cTrader development: cBots and the Open API
cTrader is offered by brokers such as Pepperstone, IC Markets and FP Markets, and its automated strategies, called cBots, are written in C#. We build cBots and indicators to your rules, port strategies from MetaTrader, and build outside applications on the cTrader Open API when your logic needs to live elsewhere.
- Your rulesentries, exits, volume, limits
- cBotC#, with your risk checks
- cTraderbacktest, then live
- Your brokerany cTrader broker
What we build on cTrader
- cBots that run your strategy with volume sizing, spread checks and loss limits.
- Custom indicators for your charts and for your cBots to use.
- Ports from MetaTrader, rewritten in C# and checked against the original signals.
- Open API applications: dashboards, copy and allocation tools, and systems that manage several cTrader accounts from outside the platform.
Engineering notes
cTrader’s backtester can use tick data, which we prefer over bar-based tests for anything that trades short-term. As with any platform, a cBot has to survive restarts and reconnects without losing track of its positions, and it has to treat spreads and slippage around news as real costs. For the market side of forex automation, see forex trading automation.
cBot, Open API or FIX?
cTrader gives three ways in. A cBot runs inside cTrader on your account and can use cTrader’s own backtester. An Open API application runs outside cTrader, on its own server, and can manage several accounts; it is registered with Spotware, each account grants it access through an OAuth sign-in, and messages are exchanged in protobuf. FIX API credentials, with separate price and trade connections, suit a system that already speaks FIX. We recommend the one that fits where your logic lives.
An example from our work
In a multi-venue bot engine we built for a platform client, cTrader is reached through the cTrader Open API, which exchanges protobuf messages over a socket. The same order flow also serves Binance, NinjaTrader and Interactive Brokers, so one set of risk checks covers every venue. Built in C# in 2026.
Client names and results are withheld. This describes the engineering only.
We build software that runs your strategy. We don’t supply strategies or signals, we don’t manage money, and we make no claim about how any strategy performs. The rules and every trading decision stay yours.
Common questions
- Can you port my MetaTrader EA to a cTrader cBot?
- Yes. We rewrite the logic in C#, then run both versions on the same data to confirm the signals match before the cBot trades.
- Can one system manage several cTrader accounts?
- Yes, through the cTrader Open API, with sizing and risk limits set per account and each account reconciled separately.