Broker API guides: trade history, demo vs live, rate limits
37 step by step guides. Each step shows the page it was read on, or says it could not be verified.
Independent and unofficialNewest check
Risk warning: CFDs and spread bets are complex instruments and come with a high risk of losing money rapidly due to leverage. You can lose money on these products, and each provider publishes its own loss figure under FCA rules. You should consider whether you understand how they work and whether you can afford to take the high risk of losing your money. Automated and API trading can amplify losses through bugs, connectivity failures and runaway orders.
Start here
- Is API trading for you?One screen for someone who has never coded: who should not bother, the first win, what it costs, and what it is not.
- Getting started with API tradingStart here if you are new: what an API is, what you need, and how to make a first call safely.
- How to use a GitHub repository: the basicsGet someone else's code onto your computer and running in a couple of minutes, safely.
Guides for any broker
- AI assistants and broker APIs: connect one safelyMCP servers let an AI assistant call a broker API as a set of tools, and 2026 is the year brokers started shipping their own.
- Before you go live: a checklistA checklist to work through before a script leaves a demo account, with the facts each recorded broker API gives for it.
- Broker API rate limits comparedEvery published broker and platform API rate limit we track, with its scope, the page it came from and the date we checked it.
- Broker streaming APIs comparedHow each broker and platform API pushes prices and account updates: the transport, the cap on streams or subscriptions, and the heartbeat, each with its source and checked date.
- Choosing a broker API for PythonThe honest state of the Python wrapper ecosystem for retail broker APIs.
- Demo vs live: the mix-up that breaks most first loginsDemo and live usually mean different hosts, and often different keys or usernames.
- Export your MetaTrader trade history, no codeIf your broker gives you MetaTrader 4 or 5, the desktop terminal can save your account history as a report file.
- ib_async vs ib_insync: which one is maintained, and which is archivedThe most starred Interactive Brokers Python library, ib_insync, is archived and has not been pushed since 14 Mar 2024, and it is still the one most people install: 617,422 (read 2 October 2026) installs of the archived package on the pypistats.org /recent last_month counter, against 556,555 of the maintained continuation, ib_async, on its own reading of 23 Sep 2026.
- Place your first order on a demo account: what every API asks forWhat each recorded broker API asks for when you place an order on a demo account, field by field, from this site's endpoint records.
- Sessions and tokens: how each API keeps you signed inHow each recorded broker API keeps you signed in: a login call that returns session tokens, a long lived key sent on every request, or an OAuth token that has to be refreshed.
- Spread betting API in the UK: which brokers offer oneOf the brokers we cover, IG is the one that documents spread betting through its own API.
- Staying logged in: session lifetimes comparedEvery broker logs you out differently.
- What AI assistants get wrong about broker APIsYou asked an assistant to build it and it does not work.
- What the FCA Handbook PERG says about a UK publisher carrying paid broker linksOnly the PERG paragraphs opened on 25 Sep 2026 are used here, and each one is named.
- Instrument names across broker APIsHow the same market is named in each API, in the words of the records, and why a single symbol map is hard.
Capital.com API guides
cTrader API guides
eToro API guides
FXCM API guides
IG API guides
- ChatGPT trading bot with the IG API, the safe wayChatGPT can write IG API code for you, but it should never see your key or password, and nothing should trade until you arm it.
- Get your IG trade history into a spreadsheetUse the IG website, not the app: in My IG, open Live accounts, then History, pick your dates and all transaction types, and download the account ledger summary.
- IG deal confirms: turning a deal reference into a resultA create call on IG hands back a deal reference, not a fill, and the client then reads the confirm for that reference.
- IG demo API key: how to get one and what it allowsIG does not hand out API keys from a standalone demo account.
- IG streaming with PythonIG's prices do not stream over its REST API.
Interactive Brokers API guides
- Get your Interactive Brokers trade history into a spreadsheetTwo routes in Client Portal: an Activity Statement for a quick CSV, or a Flex Query when you want only the trade columns you choose.
- IBKR API without TWS: headless IB Gateway optionsYou cannot skip IBKR's gateway software as a retail user, but you can skip the full TWS window.
- Interactive Brokers MCP servers, comparedSearch for an Interactive Brokers MCP server and you will find one official route from IBKR itself and a scatter of community repositories nobody has reviewed in one place.
- The three Interactive Brokers REST front doors comparedInteractive Brokers publishes more than one REST front door and they do not point at each other.
MetaTrader 5 API guides
- Claude with MetaTrader 5: a safe, read-first setupThere are two routes: MetaTrader 5's own AI and MCP support, where Anthropic is a selectable provider, or Claude writing Python for the MetaTrader5 package.
- MetaTrader 5 for Python: which platforms does it run on?The commonest question about the MetaTrader 5 Python package is which operating systems it runs on.
- MT5 trade history to a spreadsheet with PythonAsked over and over on the MQL5 forum and answered in no single place.
OANDA API guides
Trading 212 API guides
Quickstarts
From credentials to a first call on a demo account, one API at a time.