Prop firm funded trading

The research was done by AI agents that open web pages. Some sites refuse them; where that happened we say so. The small numbers point to the source list at the end. Where a figure is our own sum or guess, it is marked “our estimate” and the basis is given.

The claim

These are examples of the claim, copied from our collection of 40 tweets on this scheme¹. View counts are as collected on 6 October 2026. The page judges the scheme, not the people who tweeted.

“The First Prediction Market Prop Firm

Pass an Evaluation and get up to $100,000 to trade”

@FundingPredicts, 1,177,041 views¹. A prediction market is a site for betting on the outcome of events.

“#1 Quant Prop Firm Trader 🤯 $1.8+ Million in Payouts in JUST 18 Months!”

@Wordsofrizdom, 33,274 views¹. The tweet promotes a podcast episode about a guest’s trading; the quote is its opening lines.

“wait so there’s a prop firm where after you pass the eval you get… 👀 ✅ no consistency rule 📅 no minimum days 💸 no payout cap 🪙 $1 minimum withdrawal 📰 news trading allowed 🛌 weekend holds allowed 🚀 up to 50x leverage 💰 up to 95% profit split 🧱 static drawdown”

@DamnGoodTrading, 14,391 views¹. The text is cut off after this point in our copy. The list names rules that other firms impose, such as a cap on each payout or a limit on how much of the profit may come from one day (“consistency rule”). “Profit split” is the trader’s share of the profit, “leverage” is trading a larger amount than the account holds, and a “static drawdown” is a loss limit that stays at a fixed level.

“$10K account. $1,600 payout request. 11 minutes.”

@DCBK2LA, 2,571 views¹. The tweet is a daily round-up of prop firm news posted for @VestExchange and is cut off in our copy. This line is one of its headlines. The text does not say whose payout it is.

Other tweets in the collection make larger statements. One small account says it has taken more than $1 million in prop firm payouts, and a podcast account says a guest “has made over $400,000 from trading”¹. We did not check any of these figures, and we did not view the images, videos or threads attached to the tweets.

One tweet holds most of the audience: the first one above has about 81% of all 1.46 million views in the collection (our division)¹.

What the scheme is

A “prop firm” is short for proprietary trading firm. In the version sold to the public, you pay a fee to take a trading test, called an evaluation or a challenge. You trade an account of a stated size, such as $50,000 or $100,000, and must reach a profit target without breaking the loss limits. If you pass, the firm gives you a “funded account”. When that account shows a profit, you can ask for a payout and keep a share, usually 80% to 100%³⁷⁸³². That share is called the profit split.

Two points are easy to miss.

The accounts are simulations. At the firms whose terms we read, both the test and the funded account use pretend money. FTMO’s site says: “all accounts we provide to our clients are demo accounts with fictitious funds and any trading is in a simulated environment only”⁷. Topstep’s terms define its first funded stage as “an account using real-time simulated Data” and say: “Trades in a simulated account are not made in live markets and do not incur actual profits or losses.”⁵ The firm behind the most-viewed tweet says its accounts “operate exclusively within a simulated, non-executing environment” and that it does not offer “any pathway to trading with real capital or to a live funded account”³⁶. The payouts are real money. They are a reward the firm pays under its contract, based on simulated results.

Your own trading money is never at risk. The fees are. You cannot lose more than you pay the firm. That is the real attraction compared with trading your own savings. What you can lose is every fee, on every attempt.

So the mechanism is real. The questions are how many people get paid, how much, and whether it exceeds what they spent on fees.

The arithmetic

What the claim multiplies: the profit you make on a simulated account, times your share, times the number of accounts you run, limited by caps on each payout, minus the fees for every attempt including the failed ones.

Step 1: the fee for each attempt

The price to try is low. That is true at every firm we read.

• Topstep (futures; a future is a contract to buy or sell something at a set later date). Topstep sells two plans. Standard: $49, $99 or $199 a month for a $50,000, $100,000 or $150,000 evaluation, plus a $149 activation fee after passing. No Activation Fee: $95, $149 or $229 a month, shown as $85, $129 or $199 when the buyer adds a daily loss limit²⁶. The fee is a subscription: “The subscription fee rebills monthly until you pass the Trading Combine® or cancel the subscription.”⁶ (Trading Combine is Topstep’s name for its evaluation.) A reset, which means paying to start a failed test again, costs the same as a month²⁶.
• FTMO (currencies and CFDs; a CFD is a bet on a price move without owning the asset). A one-time fee of EUR 540 for a $100,000 two-step challenge, with EUR 439 on a current offer⁷. The other sizes cost EUR 89 for $10,000, EUR 250 for $25,000, EUR 345 for $50,000 and EUR 1,080 for $200,000⁷²³. “Two-step” means two test phases in a row; “one-step” means one.
• Apex Trader Funding (futures). A one-time $89 activation fee on its $25,000 account³². The price of the evaluation itself did not appear in the text we retrieved.

Discounts are normal. Tweets in our collection advertise 50% off, a 92% discount on one firm’s evaluations for a day, and a $5,000 “instant” account, sold without a test, for $11¹.

Step 2: the test

• Topstep: make $3,000, $6,000 or $9,000 before losing $2,000, $3,000 or $4,500, depending on account size². That is a profit of 1.5 to 2 times the loss allowed (our division). The price card also shows a “Consistency Target: 55%”, meaning the best day may not be more than 55% of total profit². There is no time limit, but the monthly fee keeps running²⁶.
• FTMO, one-step: make 10% while never losing 3% in a day or 10% in total, and the best day may not be more than half of the total made on winning days; going over does not fail the test but delays passing⁸. FTMO’s two-step version asks for 10% and then 5%, with a 5% daily limit and 10% total⁷.
• Apex, $25,000 account: make $1,500 before the account falls $1,000 from its peak³².

Topstep’s own page says its programmes “are realistic simulations of trading under actual market conditions and are difficult to pass even for experienced traders”².

Step 3: how many pass, and how many are paid

The best evidence comes from a firm’s own disclosure. Topstep publishes these figures for January to December 2025²:

Three things follow.

• Roughly one starter in six was paid something in the year. 51.8% x 33.3% = about 17% (our estimate). Topstep does not publish this figure. The two percentages cover different groups: the first is people who entered an evaluation in 2025, the second is everyone at the funded level in 2025, including people funded earlier. Both cover one calendar year only.
• People start several evaluations on average. 16.8% of attempts pass, but 51.8% of people pass at least once². Topstep does not say how the attempts are spread among people.
• Two thirds of people at the funded level received no payout in 2025, and under 1% of those in a simulated funded account were moved to an account that trades in the real market². Some of them may have been paid before 2025 or after it.
• Many attempts end fast. Topstep’s payout-policy page says: “63% of Traders lost their Combine on day 1.”³ It does not say of which traders, and the line appears where Topstep promotes its daily loss limit.

A pass can be luck. A test that asks for $3,000 of profit before $2,000 of loss can be passed by chance. A trade-copying software company works out that a trader with no skill at all passes such a test about 40% of the time if the loss limit is fixed, and about 24% to 26% if the limit moves up with the account: “A trader with no edge at all passes a $3,000-target, $2,000-loss evaluation 40% of the time, so a pass on its own proves little”⁴⁴. That is a model with simple assumptions and no trading costs, not a measurement. An “edge” means a method that makes money on average.

Other sources give lower figures, measured in different ways:

The rows are not measured the same way and cannot be compared exactly. The Topstep row covers one year.

The second row comes from FPFX Tech, a company that supplies software to prop firms. It covers over 300,000 accounts of 100,000 traders at 10 firms, as reported by the trade site Finance Magnates: “14% of traders passed the challenge and obtained a funded account. Of those, about 45% achieved a payout (7% of all traders) in their funded account, with the average payout being 4% of the plan size”¹³. The data was shown only to Finance Magnates and is not public. We could not tell why it differs from Topstep’s figure; the firms, products and years are different.

The third row is one firm. Finance Magnates reported its chief executive’s figures: “At TFT, the challenge pass rate ranges from 5 to 10%, and of those, only about 20% of funded traders receive payouts.”¹⁵ The article adds: “only 1% to at most 2% of overall clients achieve a payout”¹⁵.

A newsletter author who studied FTMO’s 2024 company accounts estimates that about 3.7% of purchased FTMO challenges end in a payout²³. That is his modelled estimate, not an FTMO figure. FTMO does not publish a pass rate.

So the share of buyers who are paid runs from about 1 in 6 in a year at the best-documented firm to a few in 100 elsewhere. Which firm you choose matters a great deal.

Step 4: how big a payout is

Payouts on simulated funded accounts are capped. At Topstep each request is limited to half the account balance and to a cap, and the trader keeps 90%³. There are two paths. Standard: five winning days of $150 or more, with caps of $2,000, $3,000 or $5,000 by account size. Consistency: three trading days with the best day no more than 40% of profit, with caps of $3,000, $4,000 or $6,000³. The caps double, to a top of $12,000, for traders who add a daily loss limit when buying the evaluation; Topstep calls this a “Limited Time Offering”³⁴. “Payout caps apply to XFA accounts only. Live Funded Account Payouts are not capped.”³ (XFA is the Express Funded Account, Topstep’s simulated funded account.) Apex’s $25,000 account pays 100% to the trader but allows at most six payout requests³².

So a $150,000 account means a few thousand dollars per payout request, and $12,000 at the very most.

What firms report paying per payout. Each row is an amount per payment, not per person:

All are the firms’ own figures or built from them, except the blockchain row. Only one median was found, and it is the lowest number in the table. An average is pulled up by a few large payouts, so the typical payout is below the averages. The sources also do not agree with each other: the blockchain source gives FundedNext a mean of $2,867 in 2025, against $1,119 in the firm’s February 2026 report²⁷¹⁸.

A person can be paid more than once in a month. FundedNext paid $15.19 million to 8,340 traders in 13,712 payments in February 2026¹⁸. That is about $1,820 per paid trader for the month (our division), three times the median single payout.

FTMO also prints an “Avg. Reward” beside each price: EUR 5,957 for the $100,000 account and EUR 12,234 for the $200,000 account, described as “Based on global average reward with FTMO”⁷. That is about eleven times the EUR 540 list fee (our division), and about 6% of the account size if a euro is counted as a dollar. The smaller accounts show EUR 680, EUR 1,431 and EUR 2,805⁷. It is an average among people who received a reward. The page does not say what share of buyers that is, or over what period it was measured.

Step 5: what the claimed incomes need

Number of payouts needed each month = income wanted ÷ size of one payout. These are our sums. They treat the payout as the amount the trader receives; the sources do not all say whether their figure is before or after the firm’s share.

The “$1.8+ Million in Payouts in JUST 18 Months” in one example tweet is $100,000 a month (1,800,000 ÷ 18), the bottom row¹. A total of $1 million equals about 435 payouts of $2,300 (our division). These are not impossible, but they describe someone running many funded accounts at once, at or near the caps, for a long time. Some firms allow this: Apex’s page says “Max Accounts 20”³², and one firm’s tweet announces “You can now copy trades between your own GFT accounts.” (@GoatFunded)¹. Copying trades means software repeats one account’s trades on the others. The tweet texts do not give the fees paid, the number of accounts used or the amount left after failed attempts¹.

The same target as a rate of return, on FTMO’s terms⁷⁸:

$12,500 of profit is about twice FTMO’s stated average reward on a $100,000 account, and it would be needed every month without touching the loss limits⁷. FTMO also advertises a scaling plan to “Grow up to $2M” in account size⁷. We did not research it.

Step 6: fees against payouts

No firm we found publishes what share of customers received more in payouts than they paid in fees. That is the number that would settle the question, and it is missing.

The nearest figures:

• The best total we have: about half comes back. A newsletter’s reading of FTMO’s 2024 accounts puts payouts at about 55% of revenue²³. So customers as a whole got back roughly 55 cents for each dollar of fees, and it went to the minority who were paid. See “Who makes money from it”.
• One dataset, per account. In the FPFX data, an account spent on average $800 on challenges over its life, typically across three challenges, and the average payout was 4% of the plan size¹³. The average plan size is not given. A 7% chance of 4% of a $25,000 plan is 0.07 x $1,000 = about $70. On a $100,000 plan, which the article calls “relatively large”, it is 0.07 x $4,000 = about $280. Both are set against $800 spent. These are our estimates. They do not count second and later payouts.
• For those who are paid. The data does not say how often a paid trader’s payout exceeded their fees. As an illustration, 4% is $400 on a $10,000 plan, $1,000 on a $25,000 plan and $4,000 on a $100,000 plan, against $800 of average spend across all plan sizes¹³. The article’s own conclusion: “the average profits are not high at all”¹³.
• FTMO states 4.5 million customers and over $650 million paid in rewards⁷. That is about $144 per customer (our division). “Customers” may include people who only took a free trial, so the figure per paying customer is higher by an unknown amount.

What the tweet text does not say

Of the 30 most-viewed tweets, none gives a pass rate, the share of funded traders who are paid, or a figure after fees¹. About seven mention a price or discount and three mention the profit share¹. This is our approximate count from the tweet text. We did not view the images, videos or threads attached to the tweets, which may say more.

What people who tried it report

How often people succeed at the skill underneath. A prop firm test is mostly day trading: buying and selling within the same day. Two large studies measured how day traders do with their own money.

• Researchers followed every individual who began day trading futures in Brazil in 2013 to 2015 and kept at it for at least 300 days: “97% of them lost money, only 0.4% earned more than a bank teller (US$54 per day), and the top individual earned only US$310 per day with great risk”³⁹. The same abstract says: “We find no evidence of learning by day trading.”³⁹
• A study of day traders in Taiwan from 1992 to 2006 found that skill exists and lasts for a small group: “While about 13% earn profits net of fees in the typical year, the results of our analysis suggest that less than 1% of day traders (1,000 out of 360,000) are able to outperform consistently.”⁴⁰

Both studies are about people trading their own money in other markets, years ago. They are not about prop firm customers. They suggest why so many funded traders go unpaid: the product removes the need for capital, not the need for skill.

A survey with a better picture. PipFarm, a prop firm, polled 459 of its active customers. As reported, “the average trader invests $4,270 in prop firm challenges”, and “nearly half of investors never realize any payout, and almost 60% of all clients lose capital”¹⁴. The same article says: “The number of profitable prop traders reaches 41%”¹⁴. Together they said they had spent $1.9 million on challenges and received $7.6 million¹⁴. This is the only source we found with a result after fees per person. These are people’s own answers, from customers who were still active, collected by a firm. It probably overstates success, because people who gave up are not in it. So among committed customers who answered a firm’s poll, about four in ten said they were ahead, against 7% ever paid in the ten-firm data¹³¹⁴. The truth for someone who persists lies somewhere between, with the survey as the upper end. The money goes to a minority who earn several times their fees.

One person’s itemised record. The author of a review site about futures prop firms publishes his own totals across eight firms (a ninth has no surviving record): 332 evaluations bought, 78 that reached a funded account and 3 payouts collected³⁸. His per-firm rows add up to 331 and 77, one fewer than his headline figures³⁸. He writes: “for every payout I have collected there are more than a hundred evaluations bought”³⁸. The page gives no dollar amounts and is undated. He says he also earns affiliate income from the firms, which the count leaves out³⁸. He says every figure comes from the firms’ dashboards or a document; we did not see them.

Most paid accounts are new. In FundedNext’s report for February 2026, 60% of the accounts paid that month had been funded within the previous 30 days, and 14% had been active for more than 90 days¹⁸. Half of the paid accounts had been paid before¹⁸.

Being in profit is not the same as being paid. Finance Magnates reported in March 2025 that at one firm, The Funded Trader, “since March 2024, 1,272 people have been waiting for their funds to be paid out”¹⁶. Its chief executive later said the firm had reached agreements worth $250,000 in total with some of them, who reportedly accepted 10%, 20% or 30% of what they were owed¹⁵. The firm had paused all operations in March 2024 after complaints about refused payouts¹⁷. It resumed in August 2024¹⁶. Finance Magnates wrote in March 2025 that “some users are receiving payouts” while the backlog grew¹⁵. Its chief executive said then: “The payments were rejected due to KYC, due to any type of fraud, credit card fraud and any prohibited trading strategies”¹⁷. (KYC means identity checks.) The firm’s own figures said it had paid over $17 million and blocked just over $2 million in the first two months of 2024¹⁷. That is about a tenth of the money requested (our division). In 2025 the chief executive said of the backlog: “I see this as a challenge that I’m determined to overcome”¹⁶. We did not check whether those payouts were later made. This concerns that one company only.

Firms close. Finance Magnates’ research arm estimated that “between 80 and 100 proprietary trading firms may have disappeared from the market in 2024”²⁸. It is an estimate with no published list, and we found no count for 2025 or 2026. The article ties the closures mainly to one event, the maker of the MetaTrader trading software stepping back from prop firms. It says a few large firms came out stronger, and that “challenge pass rates have plummeted”, with no figures²⁸.

Forum accounts are missing. Reddit refused our tools, so no forum threads were read. We found no journalism that followed individual participants over time.

What the rules allow now

Quotes from firms’ terms were read on 8 October 2026 unless marked.

The fee is not refundable. FTMO’s challenge terms, last updated 4 August 2026: “Unless expressly agreed otherwise, once paid, you are not entitled to a refund of the FTMO Challenge Fee under any circumstances.”⁹ FTMO’s home page adds that the two-step fee “is reimbursed with your first Reward once you become an FTMO Trader”, so it comes back only to those who pass and are paid; the one-step fee is labelled non-refundable⁷. Topstep’s terms, last updated 21 September 2026: “all fees are final, non-cancelable, and non-refundable”⁵. Topstep’s help centre lists narrow exceptions: a 14-day guarantee on a first-ever evaluation (up to one monthly payment, if you have not passed), and a refund of a forgotten monthly charge on an account with no trading, if asked for within 28 days⁴³.

Passing does not guarantee a funded account. “Successfully completing the Evaluation Process does not guarantee your acceptance into the FTMO Trader Program.”⁹

The firm is not a regulated financial company. FTMO’s terms: “We are not regulated by the Czech National Bank or a similar authority overseeing the financial sector in other countries. As a result, you will not receive regulatory protection associated with the financial sector with respect to the Services.”⁹ A dispute over a payout is a contract dispute with a company, often in another country.

The firm decides whether you broke the rules. “We reserve the right to determine, at our own discretion, whether certain simulated trades, practices, strategies, or situations qualify as or fall within a Forbidden Trading Practice.”⁹ It may then remove trades and not count their results in the profits⁹. Topstep’s list of prohibited conduct ends with conduct “which in the sole discretion of Topstep, represents uncommercial activity, is intended to game the market, is not a viable trading strategy, or is not responsible trading”⁵. Topstep also says it “approves 99.26% of all payout requests”, its own unaudited figure².

What is forbidden varies and changes. FTMO’s list includes taking opposite positions across accounts, software that gives an “unfair advantage”, and opening trades to exploit price gaps when major news is scheduled¹⁰. Several tweets in our collection advertise firms by the rules they have dropped: one is a firm announcing that it has relaxed two rules, and others are promoters listing rules a firm has removed¹. Apex’s home page now lists “NO Payout Denials” as a feature³². We did not check how that works in practice.

Paying someone to pass for you is not allowed. FTMO’s terms forbid a customer to “engage or cooperate with any third party in order to have such third party perform simulated trades for you”⁹. Topstep prohibits “Trading on behalf of others”⁵. Three tweets in our collection, from one small account, advertise “account management support” for FTMO and other firms’ accounts at the evaluation or funded stage, and ask readers to send their account details¹. The tweets do not say who would place the trades, and we did not open their link. If the service places them, that is what the firms’ terms forbid. A company that sells challenge-passing says so itself: “Firms prohibit third parties from trading your account. A passing service is, by definition, a third party trading your account.”³⁷ A customer who uses one risks the service’s fee, the challenge fee and any reward.

Countries. FTMO defines restricted countries “as determined by us at our discretion”⁹. Topstep prohibits “Circumventing geographical restrictions of availability”⁵. In 2024 the maker of the MetaTrader trading software withdrew from part of this market, which, as reported, caused “difficulties in access for investors from the USA, and the suspension of operations by some companies”²⁹. We did not retrieve any firm’s current country list.

Regulators’ warnings. Italy’s financial regulator, Consob, warned the public in July 2024 about offers that “simulate an online trading activity in a type of finance video game”²⁹. As reported: “Consob has received several reports from users who have signed up for such offers. The complaints concern both the level of difficulty of the tests, which are allegedly contrived to push ‘players’ to try again, and the failure to share the alleged profits.”²⁹ The same report says regulators in Belgium and Spain issued similar warnings²⁹. These are warnings and complaints received, not findings against any firm, and they name no firm on this page. We read them in press reports, not in the regulators’ own notices. We found no country that has banned the model.

The one large US case. On 1 September 2023 the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) announced a lawsuit against Traders Global Group, which ran My Forex Funds. Its release, which uses the word “fraud”, alleged that “more than 135,000 customers have signed up for their trading program since November 2021, paying at last $310 million in fees” (the misspelling is the CFTC’s)³⁰. Those allegations were never proven. On 13 May 2025 the court ruled against the regulator: “The Sanction Motion (ECF No. 172) is GRANTED and the complaint is dismissed with prejudice.”³¹ “With prejudice” means the case cannot be brought again. A law firm’s summary says a court-appointed official found the CFTC had made “false representations” to the court³¹. The case ended because of the regulator’s conduct, and no court ruled on whether the business model is lawful. It is not evidence about how prop firms treat customers, and it concerns only the companies named in it.

Tax. FundedNext’s help page for US customers says payouts above $600 in a year are reported on a tax form for “non-employee compensation”, and: “Your withdrawal request will remain blocked until the W-9 is approved”⁴¹. (A W-9 is a US taxpayer identification form.) We read that page through a tool that summarises text, so the quote was not checked word for word. Tax outside the United States was not researched.

Who makes money from it

The firm, first and most reliably. The firm’s income is the fees. FTMO is the one large firm whose company accounts have been reported. All of the following come from trade press, not from the filings.

• 2023: turnover “over $213 million” and operating profit before interest, tax and depreciation (EBITDA) of “nearly $100 million”²¹.
• 2024: Finance Magnates reports that FTMO’s parent holding company, which also owns real estate, had revenue of about $329 million and net profit of about $62.5 million²². A newsletter that added up five FTMO operating companies gives global revenue of $322.8 million, payouts to traders of $176.3 million plus $6.6 million in the US, and net income of $90.8 million²³. The two cover different sets of companies and use different exchange rates.
• 2025: revenue of about $422 million on 1.27 million paid orders, with “Returning customers account for almost 80% of total turnover”²⁴. The same report says EBITDA fell to about $75 million²⁴.

The newsletter’s reading of 2024: “FTMO has payouts that are equal to approximately 55% of revenue”²³. So roughly half of what customers pay in comes back out to the minority who are paid. On these figures, rewards were paid out of fee income, most of which comes from customers who were not paid (our inference). A rough check agrees: FTMO’s stated lifetime payouts rose from over $450 million in September 2025 to over $650 million in October 2026²⁰¹⁹, about $200 million in a year, against $422 million of revenue in 2025²⁴. That is our estimate and the periods do not match exactly.

This cuts both ways. It shows where the money comes from. It also shows that the largest firm is solvent and does pay.

The promoter, second. By our count from the collection’s labels, 23 of the 40 tweets point readers to a discount code, an affiliate link or a comparison site; 8 are from a firm or promote one without a code; 4 point to a podcast or video; 3 advertise an account-management service; 1 offers trading-journal software; 1 shows nothing on offer¹. The labels were assigned when the tweets were collected and are partly inference. We did not open the profiles.

An affiliate is someone paid a commission when a person buys through their link or code. Firms publish the rates:

• FTMO: “a one-time commission on the trader’s first Challenge purchase, from 8% at Bronze up to 20% at Platinum”, plus 10% to 18% of each monthly payment on its futures product for up to 12 months, and a share of each reset¹¹.
• Goat Funded Trader: 20% on a first sale, then 10%, 12% or 15% by sales volume, described as recurring³³.
• FundedNext: 10% to 15% of a first purchase, and 8% to 12% on futures, labelled “lifetime”³⁴.
• Prop Firm Match, a comparison site whose account is in our collection: “You earn a 10% commission when a first-time user has used your affiliate link/unique code to complete a valid purchase of a plan with their chosen firm.”³⁵

So a promoter is paid when a follower buys, and in some programmes again when the follower pays another month or resets after failing. Nothing in the terms we read ties the promoter’s pay to the follower being paid. We did not check whether any particular account quoted on this page is an affiliate.

Sellers of help. One provider of challenge-passing services publishes flat fees from EUR 899 for a $100,000 challenge to EUR 3,499 for four, on top of the firm’s own fee, and says: “Nobody can guarantee a pass.”³⁷ As shown above, firms prohibit this.

Some traders. Firms state large totals paid to traders: Topstep “$1.4B+” on most of its pages and “$1.5B+” on one, and “7,000+” traders paid each week²⁴⁶; FTMO over $650 million⁷; about $325 million in 2025 across the firms that report to Prop Firm Match’s tracker, which excludes FTMO and The5ers²⁵. All are the firms’ own figures. Finance Magnates notes of such claims: “they cannot be verified by a third-party”²⁶.

The upside

Real money reaches traders, and a small group is paid again and again. This section sets out the best documented outcomes. None of it changes the rates in Step 3.

The best documented outcomes

• The largest single payout a firm has stated. FTMO wrote in February 2024 that its highest single payout was $964,980.55¹². This is the firm’s own statement; it gives a first name only and no period. The post gives a 2023 monthly average of $5,782,324, which is about $69 million for the year, and a 2023 total of $75,170,210¹². The two do not match, so we treat its numbers with care.
• The largest payout in one firm’s month. FundedNext reported paying $15.19 million to 8,340 traders in February 2026, with a largest single payout of $60,580¹⁸. Firm-reported, read in a press report. A blockchain tracker counted about $13 million for the same month, “roughly $2.2 million below the firm’s own figure”¹⁸. So most of the total is visible to an outside party.
• Repeat earners. In the same report, 284 traders with 25 or more lifetime payouts “collectively received $2.37 million in February”, 15.8% of the month’s total¹⁸. That is roughly $8,300 each for the month (our division: $2.37 million ÷ 284). They are 3.4% of the traders paid that month (our division). Fifty-five traders with 60 or more lifetime payouts received $486,054, about $8,800 each (our division), and 415 accounts had been live for more than six months and were still being paid¹⁸. This is the clearest sign of a group earning something like a salary.
• Promotion to a live account. At Topstep, 0.71% of people in a simulated funded account were moved to a live account in 2025, where payouts are not capped²³. Topstep does not publish what they earn.
• A group that came out ahead. PipFarm’s 459 survey respondents said they received $7.6 million on $1.9 million of fees¹⁴. Self-reported, and from active customers only.
• Checked from payment records. Finance Magnates’ data unit counted payouts that firms made in cryptocurrency, using public blockchain records: between $48 million (the article’s text) and $55 million (the sum of its table) from ten firms in a quarter of 2025, reported as April to June. The source is inconsistent about the total. Its table includes $14,779,253 over 9,815 payouts at MyFunded Futures²⁷. It notes: “Figures are based on public blockchain data and may not represent all activity in the industry”²⁷. We did not check the records ourselves.
• Statements in the tweets. $1.8 million in 18 months and over $400,000 “from trading” (both said by podcast accounts about a guest; the second does not say the money came from prop firms), and over $1 million and a payout request of about $9,300 after five days (said by the account holders)¹. None was checked by a third party that we could find. Three of the four appear in tweets that point to a podcast or video¹.

We found no individual income report backed by bank records, tax records or a journalist’s review.

What the top tenth and the top hundredth get

No source gives dollar earnings for the top tenth of prop firm customers. The nearest measures:

• At Topstep, being paid at all puts a person in roughly the top sixth of starters (our estimate)². In the FPFX data it is the top 7%¹³.
• Among those paid at FundedNext in one month, half of the payouts were under $567, and the top 3.4% of paid traders averaged roughly $8,300 that month (our division)¹⁸.
• Under 1% of Topstep’s funded participants reach a live account².
• Among day traders using their own money, under 1% outperformed consistently in Taiwan, and 0.4% earned more than a bank teller in Brazil³⁹⁴⁰.

A realistic good result in the first year or two (our estimate)

The common outcome. Several paid attempts and no payout. That is what happened to about five in six starters at Topstep in 2025, on our estimate, and 93 in 100 in the FPFX data²¹³. The cost is the fees: about $800 on average in the FPFX data, and $4,270 on average among PipFarm’s committed customers¹³¹⁴.

A good first year. For a competent person at a firm that publishes its figures: passing after a few attempts and receiving one or a few payouts of roughly $570 to $3,500 each, the range of the medians and averages in Step 4⁴¹²¹⁸. Whether that exceeds the fees depends on how many attempts it took.

A good second year. Repeated payouts on one or more accounts, in the low thousands of dollars in a good month. $1,000 a month is about half of one average Topstep payout (Step 5), which is within reach for the minority who are consistently profitable. No source says what share reach it.

When it really works. Several accounts run in parallel, or a live account, paid month after month. The 284 repeat earners at FundedNext are the nearest documented example¹⁸. No source gives the share of starters who get there.

What it takes to compete

What the people who are paid have

1. A trading edge that exists before they pay. The Taiwan study found that the best day traders stayed profitable the following year, and that they were under 1% of all day traders⁴⁰. The Brazil study found no sign that people improve by day trading more³⁹. Neither study is about prop firms. A pass alone proves little: on one model, a trader with no edge passes a test like Topstep’s about 40% of the time with a fixed loss limit and about a quarter of the time with a moving one (an estimate, Step 3)⁴⁴. A first payout can also be luck. The documented sign of skill is being paid again and again, like the 284 traders with 25 or more payouts at FundedNext¹⁸. Practising on paid challenges is an expensive way to find out.
2. A method that fits inside the loss limits. A strategy can be profitable over a year and still fail a test that ends the first time the account loses 3% in a day or 10% in total⁸. What counts is profit without ever touching those limits, plus rules that limit how much of the profit may come from the best day⁸³.
3. A fee budget for several attempts. At Topstep 16.8% of attempts pass and 51.8% of people pass at least once². The FPFX data shows three challenges and $800 on average¹³. The person who published 332 evaluations bought for 3 payouts shows how far this can run³⁸.
4. A firm that pays. The share of customers paid runs from about 17% to 1% or 2% depending on the firm (Step 3). Firms have paused payouts and closed¹⁶¹⁷²⁸. Things to look for: a firm that publishes its pass and payout rates, as Topstep does², terms you have read, and a record of paying.
5. For the large totals, many accounts. Payout caps mean five- and six-figure months come from running many accounts at once, each bought separately (Step 5)³³². That takes working capital for fees and the organisation to run them.
6. Realistic aims. Occasional capped payouts, not a salary. Two thirds of the people at Topstep’s funded level received no payout in 2025².

What it costs

• Fees: tens to hundreds of dollars per attempt, repeated (Step 1). Average lifetime spend of $800 in one dataset and $4,270 in one survey¹³¹⁴.
• After passing: an activation fee at some firms, such as $149 at Topstep and $89 at Apex²³².
• Not priced by us: market data fees, platform licences, software for copying trades between accounts, payment fees and tax.
• Time: not measured in any source we read.

How to tell early which side you are on

These checks are our judgement, built from the figures above.

• Can you pass the firm’s exact rules without paying? FTMO states that its accounts are demo accounts, and one tweet in our collection advertises software to “Simulate real prop firm challenges before risking real money”⁷¹. Several months of profit on a demo account under the same daily and total loss limits is the cheapest test. Failing there costs nothing.
• How many attempts have you bought? One pass in about six attempts is the Topstep average². Well beyond that with no pass puts you among the roughly half who do not pass².
• Have you been paid more than you have spent? Keep a running total of every fee, reset and activation against every payout. No firm publishes this figure, so you have to keep it yourself.
• Does the firm publish its numbers? If a firm states only a total paid out and no pass or payout rate, you cannot work out your odds.
• Does the plan start with someone’s discount code? The code holder may be paid when you buy and when you buy again¹¹³³. That says nothing about whether the firm suits you.

What we did not verify

• Results after fees. No firm or dataset publishes the share of customers who received more than they paid, or a median profit or loss per customer. The 17% and 7% figures mean “received any payout”, not “came out ahead”.
• The payout claims in the tweets. We did not open the linked videos, payout certificates or images, and found no third-party check of any of them. Counts of what the tweets offer rely on labels assigned at collection, and we did not open the profiles.
• Our 17% figure. It multiplies two Topstep percentages that cover different groups in one calendar year. One third-party guide describes Topstep’s 0.71% as a share of all traders who started; Topstep’s wording says it is a share of people in a simulated funded account²⁴².
• Firm totals. Topstep’s $1.4 billion (or $1.5 billion on one page), 7,000 a week, the “63%” first-day figure, $2,300 average and 99.26% approval rate, and FTMO’s $650 million and 4.5 million customers, are the firms’ own unaudited figures. FTMO’s “Avg. Reward” figures have no stated period or method.
• FTMO’s company accounts. Not opened. The 2023, 2024 and 2025 figures are from trade press. The two reports for 2024 cover different sets of companies, so neither is a clean figure for the prop business alone.
• FPFX Tech’s data, PipFarm’s survey, The Funded Trader’s statements and FundedNext’s monthly report. Read only as reported by Finance Magnates, two of them in a copy republished on another site. The underlying data is not public.
• The blockchain payout data. The article’s text says over $48 million and its table adds up to $55.3 million, so the total and the period for the per-firm rows are uncertain²⁷.
• The no-skill pass odds. The 40% and 24% to 26% figures are one software company’s model, not a measurement⁴⁴.
• The regulators’ own notices. The Italian, Belgian and Spanish warnings were read only in press reports. The current rules in the US, EU, UK and Australia were not confirmed at any regulator’s site. Trade blogs report a 2026 CFTC consultation on challenge-based futures prop firms and a notice from the US futures industry body about affiliate marketing. We found no matching Federal Register document and could not read the regulator’s site, so we did not use them. US rules may be changing.
• The My Forex Funds case. cftc.gov refused our tools; the 2023 release was read in an Internet Archive copy. The court’s order was read; the official’s report behind it was read only in a law firm’s summary. The order also directs the defendants to submit their fees and costs for the sanctions motion; the amount awarded was not read.
• Firms we could not read. Apex’s evaluation prices and detailed rules (its help centre refused us; its home page opened only through a reader service). FundingPips and Lucid Trading refused or limited us. FundedNext’s and The5ers’ prices did not load. The rules of the other firms named in the tweets were not read, including the firm offering “no payout cap” and “up to 95% profit split”.
• The prediction-market firm in the most-viewed tweet. We read its disclaimer and refund terms but not its prices or rules. Whether prop firms for prediction markets or “instant funding” accounts raise different legal questions was not researched.
• How many accounts one person may hold at each firm, apart from the “Max Accounts 20” on Apex’s page.
• Whether The Funded Trader later paid the blocked withdrawals.
• FTMO’s scaling plan and Topstep’s daily loss limit offer. Not researched beyond the lines quoted.
• Exact quotes. FundedNext’s tax page was read through a tool that summarises text, and its quote was not checked word for word. FTMO’s contract for the funded stage was not found; only the challenge terms were read.
• The two studies. The Brazil study was read as an abstract only. Both concern people trading their own money, not prop firm customers.
• Forums and press. Reddit refused our tools. We found no mainstream press report that checked a named trader’s records.
• Whether the people named have seen this page. The people and companies named here were not contacted before publication.

Sources

“Read at source” means we opened the page itself on 8 October 2026. “Secondary” means we read an article or summary about the source, not the source itself. “Estimate” means our own sum. “Through a reader service” means a service (r.jina.ai) fetched the page for us.

1. Does It Pay collection of 40 tweets on this scheme, collected 2026-10-06; individual tweets linked above. Read from our collected copy on 2026-10-08, not from the live tweets. Counts by label are estimates.
2. Topstep, home page and landing page with 2025 outcome statistics, prices and totals. https://www.topstep.com/ and https://www.topstep.com/paid-lp ; approval rate at https://www.topstep.com/instant-payouts . Statistics cover January to December 2025. Read at source on 2026-10-08, directly and through a reader service.
3. Topstep Help, “Topstep payout policy”. https://intercom.help/topstep-llc/en/articles/8284233-topstep-payout-policy . Undated page. Read at source on 2026-10-08 through a reader service.
4. Topstep, payout landing page. https://www.topstep.com/9-second-payout-rt-lp . Undated marketing page. Read at source on 2026-10-08.
5. Topstep, Terms of Use. https://www.topstep.com/terms-of-use/ . Last updated 2026-09-21. Read at source on 2026-10-08 through a reader service.
6. Topstep, programme and pricing page. https://www.topstep.com/topstep-prop . Undated page. Read at source on 2026-10-08.
7. FTMO, home page with price list, average rewards and totals. https://ftmo.com/en/ ; demo-account statement also at https://ftmo.com/en/terms-and-conditions/ (modified 2026-08-26). Read at source on 2026-10-08, directly and through a reader service.
8. FTMO, “Trading objectives”. https://ftmo.com/en/trading-objectives/ . Undated page. Read at source on 2026-10-08.
9. FTMO, Challenge Terms and Conditions (PDF). https://cdn.ftmo.com/docs%2Fterms-and-conditions%2Ff8d5ca5086964c86a6ee2a77f20bdbd7 . Last updated 2026-08-04. Read at source on 2026-10-08.
10. FTMO, “Forbidden trading practices”. https://ftmo.com/en/forbidden-trading-practices/ . Undated page. Read at source on 2026-10-08.
11. FTMO, affiliate commissions FAQ. https://ftmo.com/en/faq/how-do-i-earn-commissions-as-an-affiliate/ . Undated page. Read at source on 2026-10-08.
12. FTMO blog, “We pay millions in payouts to our FTMO traders”. https://ftmo.com/en/blog/we-pay-millions-in-payouts-to-our-ftmo-traders/ . 2024-02-09. Read at source on 2026-10-08. Averages per payout are estimates.
13. Finance Magnates, “Only 7% of 300,000 prop trading accounts achieved payouts”. https://www.financemagnates.com/forex/analysis/exclusive-only-7-of-300000-prop-trading-accounts-achieved-payouts/ . 2024-09-18. Secondary (reports FPFX Tech data; read through a reader service).
14. Finance Magnates, “Poll reveals 60% of prop firm clients lose funds”. https://www.financemagnates.com/forex/analysis/exclusive-poll-reveals-60-of-prop-firm-clients-lose-funds-investing-4300-on-average/ . 2024-08-13. Secondary (reports a PipFarm survey).
15. Finance Magnates, “Only 1 in 20 traders pass prop firm challenges, reports The Funded Trader”. https://www.financemagnates.com/forex/only-1-in-20-traders-pass-prop-firm-challenges-reports-the-funded-trader/ . 2025-03-18. Secondary.
16. Finance Magnates, “This prop firm has nearly 1,300 traders waiting a year for their money”. https://www.financemagnates.com/forex/this-prop-firm-has-nearly-1300-traders-waiting-a-year-for-their-money/ . 2025-03-03. Secondary.
17. Finance Magnates, “Prop trading firm The Funded Trader pauses all operations”. https://www.financemagnates.com/forex/breaking-prop-trading-firm-the-funded-trader-pauses-all-operations/ . 2024-03-28. Secondary (read through a reader service).
18. Finance Magnates article on FundedNext’s February 2026 payout report, copy republished on another site. https://coinspectator.com/mainstream/2026/03/06/prop-firm-fundednext-says-it-paid-15m-to-more-than-8000-traders-in-february/ . 2026-03-06. Secondary (read through a reader service). Per-trader figures are estimates.
19. Finance Magnates, “FTMO adds $200 million to lifetime payouts in one year”. https://www.financemagnates.com/forex/ftmo-adds-200-million-to-lifetime-payouts-in-one-year-as-monthly-rewards-near-15-million/ . 2026-10-08. Secondary (read through a reader service).
20. Finance Magnates, “FTMO announces over $450 million paid out”. https://www.financemagnates.com/forex/ftmo-announces-over-450-million-paid-out-as-prop-trading-firm-turns-10/ . 2025-09-29. Secondary.
21. Finance Magnates, “FTMO’s 2023 turnover hits $213 million”. https://www.financemagnates.com/forex/exclusive-prop-trading-giant-ftmos-2023-turnover-hits-213-million/ . 2024-07-31. Secondary (read through a reader service).
22. Finance Magnates, “FTMO’s parent netted over $62 million on $329M revenue in 2024”. https://www.financemagnates.com/forex/ftmos-parent-netted-over-62-million-on-329m-revenue-in-2024/ . 2025-11-14. Secondary.
23. TradeInformer, “How does FTMO make money”. https://tradeinformer.com/prop-weekly/how-does-ftmo-make-money . 2026-04-10. Secondary (a newsletter’s analysis of FTMO’s 2024 accounts; the 3.7% is its author’s estimate).
24. FX News Group, “FTMO 2025 revenues rise 31% to $422M”. https://fxnewsgroup.com/forex-news/retail-forex/ftmo-2025-revenues-rise-31-to-422m-paid-422m-for-oanda/ . 2026-09-08. Secondary.
25. Finance Magnates, “Prop Firm Match tracked about $325 million in payouts to traders in 2025”. https://financemagnates.com/forex/prop-firm-match-tracked-about-325-million-in-payouts-to-traders-in-2025 . 2026-01-06. Secondary (read through a reader service).
26. Finance Magnates, “Can you trust prop firms’ total payouts claims?”. https://www.financemagnates.com/forex/can-you-trust-prop-firms-total-payouts-claims/ . 2025-06-03. Secondary.
27. Finance Magnates Intelligence, payouts by ten prop firms from public blockchain data. https://datalab.financemagnates.com/market-insights/top-10-prop-firms-paid-over-54-million-to-traders-in-q2-2026/ . 2025-11-13. Secondary. The source is inconsistent: its text says over $48 million for April to June 2025, its title says over $54 million, its address says 2026, and its table adds up to $55,341,603 over 26,933 payouts. The overall mean is an estimate.
28. Finance Magnates, “80-100 prop firms shut down in 2024’s industry reshuffle” (earlier headline: “wiped out in 2024’s industry collapse”). https://www.financemagnates.com/forex/exclusive-80-100-prop-firms-wiped-out-in-2024s-industry-collapse . 2025-02-27. Secondary (read through a reader service).
29. Finance Magnates, “Another regulator warns against prop firms, calls them trading video games”. https://www.financemagnates.com/forex/another-regulator-warns-against-prop-firms-calls-them-trading-video-games . 2024-07-08. Secondary (reports Consob’s warning; read through a reader service). The same statement is reported by ANSA, https://www.ansa.it/english/news/2024/07/08/consob-sounds-alarm-about-online-trading-video-games_b226f1de-7188-4eca-b811-72c3e7030f17.html , 2024-07-08.
30. US Commodity Futures Trading Commission, press release 8771-23, Internet Archive copy. https://web.archive.org/web/2024/https://www.cftc.gov/PressRoom/PressReleases/8771-23 . 2023-09-01. Read at source on 2026-10-08 in the archived copy; cftc.gov refused our tools.
31. Order in CFTC v. Traders Global Group Inc., US District Court for the District of New Jersey, No. 23-cv-11808, Document 260. https://complianceconcourse.willkie.com/app/uploads/2025/06/20250513-CFTC-Traders-Global-Order.pdf . 2025-05-13. Read at source on 2026-10-08 (copy hosted by a law firm). The official’s finding is from the law firm’s summary, https://complianceconcourse.willkie.com/articles/new-jersey-federal-judge-dismisses-forex-case-with-prejudice-and-awards-attorney-fees/ , 2025-05-26, secondary.
32. Apex Trader Funding, home page. https://apextraderfunding.com/ . Undated page. Read at source on 2026-10-08 through a reader service; the site refused direct reading.
33. Goat Funded Trader, affiliate page. https://www.goatfundedtrader.com/affiliate . Undated page. Read at source on 2026-10-08 through a reader service.
34. FundedNext, affiliate page. https://fundednext.com/affiliate . Undated page. Read at source on 2026-10-08.
35. Prop Firm Match, affiliate programme. https://propfirmmatch.com/join-affiliate-program . Undated page. Read at source on 2026-10-08 through a reader service.
36. Funding Predicts, home page disclaimer and terms. https://fundingpredicts.com/ and https://fundingpredicts.com/terms . Disclaimer effective 2026-07-01. Read at source on 2026-10-08 through a reader service.
37. JP Trading Capital, “How much do prop firm passing services cost”. https://www.jptradingcapital.com/blog/en/how-much-do-prop-firm-passing-services-cost . 2026-05-26. Read at source on 2026-10-08 through a reader service.
38. El Trader Financiado, “My prop firm results”. https://www.eltraderfinanciado.com/en/my-prop-firm-results . Undated page. Read at source on 2026-10-08 through a reader service. One person’s own statement.
39. Chague, De-Losso and Giovannetti, “Day trading for a living?”, FGV EESP working paper 525. https://ideas.repec.org/p/fgv/eesptd/525.html . 2020. Read at source on 2026-10-08 (abstract only).
40. Barber, Lee, Liu and Odean, “The cross-section of speculator skill: evidence from day trading”. https://faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/odean/papers/Day%20Traders/Day%20Trading%20Skill%20110523.pdf . May 2011. Read at source on 2026-10-08.
41. FundedNext Help, tax compliance for US traders. https://help.fundednext.com/en/articles/13559905-fundednext-tax-compliance-us-traders . Updated 2026-01-29. Read at source on 2026-10-08 through a tool that summarises text.
42. Tradecovex, guide to Topstep’s 2025 statistics. https://tradecovex.com/guides/how-many-combines-passed-express-topstep-2025 . Updated April 2026. Read at source on 2026-10-08. Cited only as an example of a summary that differs from Topstep’s wording.
43. Topstep Help, “Topstep refund policies”. https://help.topstep.com/en/articles/8284117-topstep-refund-policies . Undated page. Read at source on 2026-10-08 through a reader service.
44. Thor Trade Copier, “How to pass a futures prop firm evaluation”. https://thortradecopier.com/blog/how-to-pass-futures-prop-firm-evaluation . 2026-09-18. Read at source on 2026-10-08 through a reader service. A software company’s model of pass odds; an estimate, not a measurement.

Corrections

If you are quoted or named on this page and think something is wrong, want your reply shown beside it, or want to be removed, write to [email protected]. We aim to reply within 14 days, and always within one month. Factual errors are corrected with a dated note here. A sentence that is seriously disputed comes down while we check it.

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