Best Futures Trading Platforms - A Complete Guide
5/27/2025, 6:58:23 AM
Discover the best futures trading platforms with our complete guide. Learn how to choose the right platform based on features, fees, tools, and trading need
Best Futures Trading Platforms - A Complete Guide
Futures trading involves buying contracts to buy or sell an underlying asset at a specific price in the future. Futures allow traders to participate in asset price movements without owning the actual assets. Traders can take part in the futures markets through platforms that charge fees and commissions. The first step to starting your journey as a futures trader is to choose a platform for trading.
This article will take you through the factors you must consider when choosing a platform. Moreover, it will go through some of the best platforms in the industry and their features.
What to Consider When Choosing a Futures Trading Platform
Before choosing a futures trading platform, it is important to consider the following.
User-interface
The user interface of the platform should be friendly enough to allow easy navigation and access to various tools. Moreover, it should suit your experience level. Therefore, a beginner should focus on finding a platform with a beginner-friendly interface. This will allow you to familiarise yourself with the platform quickly and get comfortable while trading.
Education
A great futures platform has some form of education to guide first-time users. Additionally, education on futures trading, like articles, blogs, and tutorials, is essential. This way, beginners can start gaining knowledge and skills on the same platform they will eventually use.
Charting Tools
Another factor to consider is charting tools. A good futures platform should have a good number of charting tools for technical analysis. Some of these tools include simple lines, chart types, timeframes, and indicators. The more the tools, the bigger your angle of analysis.
Fundamental Analysis Tools
Additionally, a good futures trading platform should have fundamental analysis tools. These will ensure you stay updated on industry-related news, politics, economic, and geopolitical changes. A basic fundamental analysis tool is an economic calendar. Moreover, a tool or feature for top industry-related news would be great.
Fees and Commissions
Each futures platform sets its fees and commissions for trading. Fees are set depending on the account type. For instance, micro accounts have a smaller fee than standard accounts. Additionally, they can be paid monthly or annually.
On the other hand, each contract carries a commission per side. When the fees are higher, the commissions are smaller. Meanwhile, you can trade with free accounts and pay high commissions per trade.
These costs can hugely impact your overall trading performance. Therefore, it is important to pick a platform that has low fees and commissions. This way, the cost of trading will not eat too much into your profits.
Mobile Platform
It is important to find a platform that allows you to use a mobile device for trading. Mobile trading allows you to trade from anywhere and at any time. It is easily portable and ensures you never miss out on great trading opportunities. Therefore, it is a major factor to consider when choosing a futures platform.
Margins
Finally, you must consider the margin sizes for different accounts offered by the futures platform. The margin is the amount of capital you must deposit to trade contracts. This is usually set at a percentage of the full price of a contract.
A small margin of 10% will allow you to efficiently use your available capital on other trades. On the other hand, a bigger margin of say 50% gives you less room to trade, especially if you have little capital to start with.
Best Futures Trading Platforms
Some of the top futures trading platforms include TradingView, NinjaTrader, and Tradovate.
TradingView
TradingView is known for its focus on charting tools for technical analysis. It also has fundamental analysis tools, including economic, earnings, and dividend calendars. Moreover, the platform boasts a large community for social trading. The platform offers both a mobile app and a desktop app. However, the platform has no educational resources. Still, it makes up for this with its social trading feature, where professional traders post insights and analysis on different assets. Traders can also share indicators and other trading tools.
Fees, commissions, and margins on TradingView are tied to the broker you will use. Meanwhile, the platform charges a minimum fee of $11.33 per month to use some of its features.
NinjaTrader
NinjaTrader is another top futures trading platform. It boasts no minimum deposit to start trading. It also has more advanced trading tools, making it more suitable for experienced traders. The platform offers standard and micro contracts. Commissions for micro contracts are set at $0.35 per side, while those for standard accounts are $1.29 per side.
On the other hand, traders can opt for a monthly or lifetime fee, which reduces their trading commissions. Meanwhile, the lowest margin on the platform is $50.
NinjaTrader also offers traders a wide variety of educational resources. Here, you can learn how to use the platform and get information on futures trading. Additionally, you can learn how futures trading works and market analysis.
Tradovate
Meanwhile, Tradovate is well-suited for traders on a budget. The platform offers a wider range of contract sizes. Apart from standard and micro accounts, traders can get smalls and nano accounts. The nano account is the smallest and has lower fees and commissions. It also has a lower margin requirement of $10.
Fees and commissions are similar to NinjaTrader for the micro and standard accounts. Meanwhile, for the smaller accounts, commissions are set at $0.20 for the free account and it drops for the paid accounts.
Moreover, the platform offers traders a mobile app for trading. It also has educational resources, including videos that teach traders how to trade futures.
Trading Futures with Little Risk
After learning the correct steps to choosing a futures trading platform, you must move to the next step. Here, you must decide how much money you will use for trading. However, you can also consider getting funding so that you trade with little risk on your part.
With FundingTicks, you can get $50,000 in funding to trade futures on platforms like TradingView, NinjaTrader, and Tradovate. All you have to do is go through an evaluation to prove that you have the skills to grow an account. After that, you can get funding and receive 90% of all profits made.
