Can I copy trade with a small account?

Copy trading sizes your position as a fraction of the provider's, scaled by the ratio of account sizes. If that calculation produces 0.003 lots and your broker's minimum is 0.01, you do not get 0.003 — you get 0.01, which is more than three times the intended risk.

The effect compounds silently. Every position is rounded up, so a provider risking a careful 1% per trade may be putting 3% or more of your account at risk on each one. The equity curves then diverge and it looks like the copier is broken when it is doing exactly what it was told.

The same constraint applies to any automated system including ours, which is why account size questions matter more than they appear to. See what account size do I need to trade gold.

What to check before subscribing on a small balance

Whether the provider trades gold or indices, where contract sizes are large and the rounding problem bites hardest. Whether your broker offers micro lots or cent accounts, which lower the minimum considerably. And what the provider's own risk per trade is — the lower it is, the worse the rounding distortion becomes at small balances.