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How Much Money Do You Actually Need to Start Copy Trading?
TAG Markets minimum deposit is $10. With 24× leverage, that becomes $240 of trading power. But the sensible minimum — an amount where copying SONIC actually makes sense for you — is a different number, and it depends on what you expect to make.
The two numbers
The platform minimum is a technical threshold. It exists so that beginners can start without risking much, which is genuinely useful — as an education.
The sensible minimum is personal and has two conditions that both have to be true at once:
- Losing the entire amount changes nothing important in your life.
- The realistic monthly return on that amount is a number you would actually notice.
For many people those two conditions do not overlap at all. That is not a failure — it is useful information, and it is better to learn it from arithmetic than from experience.
What each amount actually gets you
SONIC's historical average is roughly 1% monthly gross. TAG Markets charges 30% performance fee — so your net is around 0.7% monthly, if that historical average continues. Remember: past performance is not a forecast, and SONIC can have losing months.
Your capital controls 24× leverage. A $10 deposit becomes $240 at work.
| Deposit | At risk (24×) | Net at 0.7%/mo | Use case |
|---|---|---|---|
| $10 | $240 | ≈ $1.70/mo | Testing the system. Learning only. |
| $100 | $2,400 | ≈ $17/mo | Small real money. Still mostly learning. |
| $500 | $12,000 | ≈ $85/mo | Numbers start to matter. Risk is now real. |
| $1,000 | $24,000 | ≈ $170/mo | A genuine financial decision. |
At $10–$100, you are learning. At $500+, you are taking real risk. At $1,000+, this is money with consequence.
Want this checked against a specific broker before you deposit? That is what the companion site does, line by line.
See a worked exampleThe case for starting at the minimum anyway
Starting small is the right move for almost everyone, for reasons that have nothing to do with returns:
- You find out whether withdrawals actually work, with money you do not care about.
- You learn how a drawdown feels on your own screen. Reading about a 10% fall and watching one are different experiences, and the second one teaches you whether you can handle this at all.
- You discover the platform's quirks before they are expensive.
Scale up only after you have been through a losing period without panicking. If you have not seen one yet, you do not yet know how you react — and that reaction, not the strategy, is what usually determines the outcome.
Starting with no money
If the honest answer is that you have nothing you can afford to lose, the answer is not a smaller deposit. It is a demo account, if one is offered, and reading. Money you need is the worst possible capital for leveraged trading, because the pressure changes your decisions at exactly the wrong moments.
Nobody selling you something will say this. The full arithmetic on whether it is worth it at all is here.
Frequently asked questions
Can I start copy trading with $10?
Mechanically, often yes. Meaningfully, no — at that size you are learning the system, not investing. That is a legitimate reason to do it, as long as you are honest with yourself about which one it is.
Is a bigger deposit safer?
No. Risk is proportional. A larger deposit does not reduce the percentage you can lose, it increases the amount. What actually reduces risk is your allocation and stop-out settings.
Should I add money after a loss to recover faster?
No. That is the reflex that turns a manageable loss into a serious one. Add funds on a schedule you decided in advance, never in reaction to a drawdown.
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Educational information only — not financial, legal or tax advice, and not an offer to trade. Opening an account through links on this site may earn the author a referral commission. Trading leveraged forex and CFDs carries a high risk of loss; the majority of retail investor accounts lose money. Rules differ by country and change over time: verify your own jurisdiction with your national regulator before trading.