NinjaTrader Risk Manager: Free and Paid Options Compared

A NinjaTrader risk manager watches your account and, when you hit a limit, cancels your orders, flattens the position and stops you from trading. On a prop firm account it has one job: make you stop before the firm stops you.

That limit can live in two places: on your broker's or firm's server, or in an AddOn running inside NinjaTrader on your PC. Each has strengths the other lacks. Below are the native options, the free ones and the paid ones, with what each does and what it doesn't.

Third-party prices and features were checked on their own websites in October 2026. They may change.

Disclosure: one of the tools in this comparison, the Risk Guardian, is ours. It's free and open source. Its limits are listed below too.

Server-side or AddOn: the difference that matters

In practice: the server is the safety net and the AddOn is your day-to-day discipline. Use both if you can.

What NinjaTrader offers out of the box

The desktop platform: almost nothing

NinjaTrader 8 has a Risk window with risk templates. According to NinjaTrader's help guide, those templates are for local simulation accounts: they set margin per contract and cap how many contracts you can trade. There's no daily loss limit and no account lock.

For a prop firm account connected through Rithmic or Tradovate, the desktop platform has no daily loss limit of its own.

NinjaTrader Brokerage and Tradovate risk settings (server-side)

If you have a personal account with NinjaTrader Brokerage (which runs on Tradovate's technology), the risk settings are in your account's web dashboard, not in the desktop platform. NinjaTrader lists six limits:

• Daily loss and weekly loss.
• Daily and weekly profit target (once hit, no new trades).
• Trailing max drawdown, end of day (EOD) or real time.

There's also a manual lockout to end your day on purpose. Once a limit is hit, the account can't place new orders until the next session.

On a prop firm account running on Tradovate, the firm sets these limits through Tradovate's partner API: daily loss auto-liquidation, EOD or real-time trailing drawdown, liquidate-only mode, a forced flatten time and a lock that can't be undone. Whether you can add a personal limit on top depends on the firm.

Rithmic Auto-Liquidate (server-side)

In R|Trader Pro, Rithmic's app, you set it from the Trader Panel: right-click the account and pick one of the Auto Liquidate criteria. There are five: minimum account balance, percentage of cash on hand lost, Loss Limit (a fixed loss), trailing minimum account balance and limited trailing minimum account balance.

It runs on Rithmic's server, so it works even with NinjaTrader closed. Two warnings:

• On many prop firm accounts, Rithmic risk is managed by the firm. Check whether your account lets you edit it.
• Changing limits or cash on hand can trigger a liquidation you didn't expect. Double-check the values before saving.

Full steps are in how to set a daily loss limit in NinjaTrader 8.

Free AddOns

RiskMaster

A NinjaTrader 8 AddOn you can download for free on itch.io (donations accepted). It assigns rule profiles to each account:

• Max contracts per order or position, and trades per day.
• Consecutive losses.
• Daily loss and daily profit target.
• Daily drawdown from the day's equity peak.
• Loss and profit target per trade (in $).
• Allowed days and a time window (in your PC's local time).

What its own author says: RiskMaster hasn't been tested with trade copiers and he advises against it; with Tradovate it only partly works and checks limits after the entry; it hasn't been tested with Rithmic; and removing the AddOn removes the locks. The latest listed version is 1.3.0.1, from April 2025.

It has no prop-firm drawdown (trailing or EOD with a floor) and no news filter.

Risk Guardian (El Trader Financiado)

Our NinjaTrader 8 AddOn, free and MIT-licensed. It watches each account with its own rules, with or without charts open:

• Daily loss limit and daily target. When hit, it flattens and locks the account until the daily reset (17:00 Chicago time by default).
• Static, intraday trailing or end-of-day (EOD) trailing drawdown, with an optional floor that locks at starting balance + X and a safety buffer that cuts before the real limit.
• Contracts and trades: max contracts per position and max trades per day.
• Hours and news: allowed hours in Chicago time and no entries around high-impact US news.
• Discipline: lock after giving back a % of the day's peak, after N losses in a row or on a weekly loss; a cooldown after each loss; max loss per trade; required stop.
• Consistency: how much you can still make today without breaking your firm's rule.
• Strict mode, on by default: a lock can't be lifted until the next day, and anything that loosens a limit waits until the next day.
• Templates with the rules of the prop firms in our database.

It works with copiers: each account is watched and locked separately. If a locked account receives an order, it cancels it and, if it fills, flattens the position.

Its limits, plainly: it runs on your PC, so if NinjaTrader closes or disconnects it doesn't protect you. NinjaTrader doesn't let an AddOn veto an order before it's sent: the guardian cancels it as soon as it appears. And the exit fills after the limit is crossed, with slippage; that's what the safety buffer is for. Once installed, our logo with a link to the website appears in the corner of your charts.

Paid AddOns

CrossTrade Account Manager

Part of CrossTrade, a platform that connects NinjaTrader 8 to its servers. The Account Manager comes with the Pro plan, $49 a month ($469 a year) and the Elite plan, $99 a month ($949 a year). The $29 Standard plan doesn't include it.

What it does, per its documentation:

• Daily loss and profit thresholds per account, on realized or unrealized P/L. It checks P/L every 2.5 seconds.
• Per-position thresholds that close only that position.
• Trailing drawdown in $ or %, which only moves up, plus a profit floor after a trigger is reached.
• Auto-flatten at a fixed time (US Eastern).
• A monitor lock until after the 5 PM ET close.

One important detail: it needs a stable connection between the AddOn and CrossTrade's servers. If that connection drops, automated flattening doesn't fire.

KosyGuard

A NinjaTrader 8 AddOn sold on Whop for $29.99 a month, with a 14-day trial. Advertised features:

• Daily loss limit and profit target with auto-flatten.
• Max trades per day and max contracts per order.
• Consecutive loss limit and intraday drawdown protection.
• Per-trade stop loss and profit target.
• Voluntary self-lockout (15 minutes to end of day).
• High-impact news blocking, session and symbol blocking, and allowed days.
• Emergency unlock with a 30-minute cooldown.

Meridian

A behavioral monitor and, per its announcement, an official NinjaTrader Ecosystem vendor. It builds a 0-100 index from seven signals, such as re-entering fast after a loss or moving your stop. Two plans:

• Core: $49.99 a month ($479.90 a year). Index, dashboard, journal and history.
• Guard: $69.99 a month ($671.90 a year). Adds six triggers (low index, consecutive losses, session P&L floor, unrealized drawdown, single-trade loss and session time) and five response levels: alert, typed acknowledgment, countdown, entry blocking and broker disconnect.

Note: according to its vendor, Guard doesn't close or modify open positions. It acts on new entries.

Comparison table

Which one to pick

• One evaluation, and your firm already has a server-side daily limit. A free AddOn with your own limit a bit below the firm's. That way you stop first.
• Your firm has no daily loss limit. All the more reason to set one. Our daily loss limit guide shows which firms apply it and which don't.
• Several accounts with a copier. You need something that watches and locks each account separately. Check that the AddOn has been tested with copiers.
• Your problem is tilt, not the limit. Rules for losses in a row, a cooldown after each loss and giving back a % of the day's peak do more than a daily loss limit alone.
• Personal account with NinjaTrader Brokerage. Turn on its server-side risk settings. They're free and don't depend on your PC.

Paying for a subscription makes sense if a specific feature you need only exists in that tool. To set a daily loss limit and a drawdown, you don't need to pay.

What no local AddOn can do

An AddOn lives inside NinjaTrader. If the platform closes, your PC freezes or the internet drops with a position open, it can't close anything. It also can't stop you from uninstalling it.

And between the moment P/L crosses the limit and the moment the exit fills, time passes. In a fast NQ move, that's points. That's why the limit you set in the AddOn should sit below the firm's, with a buffer.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does NinjaTrader 8 have a native daily loss limit?

Not in the desktop platform. The Risk window templates are for simulation accounts and only cap margin and contracts. NinjaTrader's daily loss limit lives in the risk settings of NinjaTrader Brokerage accounts, on the server.

Can I change the limits on my prop firm account in Rithmic or Tradovate?

It depends on the firm. On prop firm accounts, server-side limits are usually set by the firm. Some let you add personal limits and some don't. If you can't, an AddOn in NinjaTrader is how you set your own.

Is a free risk manager enough for a prop firm?

For daily loss, drawdown, contracts and locking, yes. What none of them do, free or paid, is protect you with NinjaTrader closed. That's what your firm's server-side limit is for.

Do risk managers work with trade copiers?

It depends on the AddOn. RiskMaster's author hasn't tested it with copiers. The Risk Guardian watches and locks each account separately, including orders coming from a copier.

Do prop firms allow risk managers?

A risk manager doesn't open trades: it only cancels or closes yours when they break your rules. Still, every firm has its own policy on third-party software. If in doubt, ask yours.

Keep reading

• How to set a daily loss limit in NinjaTrader 8
• Daily loss limit in prop firms: what it is and which firms use it
• Drawdown guide: trailing, EOD and static
• NinjaTrader vs Tradovate vs Rithmic
• Free NinjaTrader 8 indicators and risk tools