QuantGPT Cloud runs your own bot on our servers and sends its orders to your own
Alpaca account, under your own API keys. The bots are built to work with an Alpaca account:
for now, Alpaca is the one broker QuantGPT Cloud connects to. This guide covers what it is,
getting your Alpaca keys, wiring a bot, and the questions members ask.
Updated October 2026 · Alpaca facts from Alpaca's own pages, linked under Sources
// 1 · WHAT QUANTGPT CLOUD IS
QuantGPT Cloud is hosted compute for your own trading code. You save a bot, a Python file,
in the terminal; you set when it wakes; you connect your own Alpaca account with your own keys.
Each time it wakes, QuantGPT Cloud runs that file in a fresh, isolated container. The code calls
Alpaca, and Alpaca holds your money and executes every order the code sends. It comes with
QuantGPT Pro: up to 5 bots per account.
What it does
Runs the file you saved, exactly as saved, on the schedule you set, in New York
time. Each save gets a version code, so you can tell which version ran.
Compiles a backtest from your journal into a bot file. The file is a line by line
translation of the filters, ranking, number of names and cadence you chose, shown in full
before anything runs, and yours to read and edit. Where your backtest used a stop, the file
places one of Alpaca's own stop or trailing stop orders at your own percentage, and Alpaca runs
it from there. Rules Alpaca has no order type for are listed at the top of the file as NOT
COMPILED, with every known way live trading will differ from the backtest.
Answers your bot's screen. A bot can send its own criteria and get back the names
that match today: the same answer anyone sending those criteria gets.
Keeps the record: every run and its output, every start, pause, stop and change, and
the orders your bot's runs sent, as Alpaca reported them.
Shows Alpaca's own figures for the account, read with your keys: equity, today's
change and positions.
What it does not do
It does not choose what your bot trades, size a position, set a limit, time an order or
stop a bot because of its results. It does not review your code for suitability.
It does not hold or move your money. Your money stays at Alpaca.
It does not run anyone else's strategy. Bots run only from code saved in your own
account, and a new blank bot reads your account and places nothing.
It does not trade crypto, options or futures: U.S.-listed stocks and ETFs only. The bot
library refuses a crypto pair or an option contract before anything is sent.
It does not offer order types Alpaca does not have, and it does not watch prices for
you.
A bot cannot reach the wider internet: only Alpaca's APIs and QuantGPT's own data host.
The one stop that is ours is the house stop: a single switch that halts every bot at once for
infrastructure reasons (abuse, a vendor incident, a fault on QuantGPT Cloud), never one bot
because of its results.
// 2 · GET YOUR ALPACA API KEYS
As of October 2026, from Alpaca's own guides, linked under Sources. Alpaca's screens can
change; where they differ from these steps, Alpaca's pages are the reference.
Create an Alpaca account. Sign up at
app.alpaca.markets/signup with an
email address and a password. Alpaca says anyone, anywhere, can open a Paper Only Account with
just an email address.
Know which account the keys are for: paper or live.
A paper account is Alpaca's simulation. Orders are filled against real-time
market data, and no real money moves. Alpaca says paper fills do not account for market
impact, slippage, queue position, price improvement, regulatory fees or dividends. A paper
account starts with $100,000 by default, and Alpaca lets you create and delete paper
accounts from its dashboard.
A live account trades real money. You apply for it at Alpaca: choose an account
type, verify your identity with a government-issued ID, then fund it (Alpaca's guide names
Funds & Wallet and Add Funds). Alpaca decides whom it approves.
Each account has its own keys. Alpaca says you cannot use a live account's
credentials with the paper API, or the other way round. QuantGPT Cloud works with either,
and a bot runs only when its keys match the account it is set to trade at.
Open the account you want keys for. Sign in at app.alpaca.markets. For
paper keys, switch the dashboard to your Paper Trading account; Alpaca's guides place the
account switcher at the top of the dashboard.
Generate the keys. Alpaca's guide: "Navigate to the API Keys
module on the right side of the dashboard. Click Generate New Key." You get two values, a
Key ID and a Secret Key. Alpaca notes that paper keys often begin with PK and live
keys with AK, as a hint only.
Copy the secret right away. Alpaca shows the Secret Key only once. Close
the window without copying it and it cannot be shown again; you generate a new pair
instead.
Lost it, or think it leaked: regenerate. In the API Keys section, Alpaca's
guide says to click Regenerate, then confirm with Generate New Keys. That
invalidates the old pair: anything still using it, a QuantGPT Cloud bot included, is refused by
Alpaca until you connect the new pair.
Keep the secret private. Alpaca's rule: never email it, never keep it in
unencrypted cloud documents, never send it over chat or text messages. On QuantGPT the only
place it goes is the key form on your bot's page, and that page never shows it back.
// 3 · WIRE A BOT
In the terminal at terminal.quantgpt.co, on
QuantGPT Pro. A bot starts one of two ways: from a backtest in your journal, or from a blank
file you write yourself.
From a backtest
Run a criteria backtest (filters, a ranking, a number of names) in the terminal. It lands
in your Journal.
In the Journal, press Run on QuantGPT Cloud on that backtest. QuantGPT compiles your criteria into
a Python file and opens the new bot. For a backtest of a timing rule (the 10-month average, the
golden cross, Sell in May, the Santa rally) the Journal first asks which fund the bot should
hold: type the ticker of an ETF or index fund Alpaca trades and press Compile. The field
starts empty; QuantGPT does not pick the fund.
Read the file. Its top states where it came from, the backtest's figures re-run entering at
the next session's open (the first price a bot that wakes after the close can get), and every
way live trading will differ from the backtest.
Some backtests do not compile, and the page says why: one run on your own list of tickers,
one on a factor whose data stopped, or one with a trailing stop above 25%, which Alpaca
refuses. Each stays in the Journal as research.
From your own code
Open QuantGPT Cloud from the terminal's sidebar and press + New bot. Name it and
press Create the bot.
The new bot starts with a small file that connects to Alpaca, prints your equity and
positions, and places nothing. Write your logic in main() with the bot library,
qgsdk: your Alpaca account and orders, QuantGPT's screen, and state kept between
runs. A file is at most 200 KB and must be valid Python.
Set it up: three steps on the bot's page
A bot that is not set up opens on three numbered steps. The header counts the steps done, and
Start stays off until they are.
Alpaca keys. Paste your Key ID into ALPACA KEY ID and your Secret Key into
ALPACA SECRET KEY, choose THESE KEYS ARE FOR: My paper account or My live account,
and press Seal and connect. Your browser seals the keys to QuantGPT Cloud's own key
before they leave the page. From then on the page shows only the key's last four
characters.
The code it runs. Read only until you press Edit code. Saving a change shows
it line by line first (Review the change).
When it runs. Press Edit schedule and pick a common schedule, days and a time,
or five cron fields, all in New York time. The page reads the schedule back in words with the
next five wake times. Only on trading days skips weekends and NYSE holidays. A bot
compiled from a backtest offers Use my study's cadence, which fills in the schedule its
backtest implies; you still save it. There is no default schedule.
Paper or live
A new bot is set to trade at your paper account. To point it at your live account, open
Settings, change Trades at to My live account, and connect live keys. Before a bot
can start on a live account, its page asks for a pre-flight: eight questions answered in your
own words (any answer is accepted, kept on file and never graded), an attestation that you wrote
or reviewed every line and choose what it trades, and your recorded choice about testing on
paper. QuantGPT offers a 30-day paper window and does not tell you whether to use it. All of it
is bound to that exact version of the code: change the code and a live bot stops until you
attest the new version.
Start it and read what happened
Press Start. On a live account the page asks first: "Start this bot on your LIVE
Alpaca account?"
Run once now runs the bot a single time without waiting for its schedule: at most
once a minute and 60 times a day for each bot.
Read what happened in Recent runs and logs (each run, its output and its result),
At Alpaca (Alpaca's figures, read with your keys) and Orders sent to Alpaca (as
Alpaca reported them).
Pause, stop, remove keys
Pause: a running bot keeps its schedule and skips every wake until you press
Resume. It never asks.
Stop: the bot is off until you start it again. It never asks.
Neither one touches your Alpaca account. Positions and open orders your bot already placed,
such as a good till cancelled stop, stay at Alpaca until you or your code change them.
Disconnect, in the Alpaca keys step: the keys are revoked on QuantGPT Cloud and the
bot stops. Replace keys connects a new pair and revokes the old one.
Delete bot, under Settings: it asks first. The keys are revoked on QuantGPT Cloud and
the bot's code, runs and log go with it. Anything you hold at Alpaca stays there.
At Alpaca, regenerating your keys invalidates the old pair, whatever QuantGPT holds.
When your plan ends
QuantGPT Cloud comes with QuantGPT Pro. When your account is no longer on QuantGPT Pro, the
QuantGPT Cloud page shows the QuantGPT Pro plan card instead of your bots, and a running bot is
stopped the next time its schedule wakes it; its log records why. Nothing runs after that. Your
bots stay on your account, stopped, with their sealed keys, and are there if you return to
QuantGPT Pro. Positions and open orders stay at Alpaca as they are. To cut the keys off without
the plan, regenerate them at Alpaca; deleting your QuantGPT account also revokes them on
QuantGPT Cloud.
// 4 · FAQ
Where are my Alpaca keys stored, and how?
Your browser seals both values to QuantGPT Cloud's own public key (a libsodium sealed box) before they leave the page. QuantGPT's web server passes them along unopened and cannot read them. They are stored only on QuantGPT Cloud, encrypted, where your bot runs, and the page never shows the secret back. Disconnect, Replace keys, Delete bot and deleting your QuantGPT account revoke them there.
Can QuantGPT place trades on its own?
No. QuantGPT never decides an order. Orders come only from the code you saved, when the schedule you set wakes it or when you press Run once now, under your own keys. QuantGPT does not pick, size, time or manage any trade, and no QuantGPT AI tool can place, change or cancel an order.
What if Alpaca rejects an order?
Alpaca decides what it accepts. A bot compiled from a backtest prints the refusal in that run's output, with the side, quantity, symbol and Alpaca's reason, and goes on to its next order; it does not resend it, and nothing on QuantGPT's side does either. An order Alpaca took and rejected later shows with Alpaca's status under Orders sent to Alpaca. Code you write yourself decides for itself what to do.
Who charges what?
QuantGPT Cloud is part of the QuantGPT Pro subscription, a flat $149 a month. QuantGPT charges nothing per trade, nothing on account size and nothing on results. Trading costs are Alpaca's: Alpaca's own pages list the regulatory fees it passes on, and its fee schedule is the reference for your account.
Which plan includes QuantGPT Cloud?
QuantGPT Pro, its 3-day trial included: up to 5 bots per account. The QuantGPT plan does not include it.
Is a paper test required?
No. QuantGPT offers a 30-day paper window; it is an option, never a gate. Before a bot starts on a live account you record your own choice about it, and QuantGPT does not tell you which to make.
Which brokers does QuantGPT Cloud work with?
Alpaca only, for now. Other brokers may follow; no dates are set.
// SOURCES
Facts about Alpaca come from Alpaca's own public pages, as of October 2026, and may have
changed since:
Alpaca: Paper Trading (updated July 2026): a Paper Only Account with an email address, the $100,000 default, creating and deleting paper accounts, what paper fills leave out, separate paper keys
Alpaca: API Key Security Best Practices (September 2026): the API Keys module, Generate New Key, the secret shown once, Regenerate and Generate New Keys, the old pair invalidated, the PK and AK prefixes, separate paper and live hosts, keeping the secret private
Facts about QuantGPT Cloud come from QuantGPT's own product.
ALPACA IS A TRADEMARK OF ITS OWNER; NO AFFILIATION OR ENDORSEMENT IS IMPLIED. QUANTGPT
IS RESEARCH SOFTWARE AND HOSTED COMPUTE, NOT A BROKER AND NOT INVESTMENT ADVICE. TRADING INVOLVES
RISK OF LOSS. THE TERMS GOVERN.