Best FTMO Alternatives Of 2024

With FTMO you get one of the higher profit splits starting with 80% with the ability to go up to 90%. There is however the lack of an instant funding option and you will have to get through their two-step challenge to get funding from the platform. Their scaling plan is not the fastest for a trader looking to grow quickly (25% increase every four months). 

If for this reason and others, you are looking to move away from FTMO, this article helps to lay out your options in front of you. 

Seven different platforms with a wide range of available features are compared and will help you decide whether you should stick with FTMO or move on to another service that gives you what you need.

Following is a detail of what is better about the new platform or what FTMO does better.

Best FTMO Alternatives

     (Editor's Choice For 2022)

- 400,000$ Trading Capital

- 80% profit sharing

- Forex, Commodities, Indices, and Crypto

- 200,000$ Trading Capital

- 85% profit sharing

- Forex, Metals, Indices & Cryptos

- 200,000$ Trading Capital

- 90% profit sharing

- Forex, Indices, Commodities, Stocks, Crypto

#1. The Funded Trader

thefundedtrader

TheFundedTrader does not have an option for instant funding just like FTMO but has three plans for traders to choose from. The fees for the Standard Challenge ($315 for $50,000), the Rapid Challenge ($299 for $50,000), and the Royal Challenge ($289 for $50,000) are refunded when you pass the two-phase challenge.

In all the challenges you can choose whether the Regular or the Swing variant (which allows trading on the weekend) works best for you. You get to trade indices, crypto, commodities, and forex on the platform so you should be okay when it comes to choosing your asset. Your profit split will start at 80% and goes up to 90% if you don’t break the rules and achieve your profit percentages.

The Royal Challenge has lesser restrictions regarding your trading style, no limits on lot sizes, and allows for trading based on Expert Advice. The Rapid Challenge on the other hand does not need you to have a minimum number of trading days so you can follow your trading plan and only take trades when you are comfortable with it.

You are allowed maximum leverage of 1:2 based on whether your trading challenge has been completed or is ongoing. For the swing trading accounts, you only have 1:1 leverage during and after the completion of the challenge.

For crypto aficionados, you get the option to trade BTCUSD, BCHUSD, LTCUSD, and ETHUSD without paying any commissions to the platform. And although you can’t pay the fees in crypto yet, you can withdraw your payout to your ERC20 address. Coinbase has facilitated this feature so you can get the equivalent amount of USDT or BTC in your wallet at the end of every pay cycle.

 

#2. My Forex Funds

my forex funds

One of the bigger issues with FTMO is the lack of instant funding which is problematic for seasoned traders looking for capital to trade with. My Forex Funds solves this by offering instant funding in two of their three plans. You can not trade stocks on here so if that is your primary focus then it is better to keep reading. The other available assets are forex, crypto, and commodities.

The Rapid plan gives you access to a $10,000 balance for a refundable fee of $99 and the Accelerated plan gives you a $2,000 balance for the same refundable fee but with a relaxed set of rules. The profit split though is low (12% for Rapid, and 50% for Accelerated) owing to the fact that access to the capital is as soon as the fees are paid.

If the higher profit split is what you are after and do not want instant funding, the Evaluation plan ($49 for $5,000) is where you can work your way up to keep 85% of the money you make. The fees in all three plans are then refunded with your first withdrawal from the live account.

You are only allowed to use MetaTrader 4 and 5 so if you are already familiar with these platforms then it should not be a problem but it is something to keep in mind while deciding your next choice. As a beginner, you do not have a lot of resources to help you learn and get better. The ones that are present are in the form of blog posts and they are not frequent.

With My Forex Funds, you need to necessarily take the weekends off as the servers are shut for that time. All your positions will be squared off at the cutoff time on Friday. 

As you keep getting better with your profit margins, you can look forward to increasing your trading balance by 150%-200% with every 20% target that you achieve which is much faster than FTMO. When you want to talk to a support representative, you can reach them via live chat, email, or opening a ticket on their website.

 

#3. BluFx

blufx

BluFX majorly allows its users to trade forex pairs (19 of them) along with gold as well. There are no stocks or commodities to be traded here so you will have to look elsewhere if your trading strategies are dialled in for these assets. Profit splits are capped at 50% to compensate for the risk that is being taken by the platform in allowing its users to have instant funding.

When you pay a monthly subscription fee for a prop trading firm, the firm then has the leeway to allow its traders to not have any minimum number of trading days or any time constraints to get to your profit target. When you become a Fund Manager by earning a 10% target of profit three consecutive times, you no longer need to pay the monthly fee and you can enjoy the lack of trading restrictions and lack of withdrawal targets.

These upgrade options are only available for the Pro package and not for the Lite variant. The plans available to traders are two swap-free ones (£139 for $25,000 for Lite and £329 for $50,000 for the Pro variant) and two plans where swaps are charged to the account (£99 for $25,000 for Lite, and £249 for $50,000 for Pro)

Taking an evaluation test like FTMO is not an option when you start with BluFX and you only get an option for instant funding. The lack of hedging makes it a problem if you like to practice good risk management techniques and you should find another way to protect your capital.

The Lite package has restrictions regarding trading times (6 am – 9 pm UTC) which is not present for the Pro package. But both the plans need to square off their positions at the end of Friday, 9 pm UTC as weekend trading is not allowed.

 

#4. City Traders Imperium

city traders imperium

The prop trading platform allows you to trade gold, indices, or forex pairs. A non-refundable fee of £999 gives you the instant ability to trade with a balance of $20,000 and this gives it an advantage over FTMO. There are other plans (Classic and Standard Evaluation) that allow you to test your trading skills with £109 for $2,500 and £649 for $17,500 respectively. 

Staying within the 5% drawdown, not breaking any other rules, and completing 30 active trading days in the given time (12 months for Classic and 6 months for Standard Evaluation) will 4x your trading balance. The lowest tier of accounts allows you to trade gold and forex but if indices are the game you like to play, you will want to pay for the higher tiers.

The profit splits start low at 50% and can go up to 100% which FTMO will not allow you to do. Your trading corpus is doubled as and when you achieve 10% profits and the corpus can go up to $4 million in this way.

Leverage on all accounts is capped at 1:10 and this means you need to plan and take the surefire trades and not gamble with 100x leverage on a large margin. You can also hold positions overnight or over the weekend and trade based on Expert Advice if that is your style. 

If or when you fail the evaluation process, you get a 5% discount on your next evaluation if you wish to take it. In the case you break any of the rules of the instantly funded account or as a portfolio manager, you receive a 10% discount coupon for the next evaluation test when you choose to take it.

The education regarding markets and the trading process are plenty on here and will help you become a better trader. When you have any problems with the interface, the support team is available on business days via live chat or email.

 

#5. Topstep

topstep

Much like FTMO, Topstep has a test for its prospective traders and its unique selling point is that it allows its traders to keep all of their first $5,000-$10,000 in profits. Post this the profit split continues to be 80% in your favour and the only thing that increases is the number of lots you are allowed to trade daily.

As a Topstep-funded trader, you can only dabble in futures contracts listed on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. This might be a problem if you wish to find one platform where you can diversify your portfolio.

In step 2 of the challenge, your trading account balance at the end of the day decides what number of lots you can trade the next day. For example, if an account with a $50,000 trading balance that costs a non-refundable fee of $165/month has a balance below $51,500, you are only allowed to trade a maximum of two lots.

When the balance is greater than $52,000.1, you are allowed to trade five lots daily. 

The monthly fees enable you to have unlimited time to reach your profit target of 6% while keeping your losses (daily and maximum) below the platform’s limits. On getting $10,000 in cumulative profit in your funded account, you can either reach out to your Funded Account Specialist via email to either increase the number of lots your account can trade or readjust your risk parameters to better suit your trading style.

Their useful educational resources are very prominently advertised and displayed on their website and are for both new and experienced traders.

 

#6. Earn2Trade

Earn2Trade

Continuing the tradition of charging a monthly non-refundable fee, the next platform on the list, Earn2Trade gives you $25,000 capital for $150 and a virtual trading account to start your journey. Traders are only allowed to trade futures assets listed on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange so crypto and forex traders will need to keep an arm’s distance from the platform unless they are looking to diversify their portfolio or try their hand at something new.

Once a 6% target is accomplished, a trader has the option to either upgrade to a Junior LiveSim account which is another simulated account, or a Junior Live Account which is a brokerage account registered with CME. Both these accounts allow the withdrawal of actual money (80% of profits) to the trader’s chosen payout destination.

On completing the evaluation process, there are no more minimum trading days and the monthly subscription fees do not need to be paid anymore either. The traders can command a corpus of up to $200,000 and a fixed non-trailing drawdown of $6,000 by consistently hitting their profit targets.

When you work with this platform you trade a minimum of 15 days during approved times and trade the number of contracts as dictated by the progression ladder.

Any issues with trading or the platform’s interface can be solved by reaching out to their support team who are available 24/7 via email, live chat, or telephone. The firm organizes frequent webinars and mentorship sessions which any of their traders can join and hone their skills.

 

#7. The5%ers

the 5 ers

The5%ers allow the trading of gold, silver, and forex pairs. The traders can hold these positions overnight, over the weekend, and dabble in news trading to take advantage of the juicy volatility. There are options for traders to pick between, namely the instant funding account model (starting with a refundable fee of €235 for $6,000) or the boot camp model (€85 for taking the challenge and €215 for getting funded once you pass it)

Even within the instant funding account, there are low-risk accounts that require mandatory stop losses, maximum leverage of 1:10, and 180 days to achieve the intended profit. The aggressive accounts do not need mandatory stop losses, have a maximum leverage of 1:30, and have 60 days to achieve the profit.

If you achieve these targets, your trading balance is 4x-ed given that you have not broken any other trading rules. The profit splits are at 50% but it is necessary to cover the risk at the prop firm’s end. The scaling plan involves doubling the account balance for every 10% (low-risk) and 25% gain (aggressive) with a cap of $4 million.

With the boot camp model, you have a three-step challenge that allows its traders to complete it in twelve months with a 6% profit target on the low-risk plan and 12% for the aggressive plan, and a maximum loss of 5% and maximum leverage of 1:10.

Once the challenge is completed, you are given access to an account with $100,000 in trading balance which can be scaled up to $4 million with every 5% gain. The profit split at The5%ers here starts at 50% and can go up to 100% when you reach a trading corpus of $2.5 million.

 

Conclusion

What will most probably push you away from FTMO is the slow scaling plan or the lack of instant funding both of which are solved by the option mentioned below.

City Traders Imperium should be your platform of choice if you are looking for instant funding and a fast-scaling plan. You can also get a discount coupon if you fail your assessment or as a Fund Manager so that your next assessment does not hurt as much monetarily.

The only thing is that you should be okay paying for the second tier onwards as the lowest tier does not have the option to trade only gold and forex.

Contents

nv-author-image

Jack Bailey

I am John, a veteran trader turned into a trading coach. Especially in the realm of cryptocurrency derivatives which is now booming and expected to grow big.