Hi, I’ve been done with the demo account, and since im still practicing I don’t want to spend money on trades till I have a good trading plan. I’ve gotten the simulated account for $12.95, but I dont have the DOM or the ability to paper trade. I searched this up on google, but nothing has helped there. Do I need to purchase the $3/month top of book market data to actually get a paper trade contract in?
P.S. it would also help to know the $12 difference between top of book and DOM. Appreciate the help, thanks 
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From my understanding, and with most platforms you will get 2 weeks of data free, then you need to pay from it after that. Data is charged by the exchanges, which is why after 2 weeks you need to pay for it. However I do not know if its included in the Tradovate sim account that you said you signed up for, as I have not done it or looked into it, I would assume it is not included you.
The difference between the data costs is the amount of data you would like to see. Top of book would be level 1 data. This is going to show you current price, and best bid and ask. Level 2 data, DOM, is Depth of Market this is the same in the sense it will give you the current price, best bid/ask, but instead of just 1 bid and ask you will see the best 5-10 bid/ask prices.
Myself, I like level 2 data so I can get an idea of the other offers, however if you are new you are fine going with Level 1 data till you learn more.
Hope this answers your question, another thought is the sim account is free if you fund and account, so it might make sense to open an account and fund it, then you will only pay for the market data instead of paying for the sim account and market data.
No data, no trading. Simple as that.