Best Funded Trader Programs: 6 Great Firms Funding Traders

It takes a lot to become a successful trader, but the most important element is capital. If you don’t have any money to trade, you’re going to have a hard time getting started. 

That’s where funded trading programs come in. Certain proprietary trading firms will fund traders, no matter where they’re from or where they went to school. 

It’s quite simple. Choose a funded trader program, pay for and pass their trading skills evaluation, and you could be funded up to $1 million. 

Quite a few prop firms offer funded trading accounts, but some make the trading evaluation much harder than others, some only offer certain instruments to trade, and some don’t actually have the traders’ best interests in mind. It’s critical, therefore, that you chose the best funded trader program. 

Funded Trader Program Review Summary

1. My top pick: E8 Markets (Best for trading forex)

These last two years have been tough for prop firms and many didn’t make it. E8 Markets, however, has stood strong. With three years now under their belts, and millions of dollars of verified payouts, they are THE best option for American forex traders. If you haven’t tried them before, they offer my readers a 5% discount with the code MDFS a truly great bargain.

2. The 5%ers — 9.1/10 (Best for quick funding)

The 5%ers offers really quick funding, an outstanding reputation, a proven track record, and some of the best spreads in the business. Plus, they have a lot to offer in terms of trading education.

Pros

I don’t know if anyone in the funded trader business is as quick to give out capital to good traders as the 5%ers. Say you’ve spotted a great trading opportunity and need capital fast. The 5%ers will give you $20,000 ASAP.

The 5%ers also have the best scaling plan in the business, so they reward you with 4x your opening capital, and they do it almost immediately because they have no minimum trading days. Now you have $80K. Continue winning those trades, and they’ll double that capital, and continue to do so—all the way up to $4 million. 

With that kind of money on the line, you’d think the 5%ers would have a ton of trading and risk management rules, but they actually have only one very simple trading parameter: an equity stop-out level of 6%. If your account drops 6% below your opening balance, you’re done. That goes down to 4% once you’ve reached the third level, but still that’s all you have to worry about. There’s no daily drawdown, trailing drawdown, relative drawdown, or anything else.

The 5%ers also welcome traders of any stripe. If you’re a swing trader or a scalper, you can trade with the 5%ers. If you want to hold positions overnight or over weekends, no problem. The 5%ers even allow EAs in most cases. Basically, the 5%ers will fund any trading strategies that work.

I’m also a big fan of the 5%ers’ educational resources and trader support. Considering how much money they hand out to traders, it makes perfect sense that the 5%ers will do everything they can to give their traders a leg up in the market. They offer one-on-one coaching, daily strategy sessions, a number of videos, courses, and more. 

I’ve also always been impressed by the speed of the 5%ers when it comes to processing payments. I’ve never waited more than a day or so. The 5%ers has one of the most trusted funded trader programs on the market, and this is one of the main reasons why.

Cons

One of the reasons the 5%ers are so quick to give out tons of capital to good traders is that they take a pretty healthy cut of the profits. Fifty percent, to be exact. To those of you used to seeing 80%–90% payouts, keep in mind that those are for accounts that require extensive evaluation. 

The 5%ers, on the other hand, put their money on the line immediately—their risk goes up, their reward goes up. I also don’t mind the 50/50 split because it means the 5%ers have real skin in the game and are heavily incentivised to help me succeed. 

The 5%ers also have a somewhat limited array of tradable assets compared to other funded trader programs. They recently added the ability to trade gold, silver, and a selection of six indices. It’s a far cry from Fidelcrest, which offers crypto, far more indices, shares, and other assets as well.

Overall

The 5%ers give good traders capital as fast as they can. With instant funding, rapid account scaling, manageable profit targets, personalized coaching, and simple trading parameters, the 5%ers design their program to help great traders succeed. Get your capital now and start the rapid ascent towards a $4 million account with the 5%ers.

3. Topstep Futures — 9.3/10 (Best for trading futures)

If you’re a futures trader or hope to be, Topstep offers the best funded account by a substantial margin. Their profit splits are the best in the industry, their coaching and trader support are second to none, and their current promotion of up to 70% off means they’re also a great bargain.

Pros   

Topstep is so good, that some of their most glowing reviews come from traders who never actually achieved a funded trading account. Why are they still impressed? Even if they didn’t get funded, they still got a masterclass in futures trading. That’s what makes it an ideal prop firm for beginners.

With daily market videos, one-on-one coaching, performance reviews, educational videos, daily live trading sessions via TopstepTV and more, you can’t help but learn a lot. I learned more through Topstep than I did in a futures course I took at a pretty decent university.

All that’s not to say that Topstep doesn’t fund traders, because they do—more than 9,000 traders in October. And those traders are also unquestionably content. Once you get a funded trader account with Topstep, they’ll give you 100% of your first $5,000 in profits, and 90% thereafter.

So how easy is it to get funded with Topstep? There’s only one rule you need to abide by to avoid losing your account — the max loss limit. While other prop firms work overtime to trip you up with unnecessary rules, Topstep keeps it incredibly simple.

Topstep has also significantly streamlined the evaluation process. They’ve gone from an industry-standard two-step evaluation to just one step. If you hit your profit targets, you could become funded in as few as two days. If you’re a more patient trader, you can also take as long as you need.  

Topstep is also one of the increasingly rare funded trader programs that gives out actual capital. Many prop-trading firms keep their traders in a demo account even after they are funded. These demo firms pay out real money, of course, but their traders are never actually in the real market. Topstep is real. In fact, Topstep traders trade an average of more than 5,000 real futures contracts per day.

And finally, I can’t overstate how trustworthy Topstep is. They’ve been in the funding trader business for more than 10 years and are well known around the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and the Chicago Board of Trade. While some firms might drag their feet when it comes time to pay out, Topstep processes most payments in less than one business day. I’ve worked with a number of prop firms, and Topstep is, in my experience, simply the best when it comes to payouts. 

Topstep’s current discount, up to 70%, is also the best discount I’ve found among reputable prop firms. 

Cons  

If you’re not into trading futures, despite their upside, you’ll obviously have to look to a different prop firm. Topstep toyed with offering a forex funded account for a while, but ultimately decided to stick to their strengths.

The Topstep Combine requires you to close out any positions before the end of the trading day (3:10 p.m. CT). The next trading day starts just an hour and 50 minutes later, but you have to be flat in the interim. It’s not a big deal for disciplined traders, but for someone used to the 24-hour forex market, it could be an adjustment.

Topstep also charges monthly fees rather than a one-time sign-up fee like other funded trader programs. That could be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on how long it takes you to pass the Combine. The monthly fees go away once you’ve been funded, so pass the Combine in a few months or less, and you made a great deal.

Overall

Topstep is the best at what they do. They educate, encourage, and fund futures traders, and they reward good traders with the best profit splits in the industry. Top-of-the-line products usually come at a significant price, but for a limited time, you can sign up with Topstep for up to 70% off, an incredible deal.

4. FTMO — 8.9/10 (best reputation)

For the longest time, FTMO was the gold standard when it came to funded trader programs. If they weren’t the ones who invented the modern funded trader program, they were certainly the ones who popularized it. In doing so, they funded thousands of traders, paid out millions of dollars, and built up a stellar reputation.

That reputation is still intact, and FTMO still has one of the world’s best funded trader programs. The truth is, however, that they’ve fallen behind the competition a bit in terms of prices, profit targets, account sizes, and more. It is now possible, for example, to set up an account with the Funded Trader, save significant money and have nearly the same experience, or you can sign up for a $1 million account with Fidelcrest, while FTMO tops out at just $200K for initial capital. (I’ve put together a handy chart that compares all these firms, if you’re interested.) 

Despite that, FTMO still brings in thousands of clients, many of whom are attracted to the security of the FTMO brand. While the other funded trader programs may have FTMO beat in certain categories, they are all still relatively new to funding traders, which can be a pretty risky business. My Forex Funds might have eclipsed FTMO in popularity, but will it be around in 10 years? Hopefully, but we know FTMO will still be around.

And for all I said about FTMO being bested by the competition, they still have some pretty trader-friendly terms. Ten percent profit targets in step one, which dip to 5% for step two of their evaluation, which is known as the FTMO Challenge, are very reasonable. And a max loss of 10% with a daily max loss of 5% is close to industry standard. Why? Because FTMO built the industry standard. 

I personally have had some ups and downs with FTMO, but they are consistently quick to make payouts, fair with their profit targets and trading rules, innovative when it comes to designing trading apps, and as safe a bet as you can make. If you’re not one to trust a flash in the pan and want the consistency of a funded trader program that’s been around forever, sign up with FTMO here.

5. FundedNext (best for guaranteed payouts)

FundedNext made a big splash in the prop world when they started guaranteeing their payouts just when a lot of other firms were facing serious payout delays. FundedNext has stuck with their promise and offers $1,000 if it takes longer than 24 hours to process your payout. That’s unheard of in this industry.

Another incredibly trader-friendly innovation is FundedNext’s payouts on evaluation stages. That’s right, if you pass on to a funded account, you’ll receive 15% of the profits you made during evaluations. That’s a huge boost to new traders trying to break into the ranks of the professionals.

FundedNext also offers three trading platforms: MT5, MT4, and cTrader, and their dashboard is incredibly user-friendly. In general I’ve never had any problems with their tech, and their trading conditions have been great. Even in the face of election-related volatility, I saw very little slippage.

The knock on FundedNext is that they charge high swap fees, so if you want to keep trades overnight, you might want to look elsewhere. They are also currently unavailable to US traders — both US citizens and US residents — so Americans need to look elsewhere.

They also lack a lot of tradable assets, as they are mostly forex-focused, so if you like to dabble in other assets, you might be out of luck. That said, they have added a number of indices and cryptocurrencies.

FundedNext doesn’t do a lot of discounts, but they do offer some pretty great promos, like an occasional BOGO – Buy one account and if you pass your evaluation, you’ll get another account for free. I keep a listing of current prop firm promos here.

They also have a great deal for my readers. If you sign up with this link, they’ll give you 110% refund on your evaluation fees if you pass — that’s in addition to the profit share.

6. Lux Trading (best for big accounts)

Lux Trading is a no-nonsense prop firm that is looking for a very specific type of trader. When they find that individual they throw heaps of capital at them. I’m talking millions. If you’re not that type of trader, they will kindly tell you to seek your funds elsewhere.

More than any other funded trader program I know, Lux values consistency. They want the grinders—the traders who amass a lot of smaller, profitable trades and avoid the big losses. This is most evident in their maximum relative drawdown, which is a pretty stingy 5%, and their minimum days requirement. To become funded at Lux, you have to trade for more than 29 days. That’s 29 days to pass phase one of their evaluation plus however long it takes to pass phase two, which no longer has a minimum. As other firms are getting rid of minimum trading days altogether, Lux cut the minimum days for phase two, but is holding firm for phase one.

On the flip side, you can take as long as you need to hit a modest 6% profit target. Like I said, they reward steady winners. And here’s how they reward it: from a $200K account, you can work your way up to $10 million worth of capital in just six stages. 

So if you are a cautious trader who understands risk management, you can sign up with Lux Trading and begin your ascent to a $10 million account. 

Methodology: How I ranked the best funded trader programs

In order to rank these funded trader programs, I grade them on scale of 1–10 based on their performance in the following categories:

• Trading rules: Some firms make it much harder to get their capital than others. I looked at max losses, max drawdowns, profit targets, and any other rules that might affect your ability to become a funded trader
• Costs/value: Of course I looked at which funded trading programs offer the cheapest sign-up fees, but I also considered what you get for your buck. Some firms offer so much in the way of guidance and education that they are worth a few extra dollars.
• Tradable assets: Some funded trading programs offer access to more financial instruments than others. 
• Profit splits: I found a pretty narrow range here. Most funded trading programs that have evaluations offer 80%–90% splits, and most instant-funding firms offer 50%. Some firms throw in a wrinkle, however, by offering “up to 90%” but the 90% is only offered on a few accounts. I took these marketing gimmicks into account.
• Scaling opportunities: “Scaling” in the funded trading world is when a firm rewards successful traders with increasing amounts of capital. Some firms are more aggressive than others. The best in this category offer a clear, obtainable path to give their best traders the most money.
• Educational resources: I think this category is important not only because a lot of traders are just entering the market, but I’ve also found that the firms that truly care about their traders’ success spend the most time and money on keeping their traders educated and informed.
• Customer service: Funded trading programs can prove confusing. There’s often a lot of rules to abide by. Good programs dedicate a lot of resources to helping their traders understand and abide by these rules.

What is a funded trader program?

A funded trader program does exactly what the name implies: funds traders. If you are a trader who needs capital to get you started, you can open an account with a funded trader program or proprietary trading firm. You will have to pay for an evaluation and prove that you can profitably trade while abiding by the program’s risk management rules. If you’re successful, you’ll be funded up to a $1 million, and will split the profits with the firm, taking home up to 90%. If you fail, you lose your evaluation fee, but the firm will cover any trading losses you incurred.

How can I become a funded trader?

There are two ways to become a funded trader. The most common is to pay for an audition with a proprietary trading firm, and then pass their trader evaluation by proving you can turn a profit while abiding by the firm’s trading rules. Once you’ve passed you’ll be entitled to up to 90% of any profits you make.

There are also some firms, like the 5%ers, that will instantly fund traders. All you have to do is sign up, pay the fee, and start trading. If you trade by their rules and turn a profit, you’re entitled to 50% of what you made.

How do funded trader programs work?

Funded trader programs give capital to traders, sometimes as much as $1 million or more, but not without a few strings attached. Traders have to pay for and pass an evaluation to make sure they can profitably trade without taking on too much risk. Once the traders become funded, they still have to abide by the program’s trading rules, or they will lose their account. Any profits that are made are split between the trader and the funded trader program (or prop firm), with the trader keeping up to 90%. 

Firms that instantly fund traders don’t have an evaluation, but they are usually more expensive to join and take a larger cut of the profits.

Are funded trader programs legit?

Yes, there are many legit funded trader programs, starting with the list above. Typically, traders have to pay for an evaluation and pass it by trading profitably and keeping within the program’s rules. If they do so, they can become funded traders and can keep a significant percentage of any profits they make. 

Conclusion: My best funded trader program

Funded trading programs offer a great opportunity to help launch your trading career and maximize your profits, but not all programs are designed to help traders succeed. Choose your program carefully. If you value your money and your time, don’t settle for anything less than the best. In my opinion that’s Topstep. Sign up here for 20% off my choice for the best faded trader program.