The Best Forex Prop Firms [Updated For 2023] (2024)

• Extensive range of markets to trade
• Simple and easy audition rules
• Funding available up to $1,000,000
• The cheapest $100K audition fee

• Low 4% daily loss limit
• Lacking educational materials
• No online community yet
• Withdrawals take 30 days

Best Upscaling Prop Firm Plan

FTMO Offers The Best Scalable Model

In the realm of prop trading, FTMO has carved out its name as one of the largest players with funded trader accounts. Providing a launchpad for aspiring traders, it’s honed a reputation for dependability and transparency, alongside a sturdy risk management framework.

The Highlights

• A broad array of trading instruments
• Utilization of MT4, MT5, and cTrader platforms
• Opportunity to reattempt without cost
• A 25% growth plan every quarte

Types Of Accounts

FTMO offers two main categories of accounts based on risk tolerance levels:

• Normal and Aggressive Risk Levels
• Capital ranging from $10,000 to $200,000 (only offered for normal risk level)

The typical profit split at FTMO is 80/20, translating into an 80% share of all your earnings, which is considerably generous within the prop trading industry.

To qualify for a funded account, a broker must navigate through a two-step audition: The FTMO Challenge and Verification stage. These stages necessitate the accomplishment of various trading objectives, including certain profit targets, and daily loss limits.

FTMO’s Aggressive and Normal risk levels differ in terms of profit requirements and allowable daily losses, with the former being more lenient. Both levels, however, share the same timeframe to achieve profit targets: 10-30 days (FTMO Challenge) and 10-60 days (Verification step).

FTMO has a unique offer: if you fail to pass the audition but meet certain trading objectives, you can retry without paying any additional fee.

Once you’ve successfully passed both steps, you’re given access to a live trading account, which comes with an unlimited trading timeframe, albeit with identical trading objectives.

The Scaling Plan

FTMO provides an excellent opportunity for traders to expand their horizons through its upscaling plan. Provided you make a profit of at least 10% over the last four months (averaging 2.5% per month), you can enhance your capital by 25% every quarter. The highlight of this plan is that there is no upper limit.

FTMO’s Product Range and Trading Platforms

FTMO offers an extensive range of financial instruments including a variety of forex pairs, cash CFDs, metals, futures, cryptos, and equities. They also provide access to top-notch trading platforms such as MetaTrader 4 and 5, and cTrader.

Verdict

FTMO has made its mark in the prop trading industry with an 80% profit share, a diverse product portfolio, and access to the best-known trading platforms. Moreover, its upscaling plan allows traders to potentially manage a $2M account.

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Top Instant Funding Account

My Forex Funds Has The Most Impressive Instant Funding

Established in 2020 and headquartered in Toronto, My Forex Funds has quickly emerged as a prop firm offering the most impressive instant funding in the market. It provides three funding models and allows traders to start profiting from day one.

Key Features:

• Massive scaling plan up to $1.35M
• Instant funding with two of its plans
• High leverage of up to 1:500
• No audition required for the Rapid account

Accounts and Programs

MyForexFunds has 3 types of accounts suitable for all levels of trader experience including Rapid, Evaluation and Accelerated. These are based on experience level.

The Rapid Plan is designed for beginners, the Evaluation account is more suited for experienced traders, and the Accelerated Plan offers an unique prop market opportunity with no audition required and immediate funding.

While MyForexFunds might not offer the most extensive selection of financial instruments, it does provide a decent variety including 50 spot forex pairs, 11 CFD instruments and 4 spot metals encompassing indices and crude oil.

Trading Platforms

In terms of trading platforms, MyForexFunds stays on top of the game by offering two of the most widely used and highly regarded options: MetaTrader 4 and 5. These platforms are equipped with advanced charting tools and come with an in-built economic calendar for enhanced trading efficiency.

Whether you prefer to trade on a desktop or on the go, both of these platforms are compatible with Android and iOS-based mobile devices.

Verdict

In conclusion, MyForexFunds presents an all-inclusive package to prop traders, catering to all experience levels. The firm stands out with its affordable fees, immediate funding, and a generous profit split of up to 85%. Regardless of your trading style or experience, MyForexFunds has an offering tailored to your needs.

Great Social Trading Community

The Funded Trader Has The Best Trader Community

Onto The Funded Trader, a relatively new prop firm established in 2021, it has made a name for itself in a short span of time. The firm is particularly recognized for its robust trading community, featuring a leaderboard that allows traders to showcase their profits and engage with other traders worldwide.

Key Strengths:

• Top-tier broker partnerships for optimal trading conditions.
• A diverse selection of account types.
• Complimentary monthly challenge.
• Profit split arrangement of up to 90%.

Account Types

The Funded Trader offers four distinct account types or challenges: Standard Challenge, Rapid Challenge, Royal Challenge, and Knight Challenge. All these challenges start with a default payout ratio of 80:20, which can be enhanced to 90:10 if you meet the terms of the scaling plan. You also have the option to increase your account by 25% with this plan.

Each challenge necessitates a two-phase evaluation process. Once you clear these, a fully-funded account awaits you. All funded accounts have identical maximum drawdown limits (daily and initial deposit) and no explicit profit targets.

The Standard Challenge account ranges from a minimal $25,000 to a maximum of $400,000. This challenge requires a profit target of 10% for Phase 1 (over 35 days), and 5% for Phase 2 (over 60 days), without exceeding a 6% maximum daily loss and a 12% total loss.

The Rapid Challenge accelerates the process, lowering the profit target and removing the minimum trading period. For this challenge, you are required to make a profit of 8% in Phase 1 and 5% in Phase 2.

The Royal Challenge mirrors the Rapid Challenge in terms of profit targets but allows for higher drawdown limits. The Knight Challenge, on the other hand, paves a quicker path to a live account, requiring only one audition stage.

The Funded Trader offers a slim range to trade – 44 Forex, 2 metals, and 9 indices. You can also trade cryptos during Phases 1 and 2 of the Standard, Rapid, and Royal challenges. This can be considered a slight downside.

Trading Platforms

The Funded Trader, in a broker partnership with Eightcap, offers both the MetaTrader 4 and MetaTrader 5.

With both platforms you can trade the firm’s full product range and have access to all the trading tools both platforms have in their arsenal.

Verdict

Overall, The Funded Trader capacitates you with four different account options, a profit sharing of as high as 90%, and an account upscaling plan of up to $1.5M. It also enjoys a great community vibe with its leaderboard as a free challenge and the ability to chat with other prop traders elsewhere in the world.

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Earn2Trade

Has the biggest range of markets

Established in 2016, Earn2Trade, an American prop firm, has a great career pathway, a good profit split offering, and the biggest array of futures markets to trade.

Key Strengths:

• Huge range of futures markets
• Great range of platforms to trade
• Top educational curriculum for beginners
• 80% profit sharing scheme

Account Types

Retail traders have 2 main prop trading channels to choose from:

• Trader Career Path
• The Gauntlet Mini

Each account requires you to pass an audition. This entails having the standard profit target and max drawdown limits. An added constraint is the maximum number of contracts that can be open at any one time, depending on the balance of your account.

The profit share system is 80/20, meaning you are entitled to 80% of your profits. While a good arrangement, you can only avail of this feature once you are funded.

Getting a live account means you take responsibility for necessary fees like the platform and exchange fees including the fees for the brokerage contract and commissions. All these fees are taken out of your account balance.

The one slight disadvantage of Earn2Trade is the monthly subscription fees they charge. Other firms charge audition fees only once.

Gauntlet Mini

Gauntlet Mini offers 4 accounts to choose from, starting from $50,000 all the way up to $200,000.

Earn2Trade is currently discounting all their accounts’ subscription fees. Your monthly subscription fee foe a $50K account is $136, and for the $200K account, you have to shell out $440 monthly. Bear in mind that fees are paid monthly instead of one-off fees that are charged by the majority of firms.

Every account’s goal is to make 6% profit from your initial balance with the exception of the $200,000 account, which is pegged at 5.5%. End-of-day (EOD) drawdown varies from 3-4% contingent on the account you choose. In addition, you have a 2.2% maximum daily loss limit.

Trader Career Channel

The Trader Career progression is exactly what it sounds like – a pathway to being developed as a professional prop trader. The two career paths or accounts are named after your starting account balance, the TCP25 and the TCP50.

Both accounts involve hurdling a 1-step evaluation process with a profit goal and limits to drawdowns.

The TCP25 starts you off with a $25,000 virtual capital that must make a profit of $1750 without losing $550 a day or $1500 in total. You pay $90 as a monthly subscription fee for this account.

The TCP50 account l$50,000 to start with a goal to profit $3000 out of it and $1100 as the daily loss limit and $2000 total drawdown. The fee to be paid is $152 per month.

Monthly subscription fees are required for both accounts. a disadvantage over most prop firms.

One advantage with Earn2Trade, however, is you get a free reset when you are rebilled. This willstart off your trader career path from junior to intermediate to advanced, to a senior account.

For TCP25, the lowest account is the junior live account at $25,000 and the highest is the senior live account with $200,000 funding. TCP50 accounts are double those amounts – $50,000 up to $400,000.

As you advance through the different levels of accounts, your trailing drawdown and daily loss limit also go up. You’ll move up to the next account if you make a 6% profit and withdraw 80% of that amount.

Earn2Trade offers an interesting lineup of markets to trade with exclusions. All CME (CME, CBOT, NYMEX, COMEX) futures assets can be traded. This includes the micros too.

Gauntlet Mini or Trader Career Path accounts do not have forex, stocks, or index trading. Forex traders having these accounts are allowed to trade forex futures products.

Earn2Trade also disallows the trading of Ether and Bitcoin Futures as it considers these assets too volatile.

Trading Platforms

Earn2Trade offers numerous platforms including NinjaTrader, Finamark to Invertor RT. During the evaluation stage, the only platforms that are free to use during evaluation are NinjaTrader, Finamark, R Trader & R Trader Pro, and Overcharts. Live-funded accounts have free use of R Trader & R Trader Pro. A license key is required for using the rest of the platforms.

Other platforms can still be used so long as they are compatible with Rithmic Paper Trading.

According to the firm, Sierra Charts no longer supports Rithmic officially but can still be used with no official Sierra customer support. It further advises against using Rithmic through Sierra Charts.

Verdict

Earn2Trade offers a number of advantages to prop traders including a huge lineup of tradeable futures markets, a vast range of trading platforms, and a profit split of 80%. The firm also has a progressive prop trading path that lets you increase your account to $400K.

While most firms we have covered focus on the CFD prop trading space, futures trading is an interesting point of difference. Other prop firms that focus on futures include TopStep and the Trading Pit.

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True Forex Funds

Has the Lowest Forex Spreads

True Forex Funds is another relatively new prop firm having been established in 2021. It offers some of the lowest forex buy and sell differences (spread) in the market with Raw spread pricing.

Key Strengths:

• Funding up to $400,000
• 80% profit-split arrangement
• Bi-weekly profits
• Weekend holding allowed

Account Types

True Forex Funds only offers one type of account, with 5 account sizes and fees:

• $10,000
• $25,000
• $50,000
• $100,000
• $200,000

Starting at €89, fees rise to a maximum of €998, refundable upon evaluation completion. Currency conversion may be needed as prices are listed in Euros (EUR). True Forex Funds offers a single account type, simplifying the process. There are two evaluation phases to pass before obtaining a live account.

Phase 1 requires an 8% profit, 5% daily loss maximum, and a 10% overall loss maximum within 30 days.

In Phase 2, the profit target is 5%, with the same loss limits, over 60 days.

Both phases require at least 5 trading days to meet targets.

Passing these stages leads to a funded live account with no trading time limit. The same loss limits apply: 5% for Phase 1, 10% for Phase 2. Funded traders get an 80% profit share, matching leading prop firms. With consistent success, your account could grow to $400,000.

Fees are in USD, EUR, or GBP, limiting funding options. The audition fee (refundable) is paid in Euros.

True Forex Funds offers a good all-around array of trading instruments. This includes 40 forex pairs, 13 indices, 30 stocks, 7 commodities and 28 cryptocurrencies. You can trade cryptocurrencies for all 7 days of the week, while only 5 days for forex. All products can be traded as CFDs.

Trading Platforms

True Forex Funds offers both MetaTrader 4 and 5. Both allow Expert Advisor bot (algorithmic) trading.

Verdict

In summary, True Forex Funds provides an uncomplicated account structure and affordable, one-time fees. Also provided is access to low forex spreads from 0 pips. Profits of 80% profits, drawn twice a week and the possibility of increasing your capital up to $400K isn’t bad at all.

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The Quickest Profit-Earning Offer

FundedNext Has The Fastest Earning Program

FundedNext, launched in June 2022, has quickly gained a solid reputation, reflected in its 4.6 Trustpilot score. It promises fast profit-earning, with 15% potential profit from the start.

Key Strengths:

• Up to 90% profit share
• Earn 15% profit right away
• Availability of a dedicated account manager
• Upscale your account up to $4M

Account Types

FundedNext offers two account models for different trading styles:

• Evaluation
• Express

Both funding trading programs offer you the opportunity to earn a profit of 15% as soon as you begin your assessment. To acquire a funded account, you will need to complete the assessment phases and reach profit targets for both models.

The funding models are outlined below.

Evaluation

This model involves 2 phases to assess your trading skills. Passing leads to a live-funded account.

• Phase 1: 10% profit target over 4 trading weeks
• Phase 2: 5% profit target over 8 trading weeks.

Both profit targets must be achieved while adhering to trading objectives. Maximum loss limits of 5% daily and 10% overall from your initial balance apply to both phases.

Account sizes range from $15,000 to $200,000, with corresponding fees of $99 to $999, refundable upon passing both phases. You then gain an account with your chosen funds, with an 80% profit share, potentially increasing to 90% with consistent success.

Express

This single-step, no time limit model requires a 25% profit within the same trading limits, and a minimum of 10 trading days in a month. You then get a funded account and a starting 60% profit share.

Express offers Consistency and Non-Consistency accounts. The latter doesn’t require consistency, and on reaching your 25% target, you receive 25% of your starting balance.

Like the Evaluation model, accounts range from $15,000 to $200,000, but Non-Consistency accounts cap at $100,000. Consistency account fees range from $99 to $999, while Non-Consistency fees are $119 to $699. Although Non-Consistency accounts cost more, they offer fewer restrictions. Consistent success could lead to a 90% profit share and upscaling to $4M.

At FundedNext you can trade only a limited range of products that includes 46 forex, 12 indices, and 4 commodities. All markets can be traded as CFDs.

Trading Platforms

With the limited range of products to trade, FundedNext has decided on MetaTrader 4 as its trading platform. This may seemingly be limiting to some prop traders, but MT4 has reason to be the most popular forex trading platform on the market.

Verdict

Overall, FundedNext offers the quickest path to profits, earning 15% right off the bat, with the chance to let this grow to 90%. The firm also provides a dedicated account manager for support, not to mention the capability to upscale your account to $4M.

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The 5%ers

Stock Prop Trading at its Best

The 5%ers has the reputation of being a reputed provider on this list. This well-respected prop trading firm provides a unique sub-brand, the Trade the Pool.

Key Strengths:

• Earn up to 100% profit
• Trade stocks with Trade the Pool prop firm
• Instant funding available
• Great educational resources

Account Types

The 5%ers offers two main trading programs:

• Instant Funding
• Bootcamp Program

With Instant Funding you are able to trade with a live account upon signing up, well suited for traders with more experience. The Bootcamp Program, however, requires a lower cost to enter with 3 audition steps before you are given a funded account. This will suit beginners.

One unique benefit of the 5%ers is that there is no required stop-loss for both funding programs.

The details for the account are discussed below.

Instant Funding

Instant Funding has two account types; Low Risk and Aggressive. They have differentprofit targets, stopout, leverage, and maximum trading time.

Low Risk’s profit target is basically half that of Aggressive. To illustrate, with a $24,000 account you need to make 6.2% for Low Risk but only 12% for Aggressive.

Stopout is the level at which the firm will allow your account balance to drop to. The allowable stopout of both Instant Funding accounts start at 6% for levels 1 and 2 and goes down to 4% for level 3 and above.

Low Risk has a leverage as high as 1:10. Aggressive allows for 3 times more risk at a leverage of 1:30.

The last difference between accounts is the time allotment. Low Risk gets to have 180 days as compared to Aggressive’s 60 days, giving you more latitude for Low Risk.

Fees are the same for both Low Risk and Aggressive which start at €235 to €745 for the $24,000 and $80,000 accounts, respectively.

Both accounts have payout splits of 50% This is lower than the industry average.

Bootcamp Program

Bootcamp gives you a $100K challenge model with 3 phases to pass to earn the use of a live account.

You start off the challenge with $25,000 and move up in $25,000 increments each time you pass, up until you reach a $100,000 account. You’ll have a profit target of 6% with a maximum loss of 5% at each stage. You need to pass the 3 challenges within a period of 12 months.

This is a low-cost entry account suitable for any trader as it costs only 95 Euros upon enrollment.

The fee charged to get a $100K live account is 205 euros for your $100,000 live account, i.e. assuming you have passed the challenges. At this stage, your profit target is 5%, and a maximum loss of 4%. You can then increase your account to $4M.

The major benefit of the Bootcamp Challenge is the ability to gain up to 100% of your profits. This makes it close to unbeatable.

The 5%ers lets you trade a relatively small variety of 28 major forex pairs and crosses, 6 indices, gold and silver. All of these products are tradeable as CFDs only.

Trade the Pool

The 5%ers stands out as being one firm that has a separate stock trading brand, the Trade the Pool, which has 3 separate programs:

• Super Buying Power
• Extra Buying Power
• Ultimate Power

These programs differ in trading objectives including profit targets, daily loss and max drawdown. The profit sharing scheme increases with each account leading up to 80/20 as your daily loss allowance (or ‘pump’) increases.

The charges for the different programs are shown in the image below.

Trading Platforms

5%ers only offers the MetaTrader 5 trading platform which it finds sufficient with its charting tools (technical indicators, graphical objects, and time-frames), and more enhanced analytical features.

Verdict

5%ers enjoys a solid reputation and is well-respected in the market. The firm provides capital from day 1 as well as enables you to earn up to 100% of your profits (as long as you are able to upscale high enough).

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Good Profit Split Option

SurgeTrader ‘add-on’ let you keep 90% of profits

One of the best prop firms in our view is SurgeTrader. They’re not only well-funded with accounts of up to $1,000,000, but they also offer one of the better profit-sharing schemes, this being up to 90% – you’ll need to pay extra for this though.

Why We Like SurgeTrader

• 1-step audition process
• Earn up to 90% profit
• No time limit to reach your profit target
• Active community

Trading Plans and Accounts

Surge Trader offers one main account structure with 6 package options, based on account size. As can be seen below, the trading rules are both simple and standardised across all accounts, plus their audition fees are very competitive.

With $1,000,000 SurgeTrader has one of the larger funded trading accounts. Another prop firm that offers this funding level is Fidelcrest.

Qualification and Rules

To pass the audition, all you need to do is earn a 10% profit without incurring a 5% in a day or 8% of the total account. You will also need to use a stop loss and not exceed the number of lots you can open with risk.

It’s important to note that breaching either of these last two rules won’t disqualify you from the audition or as a funded trader, but it will trigger intervention from SurgeTrader who will automatically close some of your positions.

Account Customisation

Increasing profit split to 90% from 75% is one of the features available with SurgeTraders ‘Add-on’ offering. This ability to customise your account with add-ons is a unique feature to this prop firm. If you do decide to purchase the add-on, it will add an extra 20% of the fee cost onto the total.

Other customisations include the ability to increase leverage from 1:10 to 1:20 and remove the requirement for a stop loss.

Community and Education

SurgeTrader offers educational materials via their website and YouTube channel. Social interactions to share trading ideas is possible throug their Discord community which has over over 12,000 members including 117 funded members, and six US $1 million account members.

If you’re looking to get involved in an active trading community with other funded traders, then SurgeTrader is one of the few prop firms that help you do this.

Our Verdict On SurgeTrader

We think SurgeTrader excels on various levels. They have a vast range of account types, the option to customise your trading experience with add-ons, and a robust trading community supported with great educational resources. If these are the sorts of things you’re looking for, then SurgeTrader could be the prop firm for you.

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What Is Prop Trading?

Why Use A Prop Firm Rather Than A Real Account

About the author: Justin Grossbard

Justin Grossbard is the co-founder of CompareForexBrokers and since 2014 with the role of Strategic Head Of Research. He is a member of the AICD and holds a Master's and Bachelor's Degree in Commerce. He previously worked with the banking sector, including ANZ and is a contributor to Finance Magnates, Kiplinger and Forbes. He has also published a book on alternative investments which is available on Amazon.