Plus500 is a futures broker option for your bot. It trades CME index futures — ES, MES, NQ, MNQ, RTY and M2K — in a Plus500 US Futures account, through Plus500's professional platform (T4). Everything you already know from Futures on Paper works the same way here: the same strategies, the same runner legs, the same trailing, the same cards. The difference is that the fills are real.

You select it the same way as any broker — Strategies → Broker. See Choosing Your Broker for the switch itself.

This is a T4 setup

Plus500's US futures accounts trade on T4, a professional platform built by CTS, and T4 is what your bot connects to — not the Plus500 app or web trader you may already be using. Everything below is T4 setup. If you've only ever used Plus500's own interface, none of these credentials will look familiar, and that's expected: T4 API access is something you request from Plus500 separately.

T4 is not itself a broker. It's a platform that serves many futures brokers, so every connection to it has to say which broker the account is with — in T4's language, the firm. That's what the firm value in your credentials is, and it's the piece people most often leave out, because in Plus500's own app there's nothing to choose. A correct username and password with the wrong firm doesn't log in.

There are two separate "pick your broker" moments, and both have to be right:

1. In the T4 connection — the firm, naming Plus500 as the broker your account clears through. Set once, with your credentials.
2. In this app — selecting Plus500 Futures in Strategies → Broker, which is what actually routes your bot's orders there. Configuring T4 doesn't switch your bot over; you still choose it, the same as any broker.

What you need before it will appear

1. A Plus500 US Futures account, opened in your name.
2. T4 API access on that account. Ask Plus500 for it — their futures team handles T4 API requests. What you're asking for is a T4 login for API use, and what you should come away with is:
   • your T4 firm (the firm name your login sits under),
   • your T4 username and password — or an API key, if they issue one instead,
   • your T4 account id, which is not your Plus500 account number,
   • and, usually, a simulator login first, with a live one issued after.
3. The futures market on your account (from the Marketplace). Futures brokers don't appear for options-only customers.

Until all three are true, Plus500 simply isn't in your broker list. That's the intended behaviour, not a fault.

Where each T4 piece goes

Piece	Who gives it to you	Where it belongs
T4 firm — which broker the account is with	Plus500 / T4	Your bot's own app settings — contact support to set them. Never typed into this portal.
T4 username and password (or API key)	Plus500 / T4	Same place, set at the same time.
T4 account id — simulator and live	Plus500 / T4	Global Settings → Plus500 Futures, in this app. Two separate fields, because they're two different accounts.
Application name and licence	Us. T4 issues this to Stax as the software vendor	Your bot's app settings, set at the same time as your login. Nothing for you to request.

That last row is why this can't be fully self-service: the T4 connection is identified by both your login and our vendor identity, and only one of those halves is yours.

Tip

Ask Plus500 for the simulator credentials even if you intend to go live straight away. T4's simulator is a real connection to a real platform with fake money — it's the only way to watch your strategies run end-to-end before your own capital is on the line, and the sim account id has its own field precisely so you don't have to overwrite anything to switch back and forth.

It starts in simulation, and it starts disarmed

Two separate safety defaults sit in front of your first real order, and both have to be turned off deliberately:

• Environment defaults to Simulation. Live requires a live account id saved and the environment explicitly set to Live. Anything unclear falls back to simulation.
• Dry run is on by default. Orders are written to the log and never sent, so you can watch a full day of decisions with nothing at risk.

So seeing Plus500 in your picker does not mean it is trading your money. Ask support to confirm which state your bot is in if you're unsure.

The settings you control

Global Settings → Plus500 Futures holds three fields:

• Environment — Simulation or Live.
• Simulation account id and Live account id — your T4 account ids. Leaving one blank never wipes what's already saved.

All three are read when your bot starts, so a save doesn't take effect until you restart — the page shows a pending banner during that window rather than leaving you to discover it later. The environment can't be changed while you have positions open.

Differences from paper worth knowing

Paper is the reference; these are the places where a real exchange behaves differently.

• Your bracket lives at the exchange. Stop and target are held on T4's servers and go live the instant the entry fills — protection is never waiting on your bot. An entry that can't be given a usable stop is refused before it's ever sent.
• Trailing converges, it doesn't tick. Each stop move is confirmed by T4, so the stop follows price closely but not tick-for-tick. If the price feed goes quiet, trailing stands down and the resting bracket protects the trade.
• One position per contract. Two strategies trading MES share a single account position, where paper keeps them separate.
• Fills are real — slippage, gaps, rejections and halts all happen, and Plus500 enforces margin.
• Contracts roll. Your bot trades the front month and rolls about eight days before expiry; open trades stay on the contract they were opened in.
• A target can't be bolted onto a stop-only trade later. T4 won't attach a new child to a working bracket, and faking it with a loose limit order could fill both sides in a fast market.

Warning

Don't log into T4 with the same credentials while your bot is running. The platform treats it as the session moving, your bot reports logged in elsewhere, and new entries stop until it reconnects. Use a separate login if you want to watch.

Going live, in order

1. Trade simulation first, with dry run off, until a full day looks the way you expect.
2. Flatten the simulation account, save your live account id, set the environment to Live, and restart.
3. Check the first live day at minimum size — one micro contract — before normal sizing.

This is a new broker option. It has been built to match paper futures behaviour test-for-test, but it has far less live history behind it than tastytrade does, so the staged rollout above is a genuine recommendation rather than a formality.

If something looks wrong

• Plus500 isn't in my picker. One of the three prerequisites is missing, most often the credentials. Your bot may also need an update before it can store the Plus500 settings at all.
• T4 won't accept the login. Check the firm before anything else. T4 serves many brokers, and a valid username and password under the wrong firm fails exactly like a wrong password does.
• T4 is connected but my trades still went somewhere else. Setting up T4 doesn't switch your bot. Select Plus500 Futures in Strategies → Broker, and watch the "Currently executing on" line change once the restart finishes.
• My settings won't save. Account ids are T4 account ids, not Plus500 web-account numbers, and the environment refuses to change with positions open.
• Nothing traded today. Check dry run first, then the top banner. Futures also pause at the daily close (17:00 ET) and through weekly maintenance, and your bot reconnects on its own afterwards.

Tip

Everything in Futures on Paper applies here — sizing in contracts, tick-based cards, exit legs and Profit Lock. Practise on paper futures first; it costs nothing and the settings transfer exactly.