From the Tradesyncer Team — Your Reliable Third-Party Trade Copier
If you're a lot of accounts through a single Tradovate connection, such as an Apex Tradovate connection setup with 20 accounts, you may run into issues like:
🛑 Orders not being placed
🔁 Positions getting stuck or not updating
❌ Inability to cancel or modify orders
⚠️ “Rate limit exceeded” messages in your logs
These are all signs that you’ve hit the API rate limit. As a Tradesyncer user, it’s important to understand what that means, and how to avoid it.
🚨 What is the API Rate Limit?
Tradovate has a cap on the number of API requests:
5,000 requests per hour
80 requests per minute
Every action on an account counts as a request: placing, modifying, canceling orders, and even price updates. Once you exceed this limit, the API stops accepting new commands, meaning Tradesyncer can’t copy or manage trades across your accounts until the limit resets.
📈 Example: 1 Master, 20 Accounts
Let’s say you copy a trade from one master account to 20 Apex accounts. One update (like adjusting a stop loss) = 20 API calls. Do this multiple times in a short period, and you’ll reach the limit.
Result? Copied trades or modifications won’t go through, followers get out of sync, and orders may freeze.
🔌 Connecting Too Often = Trouble
There are two main causes of hitting the API limit:
1. High Trading Activity
Too many trades, order modifications, or cancellations, especially or a connection with a lot of accounts, can cause your API usage to spike.
2. Reconnecting Too Frequently
Adding or re-establishing your Tradovate connection too often in a short timeframe also generates a high number of API requests.
Each connection attempt uses a usersync request. If you’re repeatedly connecting and disconnecting the same Tradovate connection it adds up fast and increases your risk of being rate-limited.
⛔ Penalty: “P-Ticket” Status and Wait Time
When you trigger the rate limit or flood the API with too many reconnections, Tradovate may assign your account a P-ticket (penalty ticket) status.
This includes a waiting period where your API access is severely reduced or entirely blocked. During this time:
You cannot copy trades through Tradesyncer
Positions won’t sync or update
Your follower accounts may fall out of alignment
You can't add your connection
To prevent this, avoid excessive reconnections and don’t repeatedly add your connection in a short time window.
🧠 How to Avoid Rate Limit Issues
✅ Use Market Orders Whenever Possible
Market orders execute instantly and don’t require ongoing updates — significantly reducing your API usage.
✅ Minimize Modifications
Each change to stops or targets multiplies across followers. Keeping trades simple and clean helps avoid request overload.
✅ Don't reconnect the same connection to often
Avoid logging in and out or reconnecting frequently. A stable connection reduces unnecessary API traffic and the risk of triggering penalties.