Tradovate Free Plan $35 / $25 Inactivity Fees

Nothing stings quite like opening your Tradovate statement and finding a charge you never signed off on, especially on the plan that's supposed to be free. Tradovate's Free (pay-as-you-go) plan carries two easy-to-miss activity fees in 2026: a $35 inactivity fee when a Free-plan account goes roughly 30 days without a live trade, and a $25 maintenance fee when a funded Free-membership account sits about 90 days without one. Neither is a bug or a billing glitch. Both are written into the Free plan's terms, and both are avoidable once you know exactly what sets them off. Here's why the fees post, how to stop them, and when it's simply cheaper to move to a Monthly or Lifetime plan.

Fee amounts and terms can change. The $35 and $25 figures below were verified against Tradovate's published fee and plan documentation, but Tradovate can revise its schedule at any time. Always confirm the current numbers in your own account's fee schedule before acting.

What the “$35 Inactivity Fee” and “$25 Maintenance Fee” Mean

Tradovate's Free plan has no monthly subscription cost, you pay per contract instead of a flat membership fee. To keep that model sustainable, Tradovate attaches two activity-based charges to Free accounts that go dormant.

The $35 inactivity fee is the one most traders run into. Tradovate's plan documentation ties it to a Free-plan account that's active (logged in) during the period but places no live trades within roughly a 30-day window, some Tradovate wording frames this as a calendar month. It is explicitly not charged to Monthly or Lifetime members. Put plainly: an empty, no-trade month on the Free plan can cost you $35.

The $25 maintenance fee is a separate, less common charge. It hits funded Free-membership accounts that place no trade in the preceding 90 days. This is a longer-horizon dormancy charge aimed at funded accounts left sitting idle, and it can stack on top of, or follow, the shorter inactivity charge if the account stays untouched.

The mental model that matters: these are activity fees, not penalties for wrongdoing. Tradovate isn't flagging your account, it's applying the terms of the free tier. Which also means the fix is entirely in your hands.

Top Causes of Unexpected Free-Plan Fees

1. You're on the Free Plan and Traded Nothing Live This Cycle

This is far and away the most common source of the $35 charge. Plenty of traders open a Free Tradovate account to kick the tires, connect charts, watch the DOM, run a few simulated trades, then log out without ever placing a live order. The account looks “used,” but from a billing standpoint it produced zero live activity, so the inactivity fee lands.

2. You Assumed Logging In Was Enough

A frequent misconception is that simply signing in keeps the account active. It doesn't. The condition is about placing a live trade, not session activity. You can log in every day for a month and still be charged if you never sent a live order.

3. Simulated/Paper Trades Didn't Count

Practicing in the simulated environment is great for building a strategy, but demo fills generally don't satisfy the live-trade requirement that resets the inactivity window. If your entire month was paper trading, the Free plan can still bill the fee.

4. A Funded Account Sat Idle for a Full Quarter

The $25 maintenance fee is triggered by a longer stretch of nothing, roughly 90 days with no trade on a funded Free-membership account. Traders who fund an account, step away for a season, and forget about it are the usual candidates.

5. Your Trading Volume Doesn't Justify the Free Plan

The Free plan wins for high-frequency traders who happily pay per contract and never risk inactivity. For occasional or seasonal traders, though, the recurring $35 exposure can quietly outrun what a flat Monthly plan would have cost, which means the “free” plan is the wrong plan for your habits.

How to Fix and Avoid Free-Plan Fees: Step-by-Step

Fixing Causes 1–3: Place a Live Trade Inside the Window

The cleanest way to zero out the $35 inactivity fee is to make sure at least one live trade lands inside each cycle.

• Fund your Tradovate account, a live trade requires a live, funded account.
• Open the SuperDOM, chart, or order ticket for a liquid instrument.
• Place a small live order, say, a single micro contract, and let it fill.
• Optionally close it right back out. The point is a real live fill, which resets the activity window.
• Note the date, and set a recurring reminder before the next ~30-day mark.

A single micro-contract round trip costs only its commission and any exchange fees, far less than a $35 inactivity charge, so it's cheap insurance for months you know you'll be away from the desk.

Fixing Cause 4: Trade or Close an Idle Funded Account

Got a funded Free-membership account you're not using? You have two moves: place an occasional live trade to stay inside the ~90-day maintenance window, or, if you're truly done with it, withdraw your balance and close the account so it can't accrue maintenance charges. Leaving a funded account fully dormant is exactly what invites the $25 fee.

Fixing Cause 5: Switch to Monthly or Lifetime to Remove the Fee Entirely

The permanent fix for inactivity fees is to leave the Free plan. Monthly and Lifetime plans aren't subject to the inactivity fee, and they carry lower per-contract commissions, so active traders often come out ahead anyway.

• Open your Tradovate membership/plan settings.
• Review the Free, Monthly, and Lifetime tiers side by side, commissions plus any flat fee.
• Estimate your realistic monthly live-trade volume.
• If you trade regularly, pick Monthly or Lifetime. The flat fee removes inactivity risk and lowers commissions.
• If you trade rarely, keep Free but calendar a monthly live trade.

Troubleshooting Table

Prevent This With PickMyTrade

If your account goes idle because you can't always be at the screen to place trades, automation keeps activity flowing without you babysitting the platform. PickMyTrade links your TradingView alerts straight to your Tradovate account, so:

• Hands-off live execution, your strategy's alerts fire real orders automatically, so quiet weeks at your desk don't have to mean a zero-trade billing cycle.
• Consistent activity, a systematic, always-on strategy naturally keeps the account trading inside the window instead of drifting into dormancy.
• Multi-account sync, mirror the same activity across multiple Tradovate accounts so none of them slip into an idle state unnoticed.
• Clear trade records, every automated fill is logged, making it easy to prove the account traded within each cycle.

Automation isn't a substitute for choosing the right plan, but for traders who go quiet for stretches, it removes the “I forgot to trade” cause of inactivity fees entirely.