Small Account Ladder

How it works

Small Account Ladder is an automated EA for small and medium accounts. It trades XAUUSD, BTCUSD and NAS100 from one chart. Modules switch on as the balance grows, so a small account starts on the instruments with the smallest risk at the minimum lot. It uses no martingale, no grid and no averaging. Every trade has a stop loss.

Each module has its own entry and exit rules. Most trades follow the trend and are long, and some modules can also go short. The exact rules are not published, so use the free demo to see how it trades.

From any balance: 2 modules, on BTCUSD and NAS100.

From $150: 1 more module, on XAUUSD.

From $300: 11 more modules, on all three symbols.

Risk controls: 1% risk per trade, a trade is skipped if the minimum lot risks more than 5%, 8% limit on total open risk, a daily loss stop, lower risk during a drawdown, and a 5 day pause after the hard drawdown limit.

Which account to start with

Recommended: $1,000 or more on a standard USD hedging account with minimum lot 0.01. Version 2.39 was tested with $1,000. The $300 and $10,000 results below are from version 2.34.

A $300 account has coarser lot sizing, and its drawdown in the test below was higher. Balances under $300 run fewer modules and are not covered by the results below.

Your broker must offer XAUUSD, BTCUSD and NAS100. If one is missing, that module stays off and results will differ. Use only money you can afford to lose.

Installation

1. Attach the EA to one chart only, for example XAUUSD M15. It trades the other symbols itself.

2. Enable Algo Trading and keep the terminal running, including at weekends, because BTCUSD also trades then. A VPS is recommended.

3. If your broker uses other symbol names, such as XAUUSD.m or US100, change the symbol names in the inputs.

4. Run it on a demo account for one to two months before using real money.

Main settings

RiskPercent: risk per trade. Default 1.

MinLotMaxRiskPct: skip the trade if the minimum lot risks more than this. Default 5.

MaxOpenRiskPct: limit on the total risk of open positions. Default 8.

Module switches: turn each module on or off.

Spread limits per module: orders are not placed above these values.

Backtest results

These are Strategy Tester results, not live trading. All tests: default settings, one demo server of one broker, leverage 1:500, chart XAUUSD M15.

Version 2.39, deposit $1,000, real ticks, history quality 100%, 2025-10-14 to 2026-10-24

Net profit +$36,012.58, profit factor 1.75, 1048 trades, equity drawdown 25.75%, lowest balance $986.35. The five largest trades gave 64% of the net profit. This is the only test run on these trading rules. All results below come from version 2.34, which had fewer modules and traded less, so version 2.39 will differ from them. The report screenshots come from version 2.38, which has the same trading rules, and version 2.39 gave the same result trade by trade.

Version 2.34, deposit $300, real ticks, history quality 100%, test ending 2026-10-24

Start 2025-10-14: net profit +$7,047.11, profit factor 2.23, 572 trades, equity drawdown 30.03%, lowest balance $290.11. This deposit was tested from one start date only.

Version 2.34, deposit $1,000, real ticks, history quality 100%, all tests ending 2026-10-24

Start 2025-10-14: net profit +$21,016.10, profit factor 2.19, 603 trades, equity drawdown 23.73%, lowest balance $985.58.

Start 2025-11-03: net profit +$9,803.33, profit factor 2.13, 579 trades, equity drawdown 22.31%, lowest balance $979.45.

Start 2026-01-05: net profit +$8,065.36, profit factor 2.20, 458 trades, equity drawdown 18.74%, lowest balance $901.67.

Version 2.34, deposit $10,000, real ticks, history quality 100%, all tests ending 2026-10-24

Start 2025-10-14: net profit +$215,295.04, profit factor 2.20, 603 trades, equity drawdown 25.28%, lowest balance $9,837.20.

Start 2025-11-03: net profit +$117,346.66, profit factor 2.15, 580 trades, equity drawdown 24.81%, lowest balance $9,750.70.

Start 2026-01-05: net profit +$70,043.15, profit factor 2.16, 460 trades, equity drawdown 18.34%, lowest balance $9,213.92.

The result depends strongly on the start date. A start three weeks later gave about half the profit, so do not expect any single figure above. These profits come from compounding, and the five largest trades gave more than half of the net profit in the $1,000 and $10,000 tests from 2025-10-14. Lot sizes grew large in these tests, reaching 10 lots on BTCUSD, and real fills at that size can be worse than in the tester.

Risks

Past test results do not predict future results. The test period is about one year on one broker, and gold and NAS100 mostly rose during it. The EA is mainly long, so it has not been tested in a long falling market. Some parameters were chosen on the same data. The equity drawdown from a peak reached about 25% at $1,000 and $10,000 and about 30% at $300, so a profit can shrink sharply before it recovers. The BTCUSD modules depend on the BTC price level and may behave differently if the price changes a lot. Version 2.39 has one test from one start date.