Does Imperial Funding Work With NinjaTrader 8?
Short answer: we could not confirm that Imperial Funding reaches NinjaTrader Desktop, and we are not going to guess for you in either direction. Imperial Trader Funding has never published that it supports NinjaTrader — the name appears zero times across all 40 of its help-centre articles — and its help-center platform article, updated 11 July 2026, describes a single proprietary in-house platform and states that trading activity “must be performed exclusively within the Imperial Trader Funding platform”. Taken on its own, that reads as a no.
Taken together with the rest of the site, it does not settle. Imperial’s own storefront sells the futures add-on under the Rithmic name — “Add Futures (Rithmic)”, and on the largest Elite account “Futures (Rithmic) Included” — and an older FAQ still live on the marketing site says the firm supports platforms connected through Rithmic. Two things the firm itself publishes point opposite ways, and nothing it publishes shows a trader being handed Rithmic credentials of their own for an outside platform. So the honest answer is unclear, not yes and not no. That is why there is no Imperial connection guide on this site, and why we will not tell you NinjaTrader 8 will reach an Imperial account until the firm says so itself.
What Imperial Funding actually runs on
- Its own in-house platform. The help centre (updated 11 July 2026) describes a proprietary, all-in-one trading environment and says trading has to happen there.
- One account across asset classes. NYSE and NASDAQ equities plus equity and index options, with CME, CBOT and COMEX futures available on top.
- Futures is an add-on chosen at purchase. It is a checkbox at checkout — “Add Futures (Rithmic)” — and on the $1M Elite the firm says it is “required and cannot be removed”. An existing account adds it with the Enable Futures toggle in the dashboard, or by asking support to add the instruments.
- Quantower and Etna appear in older copy only. The marketing FAQ names those two as platforms connected through Rithmic. The help centre names neither: across all 40 articles, Rithmic, Quantower, Etna and NinjaTrader appear zero times. The site contradicts itself here, so we are not going to pick a side for you.
- One sign-in, and it is Imperial’s own. The only login the firm points traders to is its portal at portal.imperialtraderfunding.com.
- Market data goes through support. Level 1 CME data is included with account activation; Level 2 depth is a support request and a monthly pass-through fee.
- Platform is locked at checkout. Accounts are tied to the platform selected at purchase and cannot be switched afterwards; the firm says a wrong pick has to go to support before the account is activated.
- No Tradovate. Tradovate is not named anywhere on Imperial’s properties, and neither are TradingView, CQG, Sierra Chart, ProjectX or Volumetrica.
- NinjaTrader is named twice, in passing. Both mentions sit inside marketing FAQ answers about other subjects, as examples of a desktop platform. Neither says Imperial provisions NinjaTrader access, and neither names a gateway or a setup step.
What would have to be true for NinjaTrader 8
NinjaTrader Desktop connects through the connection types it ships with, and each one expects a username and password issued for that specific connection type. A firm’s own in-house platform is not one of them, so an Imperial portal login has nowhere to go in the Connections window. That is a plain fact about what NinjaTrader ships, not a knock on Imperial — plenty of firms run their own platform by choice, and it is a perfectly reasonable way to build a business.
Back-end arrangements matter less here than credentials. Even where a firm routes futures through Rithmic out of sight of the trader, a desktop platform can only reach the account if the firm issues the trader Rithmic credentials to use. Imperial does not publish that it does. It also publishes no setup document of any kind — its learning-resources page renders empty, and the FAQ only promises instructions after registration — so there is nothing citable to check against. We could not confirm it either way, and we are not going to fill that gap with an assumption.
What to do if NinjaTrader 8 is the point
If you already hold an Imperial account, trade it where Imperial’s help centre currently tells you to. If the futures add-on and NinjaTrader 8 are the reason you are thinking about buying, ask the firm directly at imperialsupport@imperialtraderfunding.com, before you pay, whether the account comes with Rithmic credentials you can use in a platform of your own — and keep the answer in writing. Only Imperial can tell you what its accounts include and what its own rules allow.
If you would rather not find out after the fact, the simpler route is a firm that publishes its connection details up front. Our connection guides cover the firms we have confirmed, and walk through each connection type step by step.
How we checked, and when this changes
We went through Imperial’s storefront, its site FAQ and all 40 of its help-centre articles on 14 September 2026; the most recently updated of those articles was dated 28 August 2026. Firms change platforms, feeds and back-end providers without much announcement, and Imperial’s own pages already disagree with each other, so if this decides where your money goes, confirm it with the firm first. If Imperial publishes a setup document or clears up the contradiction, we will update this page.
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Affordable Indicators, Inc. is not affiliated with or endorsed by Rithmic, NinjaTrader, or any prop firm or broker named here; your firm’s and broker’s own terms govern how you may use your account, so check with them first.