Guide
Broker sandbox vs paper trading: which to test on
A brokerage sandbox is a simulated account the broker runs, reached through the same API as the live one. Paper trading is the wider term: any run of your alerts with no real money. On Nyria that means three places, and each answers a different question.
Three ways to test without money
Nyria Paper
The simulated broker built into Nyria, free on every plan, connected in one click with no credentials. Nothing reaches a broker or an exchange. A market order fills at the ask to buy and the bid to sell, from the quote Nyria read when the alert arrived, and never slips. A limit is filled or refused at once against that quote. Fills are immediate and never partial. Stocks and crypto fill at any hour; options alerts are refused while the options market is closed.
A broker sandbox: Tradier
Tradier runs paper as a separate environment, sandbox.tradier.com, with simulated cash. You connect it with the sandbox account number and access token from Tradier's free developer portal. Orders go over Tradier's API and Tradier decides what happens to them. On weekends and outside the regular session the sandbox can mark a resting order as filled at a price no market printed, so judge its results on regular hours, Monday through Friday only.
A broker's paper account: Alpaca
An Alpaca paper account starts with $100,000 of simulated cash and connects with an API key and secret generated on the Paper side of the Alpaca dashboard. A paper key works only on paper, and paper account numbers start with PA. Alpaca paper goes up to Options Level 3, which covers four-leg structures, and it rejects what a live account would: a symbol it does not list, insufficient buying power, a PDT flag, or an options level below the order.
Charles Schwab and tastytrade have no paper account, so a strategy for either is tested on Nyria Paper. Paper is free on every broker: without a plan you can run up to 10 paper bots, on Nyria Paper or on a broker's own paper account, counted together.
Which test answers which question
Does the alert reach Nyria and read the way you meant?
All three.
Does every exit close the entry it belongs to, at the size you set?
All three.
Does this broker accept this order: option approval level, order type, symbol?
A sandbox or a broker paper account only. Nyria Paper cannot see a broker's rules.
What will slippage, partial fills, halts, gaps and assignment do?
None of them. These show up only with a live order.
Nyria Paper also checks sizing. An entry whose budget per entry cannot cover one contract is rejected with the reason in the bot log, the way a live broker would reject it. An option held to expiry is settled in cash at its intrinsic value from the underlying's official close; nothing is assigned and no shares are delivered.
One alert, three readings
The same options call, sent to a bot on each kind of account.
The alert
BTO SPY 780c 11/20 @ 3.20
On Nyria Paper
The limit is checked against the quote Nyria priced it from. A buy limit at or above the ask fills at the ask. Below it, nothing is filled, and the bot log gives the reason with the limit and the market price it was checked against.
On the Tradier sandbox
The order goes to Tradier. Outside the 9:30 AM to 4 PM ET session a market order is rejected as Market closed, and a limit left resting over a weekend can come back filled at a price that never traded.
On Alpaca paper
The order shows in the Alpaca dashboard as filled in market hours or accepted outside them, and the bot's Logs tab carries the Alpaca order id. A multi-leg order fills as a whole or not at all.
What none of them tell you
Paper shows that the setup works. It does not show whether the strategy makes money. A paper market order pays the quoted spread and nothing more, so paper P&L usually reads better than live on the same alerts. A live limit order can fill partly or not at all, and a spread can fill on some legs and not others. A live order can miss a halt, gap through a level or find no bid. A short option can be assigned before it expires. Splits, dividends and symbol changes happen at the broker. On perpetuals, funding erodes a position and a move can liquidate it; Nyria Paper charges no funding and never liquidates.
From paper to live
Paper trade the strategy for one to two weeks. If the alerts come from TradingView, check that the script does not repaint. Then deploy a bot on the live account, or edit the paper bot and pick the live account. The first live deploy asks you to accept the risk disclosure, and a bot on a live account needs a Nyria Pro plan or access to a Premium strategy you have bought. Hold capital for both entries and exits, since a credit spread exits as a debit, and start with a budget per entry you can afford to lose in full. In the app, the Live and Paper switch shows one kind of bot at a time, and stats are recorded per bot, so a paper bot's numbers never mix into a live bot's.
Connecting each account step by step is in the paper trading guide, the Tradier page and the Alpaca page.
Questions
- Is a broker sandbox the same as paper trading?
- Same purpose, different owner. Sandbox is Tradier's name for its paper environment: a simulated account the broker runs, with its own API. Nyria Paper is simulated by Nyria with no broker involved. Both place no real order.
- What do paper bots cost?
- Nothing. Without a plan you can run up to 10 paper bots, on Nyria Paper or on a broker's own paper account, counted together. No card and no risk disclosure to accept.
- Which brokers have no paper account?
- Charles Schwab and tastytrade connect live accounts only. Test those strategies on Nyria Paper, then deploy on the live account.
Guides
Test your first alert on a paper bot
Paper is free. Live trading from $15 a month.