals must stay running with automated trading enabled for copying to work.
- Sizing mode is the setting that matters most; balance-ratio copying onto a small account collides with the broker's minimum volume step.
- Symbol suffixes differ between brokers and must be mapped, otherwise the receiver silently fails to find the instrument.
- A free copier has no subscriber billing, per-follower risk controls or audit trail, which is where commercial copiers earn their fee.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is FX Blue Trade Mirror really free?
Yes, it is part of FX Blue's free tool set for MetaTrader. The cost you may still carry is a VPS to keep the terminals running continuously.
Can it copy between two different brokers?
Yes, but you must handle symbol name differences and accept that fills will not match. Test with minimum volume on a live pair before relying on it.
Should I use it to copy trades to paying subscribers?
It is not built for that. There is no subscriber management, billing or audit trail, and running a paid copy service also raises regulatory questions in many jurisdictions.
About the Author
Alex Onta is an Executive Director at SINGUARD. He built eTrader, the terminal, the mobile apps, eTrader Broker, Copytrading, Business and Community, along with the worldwide clustered-server infrastructure it all runs on, with his brother Roman Onta helping on the design, and he leads that division today. Together with Roman he builds the Prop Firm CRM, the Broker CRM, Scalegram and CopySignals, and the two of them carry worldwide compliance, payment processing and international business structuring side by side. He lives and works in Dubai for most of the year. Meet the executive duo leading Singuard's five divisions.