Trade copier latency adds a hidden cost
Posted: Sat Oct 31, 2026 8:32 pm
Anyone copying trades between accounts, whether a personal setup or a signal service, pays a delay on every entry. Typical copiers add 50 to 300 milliseconds, sometimes more when the network is under load.
On a swing trade nobody notices. On a scalp targeting 3 pips in a minute, a 200 millisecond delay at the entry plus another at the exit can cost half a pip each way, especially around the start of a fast move.
The cost is rarely symmetrical. Entries happen at the beginning of a move, exactly when price is moving fastest, so slippage concentrates there.
Measure it directly. Place a trade on the master account, record the entry price on both, and repeat over a week. The average difference is the real cost of copying.
Also worth checking is whether the copier handles stop and target modifications, not only entries. A modification that arrives late can leave the follower account holding a position the master has already closed.
Is the delay from copying acceptable for the strategy, or does it eat the edge before the first trade closes?
On a swing trade nobody notices. On a scalp targeting 3 pips in a minute, a 200 millisecond delay at the entry plus another at the exit can cost half a pip each way, especially around the start of a fast move.
The cost is rarely symmetrical. Entries happen at the beginning of a move, exactly when price is moving fastest, so slippage concentrates there.
Measure it directly. Place a trade on the master account, record the entry price on both, and repeat over a week. The average difference is the real cost of copying.
Also worth checking is whether the copier handles stop and target modifications, not only entries. A modification that arrives late can leave the follower account holding a position the master has already closed.
Is the delay from copying acceptable for the strategy, or does it eat the edge before the first trade closes?