A strategy provider is the account other people copy. When you follow a signal or join a copy-trading service, one trader — the provider — places trades on their own account, and those trades are mirrored onto yours. They trade; you ride along. That means your money follows decisions you did not make and often cannot see coming, so who the provider is matters more than any headline gain they advertise.
What it is
A strategy provider — also called a signal provider, master, or lead trader — is the source account in a copy relationship. They might be a person trading by hand or an EA running unattended. Platforms wrap this in different names, but the mechanics are the same: the provider's fills generate the orders that land on every follower account.
Where you find them
- MQL5 Signals — the marketplace built into MetaTrader.
- Broker copy services — PAMM, MAM and in-house social platforms.
- Third-party platforms — ZuluTrade and similar.
- Private groups — Telegram and Discord signals, usually the least accountable of the lot.
How they get paid
Most providers earn a monthly subscription (say £30 a month), a performance fee (a share of your profit), or a cut of the spread your broker pays them per lot traded. A provider paid per lot has a reason to trade often, whether or not trading often helps you. Work out which model you are signing up to before you follow, because it tells you where their incentive points.
How to vet one
Judge the record, not the pitch. Take two providers, both advertising a "150% gain":
- Provider A — 150% over three years, verified feed, worst drawdown 18%, around 900 trades, steady deposits from the same owner.
- Provider B — 150% in five months, self-reported screenshots, no drawdown figure, 40 trades, one £2,000 deposit and no history before it.
Provider A turned £10,000 into £25,000 across a stretch long enough to include bad months. Provider B's curve is short, unverified and thin on trades — the kind of number that comes from one lucky martingale run and disappears on the next. Same headline; a completely different bet.
A gain figure with no drawdown beside it is half a sentence. Always ask what the account fell before it recovered — that fall is the number you have to survive to earn the gain.
Red flags
- No verified connection — screenshots and spreadsheets prove nothing.
- A short record, or one that resets after a blow-up.
- No drawdown shown, or a suspiciously smooth equity curve.
- Grid or martingale sizing hidden behind a tidy-looking gain.
- Pressure to deposit quickly, or a fee model that rewards churn.
None of these is proof on its own. Two or three together, and you are looking at marketing rather than a track record.
The Karnek note
Karnek connects to a provider's account read-only and shows you the live trades and drawdown as they happen, on your own screen. It reads straight from the terminal, so what you see is what the account actually did. It can never open, close or alter a trade on any account it monitors.
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Written and reviewed by the Karnek Research team. Last updated August 2026.
Educational content only - not financial advice. Past performance does not predict future results. Trading carries significant risk.