Why we need a real Free Trial option for Market utilities & EAs - page 3
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There has to be a trial, because otherwise it ends up with the client buying something without knowing how it behaves on a real market. Testing in the tester is one thing, but the real market is completely different. In my opinion, a price of 5 dollars for a one‑day trial is much more acceptable than 30 dollars for a month. However, many products will never have any buyers at all. Besides that, it’s good to have a bundle option as well: several indicators offered together at a lower price.
Exactly, Ivan! Testing in the Strategy Tester simply cannot replicate live market conditions like variable spreads, slippage, and real-time execution delay.
Your point about products never getting buyers is very true—the high barrier to initial testing kills conversion for many great tools.
While a $1-5 daily trial is definitely better than a $30 monthly minimum, an optional Free Trial removes payment friction entirely. When users can test a utility with a single click on a demo/live chart without entering credit card details, trial uptake skyrockets, giving developers a much better chance to showcase their product's quality.
Furthermore, a native Free Trial mechanism would significantly boost community engagement through comments and reviews.
When friction is removed from testing, far more users actively evaluate products and leave real feedback. This creates a transparent ecosystem where genuinely high-quality utilities naturally stand out through authentic user reviews and activity, while low-quality or misleading products are quickly filtered out.
It turns product discovery into a community-driven process that benefits both serious developers and buyers.
The only reason i agree with this thread heading is because few and seems to be fewer and fewer mt5 users as time goes on -- even know how to do a backtest with the demo ea and strategy tester -- just clicking start is useless if the broker has 9% real data because then mt5/strategy tester creates fantasy data, or they rely on sellers backtests that have been done on very different broker conditions to their own.
I see your point regarding AI assistance, Ryan, but there’s a big difference between generating basic UI boilerplate and replicating complex underlying logic.
While AI can easily draft a visual layout from a screenshot, it cannot reverse-engineer the core architecture, proprietary algorithms, execution logic, or complex event-handling required for a production-ready trading panel.
A Free Trial isn't about protecting the UI design—it's about allowing serious traders to evaluate real-time performance, execution speed, and UX responsiveness before committing to a purchase.
From a screenshot alone, ok, but with a textual description plus an analysis of fully functional runs, the odds of reverse engineering substantially increase. The MQL5 Lite LLM with MCP enabled has access to all mql5.com Market listings, documentation, Articles, etc. The MT5 AI Assistant is also agentic, so it "remembers" its past experiences and builds upon them. I'm not saying that reverse engineering is like simply flipping a switch, but the AI Assistant refuses to give up regardless of the task assigned. It frequently rewrites entire files to improve execution efficiency. Of course, the AI user must have enough coding and/or trading knowledge to frame the prompts to AI appropriately─but it ain't rocket science.
What's the problem with displaying a real demo or trial versions on a product page?
Those who are not afraid of their own products have nothing to hide.
What's the problem with displaying a real demo or trial versions on a product page?
Those who are not afraid of their own products have nothing to hide.
Hi everyone,
I've been developing tools for the MQL5 Market for a while now, especially interactive utilities, trading panels, and simulators. One major issue I keep running into—and I'm sure many of you face as well—is how limited the current Market demo system is.
Right now, a demo version only works inside the Strategy Tester. That's fine for simple automated indicators and trading robots, but for any tool with a Graphical User Interface (GUI), execution panels, or manual trading tools, testing in the strategy tester is almost useless.
Potential buyers simply can't test how the panel feels on a live/demo chart or check real-time responsiveness before buying. I think adding a proper Time-Limited Free Trial (for example 1 to 30 days, configured by the seller) would be a huge step forward for the Market.
How it helps:
Buyers: They can actually test full functionality, UI responsiveness, and memory usage on a demo account before spending money.
Sellers: Better conversion rates, more user engagement, and actual feedback to improve products.
Platform: More sales overall means higher market turnover and revenue for MetaQuotes.
Preventing abuse:
To stop people from abusing free trials with multiple accounts, MetaQuotes could easily implement a few basic limits:
Make trials available only for Verified Users (or users with a validated phone/ID).
Lock the trial license to the Hardware ID / Terminal ID, so creating a new MQL5 account on the same PC won't reset the trial.
Allow trials to run strictly on Demo Accounts.
I believe this feature would benefit the entire community.
What are your thoughts on this? Would you use a time-limited trial option for your products?
I think it'll be a good idea to create a lite version of the app that focuses on demonstrating performance of the GUI and make it available for free, then paste the link for the lite version in the description of the premium version while you also paste the link to premium version in the description of the Lite version. That way, users will not doubt the performance of GUI anymore.
Hi Vincent,
I actually tried this exact approach for my Backtester indicator by offering a limited "Lite" version for free.
Unfortunately, it didn't work out as expected—MetaQuotes ended up removing the Lite version from my product list. According to Market publishing policies, offering products with crippled functionality or tools that serve primarily as "demos" for a paid version is prohibited, as moderators often classify them as limited or promotional applications.
Even if a Lite version manages to pass review, relying on this method creates several critical drawbacks for developers:
Risk of Removal: As in my case, moderators can reject or delete demo/lite products at any time for violating Market guidelines on fully functional software.
Maintenance & Update Overhead: Developers are forced to maintain, test, update, and submit two separate codebases and product listings for every single tool.
Market Clutter: It doubles the number of listings on the Market, making navigation harder for buyers searching for full products.
Feature Restrictions: A Lite version usually clips key capabilities, whereas a time-limited trial allows serious traders to test the complete feature set directly on live/demo charts before buying.
This is precisely why a native, platform-supported Free Trial feature managed directly by MetaQuotes is necessary. It would eliminate policy risks and maintenance overhead while giving buyers a seamless way to test utilities.
Hi Vincent,
I actually tried this exact approach for my Backtester indicator by offering a limited "Lite" version for free.
Unfortunately, it didn't work out as expected—MetaQuotes ended up removing the Lite version from my product list. According to Market publishing policies, offering products with crippled functionality or tools that serve primarily as "demos" for a paid version is prohibited, as moderators often classify them as limited or promotional applications.
Even if a Lite version manages to pass review, relying on this method creates several critical drawbacks for developers:
Risk of Removal: As in my case, moderators can reject or delete demo/lite products at any time for violating Market guidelines on fully functional software.
Maintenance & Update Overhead: Developers are forced to maintain, test, update, and submit two separate codebases and product listings for every single tool.
Market Clutter: It doubles the number of listings on the Market, making navigation harder for buyers searching for full products.
Feature Restrictions: A Lite version usually clips key capabilities, whereas a time-limited trial allows serious traders to test the complete feature set directly on live/demo charts before buying.
This is precisely why a native, platform-supported Free Trial feature managed directly by MetaQuotes is necessary. It would eliminate policy risks and maintenance overhead while giving buyers a seamless way to test utilities.