MT5 demo account: how to open one and what it can tell you

Two ways to open one

A MetaTrader 5 demo account comes from one of two places, and the difference matters more than it looks.

If the demo exists to evaluate anything — a strategy, an EA, a broker — open it through the broker, and choose the same account type you would fund. A raw-spread demo tells you nothing about a standard account: the cost per trade is different, and on gold the difference is the strategy. See the measured XAUUSD spread.

Opening it through a broker, step by step

The process is broadly identical everywhere: register with an email, skip or defer identity verification (demo accounts rarely require it), choose the account type and a starting balance, and the broker emails a login, a password and — the part people lose — a server name.

All three go into the terminal under File, then Login to Trade Account. The server name must match exactly: the same account refused by "Broker-MT5-Live01" lives happily on "Broker-MT5-Demo03", and nearly every failed demo login is the server rather than the password. If it will not connect, see authorization failed.

Pick a starting balance close to what you would actually fund. A $100,000 demo teaches lot sizing that transfers to nothing — position sizes that survive on that balance blow up a $1,000 account. See position sizing.

How to use MetaTrader 5 once you are in

The terminal is dense, but four pieces cover most of what a new user needs. Market Watch (Ctrl+M) lists symbols and live quotes — if an instrument is missing, right-click and choose Symbols to add it. Charts open from Market Watch by dragging a symbol out. One-click trading on the chart places market orders with the visible lot size. The Toolbox (Ctrl+T) is where the truth lives: open positions under Trade, and two log tabs — Journal and Experts — that record everything the platform and any expert advisor did.

The habit worth building on day one is reading those two log tabs, because every failure you will ever debug is written there. The troubleshooting section leans on them constantly.

To run automation on the demo, the EA needs installing and two switches enabling — the walkthrough is at how to install an EA in MT5.

What a demo can and cannot tell you

A demo proves the mechanics: the platform connects, orders form correctly, an EA runs, your broker offers the symbol with the naming and account type you expect. That is genuinely worth establishing before money is involved, and it is why our own guarantee points people to demo first.

What it cannot do is prove profitability. Demo fills are optimistic — the server fills at the quoted price with unlimited liquidity, which live execution does not — and a few demo weeks is a sample too small to mean anything. The full gap is documented at EA works on demo but not live.

So read a demo as a rehearsal, not an audition: it verifies the setup works, and the decision to trade a strategy should rest on longer evidence than a demo can generate. See demo account results.

When to open the real account

Once the demo has done its actual job — the platform is familiar, the EA runs unattended for a week without intervention, and the account type question is settled — opening the real account is the same registration completed with identity documents and a deposit. Brokers require verification for live accounts everywhere; a broker that does not is the red flag, not the convenience.

Keep the demo after going live. It stays useful for testing settings changes before they touch money, and it costs nothing — though note brokers archive inactive demos after a few weeks, which surfaces later as a login error that looks like a fault. See account disabled.