Indicator Alerts in Tradovate: What's Possible
Tradovate's built-in alerts watch price and account numbers, not indicators. Here's the honest state of the platform, and how to get indicator alerts working anyway.
If you're waiting for Tradovate to ping you the second your moving average crosses or RSI tags 70, here's the short version: it won't. Tradovate's built-in alerts watch price and account numbers, not indicators. There's no setting anywhere that lets you point an alert at a study on your chart. That's the honest state of the platform today, and it hasn't changed in a long time.
You still have good options, though. You can set sharp price and account alerts right inside Tradovate, and you can get real indicator alerts by pairing Tradovate with a platform that actually reads your indicators. Here's how both pieces fit together.
What Tradovate Alerts Can Actually Do
Click the bell-shaped Alerts icon at the top-left of the workspace, right next to the New + button, and you'll find two kinds of alert:
- Simple Alert, one condition. Choose the price of an instrument, a position value, or an account value, then set the level it has to reach.
- Advanced Alert, several conditions stacked together. You decide whether it fires when all of them are true or when any single one trips.
Every condition is price-driven: touch a level, cross above it, or cross below it. You can also build an alert straight off a chart or the DOM by clicking a price line, which beats typing numbers by hand. When an alert triggers, your browser plays a sound, the bell picks up a red dot, and any note you attached shows in a small flag underneath. The mobile app can push the same alert to your phone.
| What you want to alert on | Example | Native in Tradovate? |
|---|---|---|
| Instrument price | ES touches 5,600 | Yes |
| Position value | Open P&L hits -$400 | Yes |
| Account value | Balance drops under your line | Yes |
| Indicator value | 9 EMA crosses the 21 EMA | No |
| Study condition | RSI crosses 70 | No |
Why There's No Indicator Alert Button
Indicator alerts have sat on the wish list for years. There's been talk of a cloud-based alert server that would start with Tradovate's own built-in studies, but it hasn't shipped. So right now there's simply no field where you can say "ping me when the MACD crosses." Even custom indicators you add to a chart can't carry a sound or an alert. When you need that, you build the alert somewhere else and route it in. Tradovate does have a deep library of chart indicators you can display, but displaying a study and getting alerted off it are two different things.
How to Get Indicator-Based Alerts Working
The workaround is straightforward: keep price alerts native, and borrow indicator alerts from a platform that supports them.
Set the Price Alerts Tradovate Does Support
Start with what's already there. Click the Alerts bell, add a Simple or Advanced alert, and cover the price and account levels that matter, like a session high, a stop zone, or a drawdown line. These fire reliably and cost you nothing, so there's no reason to skip them.
Build the Indicator Alert in TradingView
TradingView reads indicators and fires alerts off them, which is exactly the gap Tradovate leaves. Load your study on a TradingView chart, open the alert panel, and set the condition on the indicator itself, say a fast EMA crossing a slow one or RSI tagging a level. This is the piece Tradovate can't do on its own.
Route That Alert to Tradovate
Now connect the two. Link Tradovate to TradingView through the add-on so you can act on the alert without leaving your workflow, or send the TradingView alert to a webhook bridge that places the Tradovate order for you. Manual routing keeps a human in the loop; a bridge turns the indicator alert into an automatic trade.
Test on a Simulated Account First
Before a cent of real money rides on it, run the whole chain on a Tradovate simulated account. Confirm the alert fires, the signal arrives, and the order lands the way you meant it to. If you're on a prop or evaluation account, automation rules vary by firm and account size, so check your firm's current rules before you flip it live.
The Bottom Line
Tradovate's alerts are price and account tools, full stop. They're genuinely useful for level-based warnings, but they won't watch a study for you. If your strategy lives on indicators, build those alerts in TradingView and pipe them into Tradovate, either by hand or through automation. That combination gives you everything the native alert menu is missing.
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Start Your Free 5-Day TrialThis guide is for educational and informational purposes only and is not financial, investment, or trading advice. Trading futures and other leveraged products carries a substantial risk of loss and is not suitable for every investor. PickMyTrade is an independent third-party automation platform and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Tradovate, Inc. "Tradovate" and all related names, logos, and trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Platform features and steps change over time, so always confirm the current process in the official Tradovate platform and documentation before acting.