Want to practise trading futures without paying for a live account? NinjaTrader's free practice account takes about ten minutes to set up: create an account, verify your email, log in, and you are charting and trading simulated futures at no cost. This walkthrough covers every click, and it ends before anything that costs money — the simulator needs no card, no deposit and no plan (checked 31 October 2026, ninjatrader.com).

One distinction before the steps, because it matters: what you are setting up here is a simulator, not a live brokerage account. A live account is a separate process with real fees — exchange, clearing and NFA charges plus NinjaTrader plan commissions. For prop traders, the sim is the rehearsal space; the plan costs only come into it later. What the free tier does and does not include is broken down in my NinjaTrader Free guide.

Key Takeaways

  1. Creating a NinjaTrader practice account is free, needs no card and no deposit, and has no time limit (checked 31 October 2026, ninjatrader.com).
  2. The path is: create account on ninjatrader.com → verify email → log in (desktop app or browser) → open a simulated futures chart → place a simulated order.
  3. NinjaTrader Desktop (NT8) is Windows-only; Mac traders can use the browser version.
  4. The practice account is a simulator. Live brokerage, live data and plan commissions are separate and all cost money — nothing in this walkthrough requires them.
On This Page
  1. Before You Start
  2. Step 1: Create Your Account
  3. Step 2: Verify Your Email
  4. Step 3: Log In to the Platform
  5. Step 4: Open Your First Simulated Futures Chart
  6. Step 5: Place Your First Simulated Trade
  7. After Setup: Where the Free Part Ends
  8. FAQs

Before You Start

You need an email address and roughly ten minutes. Nothing else: no card, no deposit, no prior NinjaTrader account. The walkthrough was checked against NinjaTrader's own site on 31 October 2026; if their signup flow has changed since, their pages are the source of truth.

Step 1: Create Your Account

Go to ninjatrader.com and open the account creation page (a "Get Started" / free trial button leads there). You will be asked for your name, email and a password, and a few questions about your trading experience. This creates your NinjaTrader account — a simulator login, not a brokerage account. The 14-day trial of streaming live data is included at this step; when it ends, the simulator keeps working with delayed data (checked 31 October 2026, ninjatrader.com).

Step 2: Verify Your Email

NinjaTrader sends a verification link to the address you registered. Click it. If it does not arrive within a few minutes, check spam before requesting a resend. The login stays locked until the address is verified — this is the step most people miss when they say the "free account did not work".

Step 3: Log In to the Platform

With the account verified you have two ways in:

  • NinjaTrader Desktop (NT8). Download the installer from your account page and install it (Windows). On first launch, log in with the credentials from Step 1 and select the simulation connection.
  • Browser. Log in at ninjatrader.com and run the platform in the browser — the practical route on a Mac, since NT8 is Windows-only (checked 31 October 2026, ninjatrader.com).

Step 4: Open Your First Simulated Futures Chart

Inside the platform, connected to the simulation, open a new chart and pick a futures contract — the E-mini S&P 500 (ES) or Micro E-mini (MES) are the usual starting points for prop traders, because those are the contracts most futures prop evaluations trade. Set the chart type and interval (a 5-minute candle chart is a sane default), and you are looking at live-rehearsal territory: the same charting you would use on a funded evaluation.

Step 5: Place Your First Simulated Trade

Right-click the chart and choose a buy or sell market order, or use the Chart Trader panel at the bottom of the screen. The order fills against the simulator, and the position appears with its unrealised P&L in the Accounts tab. Close the position the same way. Nothing has been risked: the fills are simulated and the money is not real. From here the Account Performance report gives you the same trade-log metrics you would review on a live account — which is exactly what you want before paying any prop firm's evaluation fee.

After Setup: Where the Free Part Ends

Everything above is free and stays free. Costs enter only if you move to live trading: a live brokerage account, live market data after the 14-day trial, and NinjaTrader plan commissions (Free at $0.39 per side on micros, Monthly at $99, Lifetime at $1,499 — checked 31 October 2026, ninjatrader.com/pricing). An idle live account on the Free plan also carries a $35 fee every 30 days; the simulator is exempt from all of it. The full fee picture is in the NinjaTrader Free guide, and the prop-firm context is on the platforms hub.

For prop traders the sequencing is simple: rehearse here for nothing, then choose a firm — checking whether that firm offers NinjaTrader before you pay, since platform fit is firm-specific.