A demo account connects exactly like a live one and costs nothing to get wrong. It catches three things that are expensive to discover live.
1. Symbol mismatches
Your provider writes GOLD, your broker calls it XAUUSD.raw. On a demo account that is a logged rejection. On a live account during a fast move, it is a missed trade you notice an hour later.
2. Contract-spec surprises
Gold, indices and micro-lot symbol variants size differently from forex. If a mapping is wrong, a 0.5% risk becomes a 5% risk — and the first time you see it should not be on real money.
3. Whether you actually like the provider
Copying somebody's signals is a relationship. A month of watching their entries land, without money at stake, tells you more than their screenshots ever will.
Connecting one
Trading Accounts → Add Account, then use your broker's demo credentials. Demo accounts count against your plan's account limit like any other.