R4CopierMT5 is where most prop firms now live, and it introduced one setting — netting versus hedging — that changes what a copied order actually does. Get it wrong and your slaves drift out of sync quietly. This page explains it, then explains how R4Copier handles it.
This is the single most important difference between MT4 copying and MT5 copying, and most tools do not mention it at all.
MetaTrader 5 accounts come in two modes. On a hedging account each order opens its own position and long and short can coexist in the same instrument — the behaviour MT4 traders take for granted. On a netting account there is exactly one position per symbol, and every subsequent order in that symbol modifies it.
Consider a master that buys 1.0 lot of EURUSD, then buys another 0.5 later, then closes the first ticket. On a hedging slave that is three unambiguous actions: two positions open, one closes, 0.5 remains. On a netting slave the same sequence means: open 1.0, increase to 1.5, and then — close what, exactly? There is no first ticket to close. There is one 1.5-lot position.
A copier that assumes hedging semantics will answer that question wrongly, and the account will not obviously look broken. It will just carry a position size that no longer matches the master, and the gap will widen every time you scale in or out.
How R4Copier handles it: the account mode is read from each MT5 connection rather than assumed, and copy actions are translated into the equivalent net effect for that account. A partial close on a hedging master becomes a volume reduction on a netting slave.
What no software can fix: a netting slave genuinely cannot represent a hedged master position, because two opposite positions in one symbol is a state that does not exist there. If your strategy hedges, your slaves need to be hedging accounts.
| Master action | Hedging slave | Netting slave |
|---|---|---|
| Buy 1.0 EURUSD | Opens a 1.0 long position | Opens a 1.0 long position |
| Buy 0.5 EURUSD again | Opens a second, separate position | Increases the position to 1.5 |
| Sell 0.3 EURUSD | Opens a separate 0.3 short | Reduces the position to 1.2 |
| Close the first ticket | Closes that specific position | Reduces net volume by the equivalent amount |
| Hold long and short at once | Supported | Not representable |
MT5 publishes each instrument’s minimum volume and step. A percentage-of-equity rule can produce 0.037 lots on a slave whose broker only accepts 0.01 increments.
Sizes are rounded to what the slave’s broker will actually accept.
The same naming problem as MT4 — EURUSD.r, EURUSDm, fxEURUSD — mapped per connection so cross-broker copying does not silently fail.
Most funded traders end up with MT5 at newer firms and MT4 at older ones. Both appear in one connection list, and either can be the master.
See prop firm trade copier for sizing across firms.
Install R4Copier on the Windows machine or VPS running your terminals and sign in with your licence key. Every MetaTrader 5 install is detected automatically, along with any MT4 and cTrader terminals on the same machine.
Pick a master, add slaves, and check the account mode shown for each MT5 connection before you set rules — that is the five seconds that prevents the drift described above. Then set a sizing rule per slave, map symbol names where brokers disagree, and let the master trade.
Broker credentials are written to your operating system’s keystore on that machine and never reach us, because the copying engine runs there rather than in a cloud. The reasoning is on secure trade copier.
On a hedging account, each order creates its own position, and you can hold a long and a short in the same symbol at once — the MT4 behaviour most traders expect.
On a netting account, there is only ever one position per symbol. A second order in the same instrument adds to it, reduces it, or flips it. Opposite orders cancel each other out instead of coexisting.
Because it changes what an order means. Copying a master’s second EURUSD buy onto a netting slave increases one existing position rather than opening a second one, and copying a partial close reduces that single position rather than closing a specific ticket.
A copier that assumes hedging behaviour on a netting account will drift out of sync, and the divergence usually only becomes visible once the positions are already wrong.
Yes. R4Copier treats MT4, MT5 and cTrader as connections of the same kind, in either direction and in any mix.
When crossing between them, check the account mode on each MT5 connection first — an MT4 slave is always hedging, so a netting MT5 master is the combination that needs the most thought.
Increasingly, yes. Most firms launching in recent years lead with MT5, and several older ones have migrated, which is why MT5 is now the platform most funded traders copy across.
It also means a trader with accounts at several firms is often running a mix of MT4 and MT5 at once — one of the more common reasons to want a copier that handles both natively.
The naming problem is the same — brokers add prefixes and suffixes freely — so mapping is configured per connection just as it is on MT4.
MT5 does expose more instrument metadata, including each symbol’s permitted volume step, which R4Copier uses to round a scaled lot to a size the slave’s broker will accept.