Helio vs TradeLocker: The Platform Bill, Per Account

This desk usually prices what a trader pays; here it prices what the broker pays. The platform bill sits upstream of every spread on this site. Figures for both vendors here are public — TradeLocker’s on its own card, Helio’s through the trade press. One unit, then: dollars per included account, per month.

What each side puts on the table

TradeLocker publishes a broker price card on its own site. Fintake’s carries no pricing page in the navigation this desk read on 3 September 2026 — Contact us, Terms of Service, Privacy Policy, Book a demo, Request Documentation — and Helio’s tiers reach the public through a Finance Magnates report of 19 August 2026.

Published and reported terms, as of this writing

TradeLocker — Starter	$5,000 a month, no setup fee, 1,000 live and 2,000 demo accounts, per its pricing page
TradeLocker — active account	At least one open position during the billing month
Helio — Launch	$2,950 a month plus $6,500 implementation, 750 active accounts, 2 liquidity connections, as reported 19 August
Helio — Growth	$6,950 a month, 3,000 active accounts, 4 liquidity connections
Helio — Scale	$14,950 a month, 10,000 active accounts, 3 brands, unlimited connections
Helio — active account	A trade, a balance transaction or an open position that month; demo and inactive accounts free, as reported 19 August

The conversion

Divide the monthly figure by the accounts it covers. TradeLocker’s Starter tier is $5,000 against 1,000 live accounts: $5.00 per live account, a floor per active account; Helio’s allowances are in active accounts. Helio’s reported ladder runs $2,950 over 750, $6,950 over 3,000 and $14,950 over 10,000 — $3.93, $2.32 and $1.50. On the entry tiers, $1.07 apart.

The implementation fee moves that. Launch’s $6,500 is $541.67 a month across a first year, taking the effective charge to $3,491.67 and the per-account figure to $4.66 — a first-year gap of thirty-four cents. The same Finance Magnates report states 10% off for annual payment; applied to the subscription only, that puts year one at $4.26.

All of it is ceiling pricing: an allowance is what a tier includes, not what a broker uses. Fill half of Launch and $2,950 buys 375 accounts at $7.87 each.

The denominator that stops it

The audit stops here: the two are not counting the same thing. TradeLocker’s glossary defines an active account as one that held at least one open position that month; its card does not say the 1,000 live allowance is an active-account cap. Helio, per the report, bills one that executed a trade, made a balance transaction or held an open position — a set containing the first and then some. Deposit and never open a position and you are billable under Helio’s rule, not TradeLocker’s.

In numbers, like for like, TradeLocker held at its full 1,000: $2,950 divides to $5.00 at 590 accounts, so Launch matches Starter only if about 590 of its 750 counted actives, 79%, are ones TradeLocker would also bill — those with an open position. Year one, fee amortised, that threshold is 699, 7% under the allowance. The broader definition also cuts the other way: it fills the 750 sooner, and the account after 750 moves the bill to Growth’s $6,950, a 136% step.

What the price cards leave blank

TradeLocker’s page carries a clause worth quoting as printed: “The minimum fee of $X applies if there are fewer than 500 accounts in a billing month.” A floor left as a variable cannot be computed, and this desk will not estimate it. The page’s glossary also says “You don’t pay for inactive users”, which reads as metering.

Helio’s blanks sit elsewhere. As of 19 August no broker had put Helio’s web or mobile applications in front of end clients, first client trades were expected in Q4 2026, and one unnamed broker was routing live flow through the backend on its own front ends. Searching on 3 September turned up nothing published since that changes it, which is not the same as knowing nothing has.

Neither company is a broker. Both sell software — TradeLocker to brokers and, per its own site, prop firms — and on the three pages read here on 3 September (TradeLocker’s home and broker-pricing pages, Fintake’s front page) neither claims a licence, an authorisation or a regulator. Nothing here says either is a supervised financial firm. Supervision attaches to the broker signing the client agreement — the broker-side view of this layer, where five front ends proved a cost, not a feature.

Price-card audit: what the two disclosures support

Pros

TradeLocker prices its entry tier in public, not behind a sales call
Both definitions are on the record — TradeLocker's on its own page, Helio's only through the 19 August report
Helio's reported terms cover the clauses brokers meet late: 10% off annual payment, increases capped at inflation plus three points, SLAs of 99.95% and 99.99%

Cons

Helio's price card is not the vendor's own: the tiers come from a 19 August trade-press report, and Fintake's navigation carried no pricing page on 3 September
TradeLocker's minimum-fee clause prints the number as $X below 500 accounts, so the floor cannot be computed
The two definitions of an active account differ, Helio's being the broader, so the per-account figures are not strictly comparable
As reported on 19 August, no broker had deployed Helio's web or mobile apps to end clients

Bottom line

Finance Magnates put MetaTrader 5 on roughly 68% of global brokerages as of March 2026, its figure for that date. Challengers to an incumbent that size compete on what it does not advertise: the invoice.

Helio’s reported entry tier bills 59 cents on the dollar against Starter in a steady year, 70 in the first, on 750 counted accounts against 1,000 live. Whether that is cheaper depends on how much of a book each meter registers, so ask both for a worked bill against last month’s activity. A quote per account is a marketing figure; a bill is an accounting one.

The line this file will not go out without: both companies audited here sell software rather than brokerage, neither claimed authorisation on the pages read here, and nothing in this review is financial advice.