Budget: what it costs to run
The program is only one part of the cost. Here is everything else you need, with our numbers and where they come from.
Our own estimate. The account sizes below use a simple rule on the backtest: the largest drawdown plus a safety buffer. Future drawdowns can be bigger. Only use money you can afford to lose.
At a glance, for 1 MNQ contract
| What | Cost | How often |
|---|---|---|
| Opening Bell Algo for MT5 | $49 | A month at the launch price, or $490 a year. See pricing |
| Futures market data at AMP for MetaTrader 5 | $15 | A month |
| VPS (or your own computer that stays on) | $10 to $15 | A month |
| Broker fees, about 50 trades a month | about $100 | A month, already taken out of our results |
| Account balance | $3,100 | Stays in your trading account, it is not spent |
Prices checked on 17 October 2026 on the AMP and MQL5 websites. They can change.
Monthly costs
Market data (MNQ and NQ)
A futures broker charges for live prices. At AMP, MetaTrader 5 needs the CME bundle at $15 a month for private traders (AMP price list from 1 June 2026). The full month is charged even if you use it one day. A demo account does not need it.
VPS
The program only works while MetaTrader 5 is running. The easiest way is the VPS built into MetaTrader 5: $15 a month, or $10 a month on a 12-month plan. Your own computer works too, if it stays on day and night.
Broker fees
The backtest made 1,485 trades in about 30 months: about 50 a month. At AMP one MNQ trade cost $1.95 in fees, so about $100 a month. This is already taken out of every result on this site. On NQ the fee per contract is higher.
How much money in the account
Backtest
The rule: the largest drawdown in the backtest, plus a buffer, so that the account can still open a trade at the bottom of that drawdown. We use the careful version (fees plus one extra tick of slippage per trade), because its drawdown is deeper.
| Symbol | Largest drawdown | Buffer | Account balance |
|---|---|---|---|
| MNQ, 1 contract | $2,627 | $500 | about $3,100 |
| NQ, 1 contract (10 times MNQ) | $26,270 | $5,000 | about $31,000 |
| Nasdaq-100 CFD, from $2 down to $0.10 per point | from $3,842 down to $192 | margin of one trade | from about $6,850 down to about $250 |
Why a $500 buffer on MNQ
At AMP the day-trading margin for MNQ is $100 per contract, day and night. The program never holds a trade through the daily close, so the much higher overnight margin is not needed.
One exception: on the evenings before big US reports (CPI, PPI, jobs) and Fed decisions, AMP raises the night margin to about $1,190 per MNQ contract until shortly after the release. With only $500 left at the bottom of a drawdown, trades on those nights could be refused. To keep trading on those nights too, plan for about $3,820 ($2,627 + $1,190).
Nasdaq-100 CFDs: smaller trades, smaller account
On MNQ the smallest trade is 1 contract, worth $2 per index point. On a CFD the smallest trade depends on your broker and is often $0.10 per point or less. Stops and targets are in index points, so a smaller trade only makes the money numbers smaller: drawdown, margin, fees and profit all shrink together.
The CFD numbers come from one broker's data (US100.cash, April 2024 to October 2026) at $2 per point, the same size as 1 MNQ contract, on an earlier version of the rules; the test on the current version is running. The margin depends on your leverage: 1:20 is the maximum for private traders in the EU and UK on major indices. The table assumes the index near 30,000.
| Trade size | Largest drawdown | Margin at 1:20 | Balance at 1:20 | Margin at 1:100 | Balance at 1:100 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| $2 per point (= 1 MNQ) | $3,842 | $3,000 | about $6,850 | $600 | about $4,450 |
| $1 per point | $1,921 | $1,500 | about $3,450 | $300 | about $2,250 |
| $0.50 per point | $961 | $750 | about $1,750 | $150 | about $1,150 |
| $0.10 per point | $192 | $150 | about $350 | $30 | about $250 |
What does not get smaller. The VPS costs the same at any size. At $0.10 per point the whole 30-month backtest would have made about $815, while a VPS for the same time costs $300 to $450. Small sizes are a good way to learn how the program behaves with little money, not a cheaper way to the same profit.
Not included in this estimate
- A drawdown deeper than in the backtest. It can happen.
- Gaps, where a stop is filled past its level.
- Changes in margins, data fees or VPS prices.
- Other programs or manual trades using the same margin.
- Taxes and currency exchange.
See the risks.