# Paper Trading Bot with Virtual Money | Botico

> Run your trading bot on live market prices with virtual money. Test a strategy in real conditions, track every order, then switch to real money when you are ready.

- **Canonical page:** https://botico.ai/features/paper-trading/
- **Launch the app:** https://app.botico.ai

## Paper trading with virtual money in live markets

Run your bot on live prices with virtual money, and see how your strategy behaves before real money is at risk.

A backtest tells you how a strategy behaved in the past. Paper trading tells you how it behaves right now. Botico runs your bot on live market prices with virtual money, so you watch real decisions on real candles while your funds stay untouched. When the results give you confidence, the same setup can run with real money.

## Backtesting and paper trading, what's the difference?

- **Backtesting** replays your strategy on past market data. It covers months or years in a single run, so it is fast, and it shows how the strategy would have behaved. It answers: did it work?
- **Paper trading** runs your strategy live on today's prices, with virtual money. It moves at the speed of the market, candle by candle, and shows how the strategy behaves now. It answers: does it still work?

Used together, they answer both questions. See [Backtesting](https://botico.ai/features/backtesting.md).

## What you get with paper trading

### Real market, virtual money

- **Live market conditions:** Your bot reacts to prices as they happen, candle by candle, not to data from the past. Every signal, entry and exit happens in today's market.
- **The same bot, two modes:** Choose Virtual Money or Real Money when you create a bot. The strategy, risk profile, market, candle size and order style stay exactly the same, so what you test is what you run.
- **A virtual balance to trade with:** Set the balance your bot can use, as an amount or as a share of your virtual wallet, just as you would with real funds.

### A full record of every decision

- **Every order recorded:** Each order is logged with its mode, so paper and real activity never get mixed up. The Indicator Log shows every check your bot made and why it traded or waited.
- **Full performance metrics:** Track return, drawdown, win rate, trade duration, time in market and more while the bot runs, with the same metrics you see in a backtest.

### Next to everything else you run

- **Paper and real side by side:** Run virtual and real bots in the same workspace and compare how a strategy behaves in each.
- **Copy trading with virtual money:** Follow a leader bot in virtual mode first and see how its signals play out before you put real funds behind them.

## How it works

1. **Choose Virtual Money:** Create a bot and select Virtual Money as its mode.
2. **Set up the strategy:** Pick your signal strategy, risk profile, market and pair, candle size and order style.
3. **Give it a balance:** Set the virtual balance the bot can use, then start it.
4. **Watch, then go live:** Review every order and every decision as it trades. Switch to Real Money when you are ready.

## Why paper trade before going live

- **Catch surprises early:** Live markets move differently from history. Paper trading shows how your strategy handles today's conditions.
- **Build confidence:** Watch your rules play out in real time and learn what running the bot actually feels like.
- **Fine-tune for free:** Adjust your settings, run again, and move to real money only once the results satisfy you.
- **Learn without pressure:** New to automated trading? See how it works with nothing at stake.

## Who it's for

- **New to trading:** Start with virtual money and learn how a strategy behaves before risking anything.
- **Active traders:** Test a new idea live, next to your real bots, before giving it capital.
- **Teams:** Run a strategy in virtual mode as an evaluation before rolling it out.

## From paper to live

When your bot performs the way you want, run the same setup with Real Money on your own exchange account. Your funds never leave your account, and the key you connect can trade but never withdraw.

## Try your strategy in today's market

Run it with virtual money, watch every trade, and go live only when you are ready.

[Start free](https://app.botico.ai)