Best Prop Trading Firms Of 2024

Looking for the best prop firm to fit your needs can be a pain and can take forever.

But that’s where I come in because I have already done the research and gone through the first-hand experience of dealing with several prop trading firms.

That’s why you will definitely know the platform you want to trade on once you go through this. This write-up is a comprehensive and comparative analysis of what to expect from these firms and what trading styles it is compatible with.

So let’s get in

Best Forex Prop Trading Firms

#1. TheFundedTrader

There is only one way to get funding from TheFundedTrader and that is by choosing the challenge that you think you will be able to ace, and paying the adequate fees. In every challenge, there are options for either a regular account or a swing account where the swing account allows for weekend holding.

The Standard Challenge costs $315 for a $50,000 corpus, a Rapid challenge costs $299 for $50,000 and $289 for a Royal Challenge of the same amount that has lesser restrictions, no lot size limits and Expert Advice trading allowed.

The prop trading firm allows you to trade commodities, forex, indices and crypto.

The fee paid to the platform will be refunded as soon as you can pass the two-phase challenge. The profit split starts at 80% but can be scaled up to 90% with consistently achieving profit targets.

The three plans need to be compared before a final decision is made. The Rapid Challenge has 0 minimum trading days in comparison to the other plans so you don’t need to make mandatory trades on a set number of days even if your trading plan does not allow you to.

The prop trading firm only allows maximum leverage of 1:2 determined by whether the challenge is ongoing or if it has been funded.

If you want to trade crypto on the platform, there are four currencies in their USD pairs including Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin and Ethereum and they do not charge any commission on these trades.

Currently, you are not allowed to pay any of the platform’s fees in crypto but you can set it up so that your ERC20 address is where you receive your payout. They are partnered with Coinbase for this operation so getting your profits in USDT or ETH straight into your wallet will be easy.

For swing trading, the appropriate account allows the trader 1:1 leverage both during the challenge and after you have become a funded trader.

 

#2. My Forex Funds

My Forex Funds gives its prospective trader three different options to choose from. You can either become a funded trader instantly with their Rapid plan for a refundable fee of $99 and $10,000 in trading balance but it requires you to stay within the 12% overall drawdown and the 5% daily drawdown, the Evaluation plan for a $49 refundable fee for $5,000, or the Accelerated plan for a $99 refundable fee for $2,000.

The one-time fee is refunded along with your first profit withdrawals from the live account. Also, you are allowed to perform forex trading, along with crypto, and metals. If stocks are your financial instrument of choice, there is bad news for you as MFF does not allow you to trade these.

The evaluation process in the Evaluation plan will need you to stay within the set rules while achieving your profit targets. The Accelerated plan on the other hand is more for seasoned traders and does not bind them to any rules of consistency, time, lot size or drawdowns.

As far as profit split is concerned, you get to keep 12% with the Rapid plan, up to 85% with the Evaluation plan, and 50% with the Accelerated plan.

A few things to keep in mind when trading with MyForexFunds is they only use MetaTrader 4 and 5 which could be limiting for some traders. The education for beginner traders or ones that are willing to learn more is not satisfactory but in the form of blog posts that are not frequent.

The platform also does not allow you to take any trades over the weekend with the servers being disabled for this time.

For scalability, MyForexFunds offers the option once every pay cycle if 20% profit targets are achieved, your trading balance can be increased by 150% or 200%. If you want to reach out to a support representative, your best bet is through the live chat, email or raising a ticket on the website.

 

#3. FTMO

FTMO is one of the better platforms to come out of Europe and allows its traders to trade Commodities, Forex, Indices, Crypto, Stocks and Bonds. The profit share starts with 80% but with the scaling plan, 90% can be achieved quickly.

The fee you pay for any of FTMO’s challenges is refunded to you when you pass their 2-step challenge and become an FTMO-funded trader. There are a variety of plans to choose from ranging from $10,000 in trading balance to $200,000.

According to your style of trading, you have the option to pick the normal challenge (fee of €155 for $10,000) or the aggressive one (€250 for $10,000). The normal challenge has trading rules like achieving profit targets of 10% for Stage 1, and 5% for Stage 2. For the aggressive challenge, you need to attain 20% for Stage 1 and 10% for Stage 2.

For those who are in the crypto world, FTMO has made it possible to pay your challenge fee and receive your profit payouts in any of the six options including but not limited to Bitcoin, Ethereum, or Tether. You can also trade up to ten different cryptocurrencies in their USD pairs.

There are other rules that you need to be vigilant of like a minimum of 10 trading days in 30 days, a maximum daily loss of $500 (5%) and a total loss of $1,000 (10%). All trades do need to be closed by Friday except if you are part of the FTMO Swing account or when you are trying to complete the evaluation for the trading challenge.

To make it easier for the traders that like to take larger positions, there are no limits on position size.

If you keep making profits, you can scale the balance of your account by 25% every 4 months. The plans can go up to a $200,000 trading balance by paying a fee of €1,080 but the rules and other target percentages stay the same.

For someone who is always learning and willing to improve their craft, educational resources, a personal performance coach and account analysis all help you make better decisions and earn more money.

They also have 24/7 customer support via phone and live chat so that any issues on the platform can be resolved quickly.

 

Recommended: MyForexFunds vs FTMO

#4. Fidelcrest

Fidelcrest allows you to trade multiple forex pairs, major stock market indices, metals, commodities, and stocks. The platform has a 2-step evaluation process where you can either choose a Micro or Pro account. Micro accounts have two further options, a Normal risk (€99 for $10,000, €249 for $25,000, €449 for $50,000)plan, and an Aggressive risk (€149 for $10,000, €349 for $25,000, €549 for $50,000) plan.

If you are confident in your skills a Pro account with Normal risk (€649 for $150,000, €999 for $250,000, €1,799 for $500,000), or a Pro Account with Aggressive risk (€999 for $150,000, €1,599 for $250,000, €2,899 for $500,000) might be better options for you.

Something that is unique to Fidelcrest and that I have not seen on any other trading platforms is the ability to be able to choose between either doubling your capital (‘Double your capital’) or getting a second account with the same trading balance (‘Second chance for free’).

Prop traders can use this chance to either try out different trading strategies or use one account for forex trading and the other one for futures trading, or as a second account with the same balance to double the total corpus.

The fee you pay when selecting the type of account is refunded after completing phase 2 along with a payout depending on your account. The difference between the normal and aggressive accounts are the profit targets, maximum drawdowns, and profit splits.

You also have the option to use a maximum of 1:100 leverage which can help you get to your goals quickly if you are confident in your trades. If you run into issues while making trades, the support team is available for its traders all 24 hours every business day.

 

#5. BluFx

BluFX is essentially a forex prop firm (with 19 forex pairs) with the added ability to trade gold as well. To be able to access the prop trading firm, it needs you to pay for a monthly subscription which allows its traders to follow their trading strategies, including not having any minimum trading period or no time constraints to achieve your profit target.

The prop firm has four different plans including two swap-free Lite (£139 for $25,000) and Pro (£329 for $50,000) while the plans that have swaps cost £99 for $25,000 (Lite) and £249 for $50,000 (Pro). These fees are to be paid until you can become a Fund Manager, the process of which is mentioned below.

To be able to get rid of the monthly subscription fees with the Pro package, and get other perks like the lack of trading restrictions and lack of withdrawal targets, you need to earn the 10% profit target three times. You don’t have these upgrade options in the Lite package.

The profit split is capped at 50/50 to compensate for the risk that the prop trading company takes on as there are no evaluation tests. The 50% that goes to the firm is the monetary compensation for this risk.

Another difference between the Lite and Pro packages is that the trading hours are restricted to between 6 am and 9 pm UTC. Both the Lite and Pro accounts need to close all their positions at the end of the day Friday (9 pm UTC).

It does not have the option to take an evaluation test and get instant funding. Hedging is a significant con that would be useful for most prop traders but the prop trading firm does not have it. This might not work if you are interested in futures trading.

 

#6. City Traders Imperium

At this prop trading firm, you can pay a one-time fee of £999 (non-refundable) for the ability to instantly trade with $20,000. Although the profit split starts low at 50%, if you keep your trading wins consistent, you can work your way up to a 100% profit split.

If you trade forex and gold, the lowest tier of accounts will work for you but indices are only included in accounts higher than the first tier onwards.

For the traders who need or want it, the market education is plenty on the trading platform and will help you become a better trader. If you do run into any issues with the interface, the support team is available on business days via live chat or email.

City Traders Imperium has a scaling plan that doubles your trading balance every time you get to the 10% profit target up to a maximum of $4 million.

The platform also allows you to trade as per Expert Advice (EA), and hold positions overnight or over the weekend. City Traders imperium caps the leverage at 1:10 for all accounts which can be beneficial for traders who like taking swing trades.

If you want to test your skills and see if you are up for the challenge, there is a plan where you have to achieve the targets within a year (Classic Evaluation) or 6 months (Standard Evaluation). This removes most of your trading restrictions but limits you to a 5% drawdown.

The Classic Evaluation process at City Traders Imperium starts with £109 (non-refundable) for a $2,500 balance going all the way up to £649 (non-refundable) for a $17,500 balance. As soon as you complete 30 active trading days and manage to stay within the rules in that duration, the aforementioned balances increase by 400%.

If and when you fail the evaluation process the prop firm gives you a 5% discount on the next evaluation. If you fail at any of the rules as a direct funded account, or as a portfolio manager you get a 10% discount on your next evaluation test.

 

#7. Topstep

Topstep has its evaluation process which comprises two steps and includes the much-advertised ability to keep a 100% of your first $5,000-$10,000 in profits. Even after this, the prop firm has profit splits of 80% in the trader’s favour.

As funded traders on this prop firm, you are only allowed to trade futures contracts from the Chicago trading company, Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) and this could be a potential limiting factor for a prop trader who either has or is looking to build a diverse trading portfolio.

If you want an account with a $50,000 trading balance, it will cost you a monthly fee of $165/month which is non-refundable but it gives you unlimited time to achieve your profit target.

Your end-of-day balance decides how many lots you are allowed to trade, the lowest being two lots when your balance is below $51,500 and the limit can go up to 5 lots when the balance is above $52,000.1.

When you get to Step 2 of the challenge the balance in your trading account is evaluated at the end of each day and the number of lots you are allowed to trade is decided based on that.

Once you have a funded account you can either have $10,000 in cumulative profit to readjust risk parameters or trade more lots as compared to what your Maximum Position Size suggests. For this, you have to get in touch with your Funded Account Specialist at the prop firm via email.

As one of the best prop trading firms Topstep has useful educational resources which can help both new and experienced traders. Also, if you are one of the retail traders looking to get a feel of the rules of the game the prop firms give them unlimited time to achieve their objectives (6% profit target) while keeping the losses low.

Keep an eye out for when they announce a sale for their Trading Combine. This can bring down your monthly costs dramatically.

 

#8. Earn2Trade

Earn2Trade is another one of those prop trading service that charge you a monthly non-refundable fee of $150 to give you $25,000 in trading capital but gives you a virtual account to start your journey.

Once the profit target of 6% is reached you can choose whether you want to upgrade to a Junior LiveSim account or a Junior Live Account, and 80% of the profits are transferred to the trader’s account. Forex traders will be disappointed with this platform as it only allows for trading futures that are part of the CME futures assets.

Whereas the Trader Career Path and the Gauntlet Mini accounts use simulated, virtual accounts with a real-time data feed, the LiveSim account uses these simulated, virtual accounts but allows the withdrawal of actual money from them.

The Live account uses a funded brokerage account on the CME platform. Once the evaluation process is completed, there is no more monthly subscription fee or rules regarding the minimum trading days.

If they keep achieving their profit target, the prop traders can build up their corpus to $200,000 with a fixed non-trailing drawdown of $6,000. The proprietary trading company needs you to trade for a minimum of 15 days during the approved times and the progression ladder tells the trader how many contracts can be traded at a time.

You are also allowed to attend the webinars and mentorship programs offered by the proprietary trading firm which will make you a better trader.

If you do run into any issues with the interface or the prop firm in general, their customer interface is renowned and available via email, live chat, or phone 24/7.

 

#9. The5%ers

According to your trading style, you can pick either the instant funding account model at the proprietary trading firm that starts at €235 non-refundable fee of your own money for $6,000 up to €745 for $20,000 in trading balance.

The financial instruments available to trade include forex pairs and gold and the prop trading firm allows you to hold your trades over the weekend, overnight and even news trading regardless of the plan you are on.

You can either choose the low-risk accounts that offer mandatory stop losses, 180 days to achieve the targeted profit, and 1:10 leverage or the aggressive accounts that do not need mandatory stop losses, 60 days to achieve the profit target, and 1:30 leverage.

If you can achieve these targets in the given time and do not break any other trading rules, your balance is increased by 400% with profit splits of 50% which is low when compared to the other proprietary trading companies out there.

With every subsequent 10% profit (for the low-risk plan) and 25% (for the aggressive plan), the scaling plan will increase your balance capped at $4 million.

If the 50% is low for you, go ahead and pick the boot camp model (€85 to take the challenge and €215 after you pass) that has a 3-step challenge which must be completed in 12 months with a 6% profit target (low-risk plan) and 12% for the aggressive plan with a maximum loss of 5% and maximum leverage of 1:10.

Once you complete the challenge, you start with an account worth $100,000 and it can be scaled up to $4 million. When it started, this was one of the only forex prop trading firms making rules beneficial for swing traders which goes to show that The5%ers consider them to be useful to make profits from.

 

#10. The Prop Trading

This prop trading firm is the only Australian one on the list and currently has close to 25,000 experienced traders plying their trade on the platform. Depending on your trading style and the financial markets you like to trade, you can choose between trading forex pairs, indices, metals or crypto.

You have a choice of five account sizes that start with a refundable fee (with your first withdrawal) of $209 which gives you $25,000 to trade with. In step 1 you have a target of 8% in 30 days and 5% in step 2 which you can achieve in a maximum of 60 days.

As per the website, it takes 6 days to complete the first phase and 9 days for step 2. 80% of the profit you make is paid out to you in a biweekly manner.

You can hold all of your positions over the weekend or during news releases which is more accommodating of different trading styles. The scaling of your trading account is an increase of 25% every three months which is slow compared to its competitors.

There have been complaints about the speed and efficiency of their customer service which is something you should try and assess during the free trial that the proprietary trading firm offers. The available educational material is also few and far between, but there are blog posts that can teach you some valuable tips and tricks.

 

#11. SurgeTrader

You can start your SurgeTrader journey with the one-time refundable payment of $250 for their Starter plan which gives you a $25,000 trading balance and up to $6,500 for the Master Plan which gives you $1 million in trading balance.

The trading instruments available on the prop firm are forex, metals, indices, oil, crypto, and stocks so if you have a trading strategy that works on other financial instruments, then you should give this platform a chance.

To stay a part of the prop firm though you have to adhere to their rules of maximum daily drawdown (4%) and maximum trailing drawdown (5%). There are very relaxed trading rules in terms of having no 30-day assessment periods, no number of unique trades placed quota or a certain number of minimum trading days.

The firm gives its prop traders a 75% cut of the profits which is comparable to a lot of the other firms in the market. It does come with the requirement to close all trades for the weekend on Friday at 3:55 pm EST but this might not fit a lot of people’s trading styles, especially swing and crypto traders.

The presence of message boards where traders can discuss and improve themselves, attend webinars by more experienced people, or go through the blog which is updated regularly will help you learn risk management and give you exposure to different trading styles.

The scaling plan put in place just warrants achieving a 10% profit and then your account can be scaled to the next higher funding level. If you are looking to trade with high leverage like what other prop trading companies offer, you’re out of luck. Here the funded traders need to work with a maximum of 1:10 leverage for forex, metals, oil, and indices. This drops further to 1:5 for stocks and 1:2 for crypto.

 

#12. FTUK

With £150 (one-time, non-refundable) you can instantly start trading with $3,500 and make a decision based on your trading skills if you want a low-risk or aggressive plan. The other plans on the table that you can choose from are £410 for $10,000, £550 for $15,000, and £950 for $22,500.

You can trade forex, metals, indices and commodities if you wish to. For example, if you are a futures trader looking to diversify into trading forex, FTUK has a team of trading mentors and coaches who can put you on the correct path.

If you want to test your trading skills you can pay a one-time non-refundable £119 fee for the evaluation option where you start on a demo account and achieve your profits depending on the type of plan you have picked (10% for low-risk and 25% for aggressive)

When you complete the targets set in the evaluation or for the scaling of your instant funding account, the funds in your account increase by 400%. The profits that you receive start with a 50/50 split but it can go up to 80/20 if you achieve the targets as per your plan.

It is possible to reach someone from the FTUK support team 24 hours a day via live chat or email in case there is anything you need help with. Additionally, the platform mandates good risk management by requiring a maximum stop loss of 1.5% of the value of the trade, attached to every trade.

Just so you know, FTUK also allows you to dabble in news trading to take advantage of the juicy volatility, hold positions over the weekend or overnight, or until you are satisfied with your profits.

 

FAQs:

– What are the top prop trading firms?

According to my research, TheFundedTrader, FTMO, SurgeTrader, and FidelCrest have been the frontrunners in terms of payouts, reliability, and trading instruments.

For the best prop trading company, these should be your options and you can make your final decision according to your trading skills & needs.

– Are prop trading firms worth it?

Of course, prop trading is worth it, but only if you are good at what you do.

You can get instant funding but break the rules for losses and flunk out very soon. In that case, it is not for you.

But if you have experience with other prop trading firms and have made consistent profits in the past, top prop trading firms will help you lift your trading game to soaring heights.

All prop firms do is provide you with capital and a set of rules to abide by. The rest is up to your skills.

– Are there prop firms for options trading?

Yes, there are. A proprietary trading firm like Citadel Securities with offices in New York will give you a funded account and let you trade options using the fund’s money and their trading platforms.

– Who is better than FTMO?

TheFundedTrader is one of the best prop firms when you are looking to move away from FTMO. It costs lesser to get $50,000 on TFT compared to FTMO ( $289 vs €345 ) and there is an option to start with a $200,000 account off the bat on TFT which is missing from FTMO.

The targets in Phase 1 of the evaluation process are also low (8%) on TFT whereas FTMO needs you to get at least 10%.

Conclusion

In case you have proprietary trading legal in your country of residence and you are well versed with the financial markets, the best prop trading firm is TheFundedTrader.

If you are looking for a reliable funded trader program where you don’t have to pass a challenge, FTUK gives you instant funding and is one of the best prop trading companies on this list.

In case you want to pass a challenge at a renowned prop firm before getting funded, look no further than TheFundedTrader.