Choosing Between a Forex Mini Trading Account and a Demo Account

The standard Forex account has a bantam version called a Forex Mini Trading account. The minimum amount required for opening an account is generally around $2000 for the standard account. On the other hand, the minimum for a mini account can be found for as low as $100.
With regards to trading lots, "mini lots" is the term used for Mini accounts. For a typical Standard Forex account, the pip value is $10, meaning if the market moves favorably for you 100 pips then you would make $1000. The typical Mini account has a much smaller pip value of $1 so you only get $100 from a favorable movement of 100 pips.
Should you prefer a smaller account, there is a "Micro account" available in some cases. For just $25, you can open such an account. Here you get $10 if the market moves favorable by 100 pips.
The mini and micro accounts are used by new traders for their convenience. While demo accounts that require no money for trading are available, mini accounts have a usefulness all their own.
This usefulness comes from the fact that mini accounts use real money to trade. Using real money for trading tends to create a closer match with your eventual trading behavior with standard Forex accounts.
With the Demo account, having no real money means no actual risk. In reality, people view the demo trading as a play trade with play money. Thus a phenomenon arises where newbie traders are wizards at trading with demo accounts but lose heavily when they start using standard accounts with real money.
Consequently, when trading with a Mini account, your primary goal should be to mimic your trading behavior in standard accounts. The opportunity to test drive your system of trading is there but your potential monetary losses are much less.
On your part, to make the mini account effective, employ the same regard and management of risks that are used in the standard account. The end result should be successful forex trading by employing the appropriate discipline levels.
Once you achieve success with your forex mini trading account, moving up to the standard account can be done with the confidence of having actual real money trades on your resume.