Position Limits & Account Risk Rules
MimikTrader does not cap contracts per order — position size comes from the follower's sizing multiplier, and account risk is controlled by dollar- and count-based rules that run on every tick.
6 min read
A common question from traders coming from other copiers is: “where do I set the max contracts per follower?” MimikTrader does not have a per-order contract cap. There is no setting that clamps a follower's order to a maximum number of contracts. This article explains what controls position size instead, and the real account-level rules that protect your prop firm accounts.
max(1, ceil(leaderQty × multiplier)) — multiplier-only, with no per-follower ceiling. The risk engine (drawdown and loss limits, described below) is the backstop against oversized exposure, not a contract cap.What Actually Controls Position Size
Every follower has a sizing multiplier that scales its order quantity relative to the leader's. A multiplier of 1.0 mirrors the leader's size, 0.5 trades roughly half (rounded up, minimum 1 contract), and 2.0 doubles it — with no maximum. See Position Sizing: How Follower Multipliers Work for the exact formula and worked examples.
Because there is no contract cap, the number of contracts a follower trades scales directly with how large the leader trades and the multiplier you choose. If you need to keep a follower's typical order size within a prop firm's own position-size rule, choose a smaller multiplier — there is no separate safety clamp underneath it.
What Actually Protects Your Account
Instead of a per-order contract cap, MimikTrader protects each follower account with a set of dollar- and count-based rules that run continuously — not just when a new order arrives, but on every price tick for any account with an open position.
Daily Loss Limit
A maximum dollar amount a follower account can lose in a single trading day, tracked across realized and unrealized P&L. If the limit is breached, the account is flattened and locked for the rest of the day. See Daily Loss Limits & Profit Targets for full details.
Trailing Drawdown Protection
MimikTrader tracks an equity high-water mark that rises as the account profits but never decreases. The trailing drawdown threshold is a fixed dollar distance below that high-water mark — if equity drops to the threshold, the account is flattened and locked. This is the closest analog to a prop firm's own trailing drawdown rule, and it is enforced on every price tick, not just at order time. See Trailing Drawdown Protection for the full mechanics.
Profit-Drawdown Protection
A separate check on open (unrealized) losses. It measures the open loss against a profit base — the greater of the day's realized profit and your Trailing Drawdown amount — and flattens when the loss exceeds the configured percentage of that base (30% by default). With the scale option on, the allowance rises to 50% once the day's realized profit reaches at least twice the Trailing Drawdown amount. This keeps a won day from being handed back by one open position.
Max Daily Trades
An opt-in limit on the number of trades a follower account can take per trading day. Once the limit is reached, no new opening trades are placed for the rest of the day — closing and reducing trades are never blocked by this or any other risk rule.
Auto-Flatten and Account Locks
When any of the rules above is breached, MimikTrader responds immediately: all open positions on the affected account are closed with market orders, all pending orders are canceled, and the account is locked. A locked account cannot receive new opening trades — but closing and reducing trades are always allowed, even while locked. Locks clear automatically at the relevant reset (daily or weekly) or, for a trailing-drawdown lock, persist across resets. See Auto-Flatten & Account Locking for the complete lock lifecycle.
Why No Contract Cap?
MimikTrader uses proportional multiplier scaling with no artificial ceiling, the way other professional trade copiers size followers. A hard per-order cap can silently clamp a trade to a smaller size than intended without rejecting it or telling you — which hides a configuration problem rather than surfacing it. Dollar- and count-based risk rules that flatten and lock the account are a more direct match for how prop firms actually enforce their own limits.