NinjaTrader

Checked October 2026

NinjaTrader is the futures platform many retail traders already run, and the backtest is free. Backtoast is first if you want a pass to pay you from profit on real trading, rather than a simulator inside a brokerage platform.

1Backtoast

You pay $99 for two full tests of your own strategy, and a pass is an offer of 30% of the profit Backtoast makes trading it with its own money.

2NinjaTrader

You can build a strategy without code in the Strategy Builder, and NinjaScript, its C# language, is there if you want it. The AI Strategy Builder, still a beta, takes a plain-English description, writes and compiles the NinjaScript and backtests it in the same window, and it has hourly and daily usage caps and works in English only. Options and spot crypto are not in it. The business is a futures brokerage, bought by Kraken in 2025.

MetaTrader 5 is the forex counterpart, free with a broker account.

Testing

By default the Strategy Analyzer splits each bar into three virtual bars, from the open to whichever extreme is nearer, then to the other one, then to the close, and the high fill resolution setting fills orders from a finer series, such as minute or 1-tick bars, instead. Slippage is set in ticks, only applies to market, stop-market and market-if-touched orders, and can't go past the next bar's high or low. Walk-forward re-optimizes on one stretch of days and tests the result on the next, with an anchored version that keeps the start fixed, and Monte Carlo randomly recombines your trade results to show a range of outcomes. The desktop app needs Windows 11 or Windows Server 2016 and later.

Pricing

Backtesting and simulated trading have no time limit and need no funded account, and the paid plans buy a lower commission. Monthly cuts standard futures to $0.99 a side and Lifetime to $0.59, and micros go from $0.39 on Free to $0.29 and $0.09. Every plan needs a funded, approved account before those rates apply.

Facts are from NinjaTrader's own pages, checked 23 and 31 October 2026.