What's the difference between trading on a cash account vs. a prop firm account?

Both are supported environments for Vector strategies. The right choice depends on the capital you want to deploy and how you want to operate — not on a "tier" of trader. Here's the practical comparison:

Cash account (your own brokerage)

• You trade with your own capital in your own brokerage account.
• All profits — and all losses — are yours.
• No evaluation phase; you can start once your account is funded and the setup is in place.
• Two operational paths for cash clients:
• Hands-on: your own VPS running NinjaTrader (QuantVPS or V2 Cloud).
• Hands-off: following Vector signals via Collective2 — no VPS required on your end.
• Contract sizing follows Vector guidelines (see: Contract Sizing) — typically 1 Micro per $5K of account size, with Minis scaling on retained profit.

Prop firm account (firm's capital)

• You trade with the prop firm's capital after passing an evaluation.
• The eval costs a fee paid to the prop firm; how much of your trading profit you keep, how the firm structures payouts, and what rules apply to the account are all defined by the firm itself, not by Vector.
• The Vector setup runs on a VPS (QuantVPS or V2 Cloud) for prop clients.
• Prop accounts use Micros as the contract default (see: Contract Sizing).
• Vector does not interpret prop firm rules — for evaluation criteria, drawdown rules, payout structure, or any firm-specific policy, refer to your prop firm's official rulebook.

Can I use the same Vector strategies on both?

Yes — the strategies are the same. The contract sizing and infrastructure differ between the two account types (per the points above), but the strategy logic is the same.

Can I run both at the same time?

Many clients do. If you're running both, each account follows the configuration appropriate to its type. (See also: Running multiple strategies on the same account — note that the recommendation is one strategy per account at a time, regardless of cash or prop.)

Which one is right for me?

That's a personal decision based on your capital, your goals, and how hands-on you want to be. Vector does not recommend one path over the other — both are fully supported.