Trading knowledge libraryWhat Is a Live AccountMarket Basics
Market Basics
What Is a Live Account
A live account is the same platform as the demo, with your own money behind every click. This paper shows you the three steps that open one, what one real trade did to a two-thousand-dollar account at a tenth of a lot, where the money sits while the account is open and how it comes back, and what the statement the broker sends each evening shows.
A live account is the same platform you practised on, with your own money behind every click. Opening one takes three things. You prove who you are, with a passport or an identity card and a proof of address, because the law requires the broker to know whose money it holds. You put money in, by card, bank transfer or an online wallet. And then you have a real ticket: the same buttons as the demo, the same prices, and a balance that is yours. The first two steps take a day or two. The third is what the account is.
The same real trade, on a live account
Here is the real trade of 3 September 2026 on a live account with two thousand dollars in it. A tenth of a lot of the euro against the dollar — ten thousand euros — was bought at the open at the ask, 1.15881, and valued at the close at the bid, 1.16259. A pip is the fourth decimal place, and at this size it is worth one dollar, so the trade showed $37.80. The platform set aside $115.90 as margin — the part of the balance held back while the trade is open — at a leverage ratio of one to a hundred, where the broker lets you hold a hundred dollars of position for each dollar held back, and left the rest free. Every number is what a demo would have shown. What changes is that the $37.80 can be withdrawn, and that on 28 August, a day that went the other way, the same trade would have taken $71 from the balance.
