You’ve probably come here from the new Funded Filter Tool for Futures. All the answers you need regarding both the filter tool and funded futures in general should be found below. If you are still unsure about something, or find some information lacking, don’t hesitate to reach out via Discord and I will update it.

To learn more about funded futures programs in general, check here.

Ratings

One of the best parts of FundedFilter is that it’s backed by years of experience and experimentation with various prop firms.

While traders employ a variety of strategies and approach these accounts with their own opinions, certain systems are undoubtedly more restrictive than others.

I have scored accounts on their evaluation, funded account, cost, and payout structure, and each of these categories is now available as a sorting option.

For evaluations, accounts are scored higher based on how lenient they are toward all kinds of trading strategies. The more unrestrictive, straightforward, and quick an evaluation is, the higher the score.

For the cost, I weighed each account against the other accounts in their tier, and judged things like contracts offered, reset fees, and the existence of non-optional data fees. If an account evaluation (or funded phase) is at a good discount relative to similar accounts, it will be scored higher.

For the funded account, there are several additional metrics used to calculate my score. Some firms require you to trade more often to keep a funded account active, while only allowing you to accumulate 2 or 3 funded accounts at the same time. The firms that permit traders to scale the most, open up more accounts, and trade relatively freely will have a higher score.

Finally, for payouts, the accounts that score the highest offer the most reasonable payout structures. These are accounts that don’t require a lot of trading days, offer a high profit split, and make the entire process simple for most traders.

Filter Options

Professional vs. Non-Professional

The Professional filter option allows you to see what the expected costs are for the evaluation, one month, and one year use of a particular funded futures account.

Note that “professional” here has nothing to do with your skill level. Professionals in this context are traders who meet certain criteria, namely those who:

• Work full-time in finance, often using advanced tools, co-location, APIs.
• Trade on behalf of institutions or clients (like hedge funds, asset managers, or proprietary trading firms), and are thus required to follow more strict compliance/reporting rules.
• Access or use data for business purposes, not just for their own private investing.

Non-Professionals, also called retail traders, are individuals trading for their own personal accounts.

They typically:

• Use trading platforms like TD Ameritrade, Interactive Brokers, NinjaTrader, etc.
• Aren’t licensed financial professionals, and don’t trade for institutions.

To qualify as a non-professional, you usually need to affirm:

• You’re not a registered investment advisor or broker/dealer.
• You don’t use the data in a business or professional setting.
• You use the data solely for your own personal account(s).

If you’re just learning trading or you’re not sure, you are a non-professional, and should not be paying extra for data.

Account Specifications

Account Size

“Account size” here can be a bit confusing, because of how futures differ from equity markets or other forms of investing.

When a prop firm says you’re getting a $50,000 account, it does not mean they’ve deposited $50,000 of real capital for you to use. Instead, that “account size” is a simulated or notional value used to determine a few qualities, such as your buying power, max drawdown and even the payout system associated with your account.

In reality, the amount you’ll be using on a $50,000 funded account would be no more than $10,000-$20,000 if compared to a traditional futures broker for day trading. Based on the max drawdown on these accounts, your “risk capital” is significantly lower, typically just $2,000-$3,000.

How funded futures accounts are traded

When you’re trading futures, your positions will be based on contract sizes, rather than capital.

On average, a $50,000 account will enable you to trade 3-6 e-mini futures contracts, while having a max drawdown of $2,000-$3,000, and a profit target of $2,500-$3,000. You can almost disregard your initial balance, as long as you keep a close eye on your profit target, drawdown, and position sizes at all times.

Knowing this, some choose to view their accounts as having only the capital allocated for the drawdown, rather than the account size listed. While this is a bit of an oversimplification, it’s more realistic in terms of the capital you are “allowed” to use.

You may be thinking this is false advertising, but in reality, you would never find a broker that allows you to trade so many full futures contracts with an account size of just $2,000-$3,000.

Mini vs. Micro contracts

E-Mini futures contracts are the standard sized contracts, and micro futures contracts come in 1/10th the size. There are usually slightly lower commissions for trading micro contracts as well.

Most prop firm accounts will allow you to trade up to 10 times as many micros as e-minis, but it’s good to double check anyway. Some smaller accounts may allow only trading micro contracts.

However, some firms do not differentiate between the two. If a firm says you can only trade 6 contracts, and does not specify whether micros are allowed at 10x the size, do not make the mistake of trading 60 micros without checking with them first.

Evaluation Phase

Trading Days Requirement

Most evaluation accounts come with a trading days requirement. A trading day is typically any day where you place at least one trade. However, some firms are more strict than this.

There may be a secondary requirement, such as achieving a certain profit per day for it to count as a trading day. Usually, this secondary rule comes in the form of a consistency rule.

In the filter tool, the days requirement is displayed as “Evaluation Length” in the results. When there is no minimum days requirement, it will be shown as 1d, because you would have to trade for at least a day to reach a profit target.

Typically, there won’t be a maximum time limit on passing an evaluation, so you will typically see a “∞”. But some accounts, such as the Leeloo $100,000 Express, require you to pass them in 14 days, no exceptions.

The color scale here directs you to accounts that are shorter in length without being too restrictive for slower traders.

Flipping

Flipping is when you open and close a position quickly, just to log a trade and have it count as a trading day. This term comes up often with regards to trading or withdrawal days requirements.

The point of flipping is to meet the days requirement when you’ve hit your profit target early, but don’t want to take on excessive risk for the remaining time of the evaluation.

Some companies are firmly against this, and will expect more consistent sizing and trading on all of your trading days.

Drawdown Type

There are 5 main types of Max Drawdown: Static, EOD Trailing, Trailing Realized, Trailing Unrealized, and Trailing Unrealized (Hardcore).

In each case, if you reach or cross this limit, your account will automatically fail, and all positions will be closed. However, they are applied in slightly different ways, with the Trailing Unrealized (Hardcore) method being the most strict. The difference lies in how often these drawdowns update.

Type of Drawdown	How it Trails
Static	Does not change
EOD Trailing	Moves up to trail account balance at EOD
Trailing Realized	Trails after closed profits only
Trailing Unrealized	Trails during unrealized profits
Trailing Unrealized (Hardcore)	Trailing Unrealized, but continues past the initial balance

I’ve written a complete guide on each type of Max Drawdown here.

Daily Loss Limit

There are two main types of daily loss limit, if the account has one: Soft and Hard.

Soft means that if you breach this limit, you will be shut down for the day. You can resume trading the next day.

Hard means that if you breach the limit, you fail your evaluation.

You can read more about each types of Daily Loss Limit here.

The color scale here is showing whether you’re given a reasonable Daily Loss Limit based on the size of the account.

Consistency Rule

The consistency rule is another way of determining whether a trader is getting lucky or following an actual strategy. Breaking this rule doesn’t do anything to your account – it just means you have to keep trading until you’re showing better consistency. There are a few types that you will encounter.

Static Percentage

When there’s a static percentage, it’s easy to calculate. If your best day accounts for more than this percentage of total profits, you are breaking the consistency rule. If the consistency rule is 40%, your best day should not be greater than 40% of total profits.

For example, on the Funded Futures Network $100,000 Standard account, there is a $6,000 profit target. If you multiply your total profits by 0.40, and you made no more than $1,800 on a single day, you have met the consistency requirement.

But if your best day is $2,100, you will have to continue trading until you reach $7,000 in total profits, because that is the point where your best day will only be 30% of the total.

The color scale here shows whether it’s a flexible or restrictive consistency rule. A higher consistency requirement, such as 40% and higher, is easier to manage. A lower consistency requirement, such as 25% or below, is much more restrictive for traders who rely on runners.

Profit Per Day

Another form of measuring consistency is requiring traders to earn a certain amount of profit for a certain number of days.

For example, for the Phoenix Trader Funding Classic Evaluation, you have to trade for a minimum of 3 days, earning at least $200 profit per day. Since the profit target is $3,000 on the $50,000 account, you would not be able to earn $3,000 in one day, and then earn $20 for the next 2 days.

OneUp Trader’s Unique Consistency Rule

There’s one more form of consistency measurement, unique to OneUp Trader. You need to have three separate trading days account for at least 80% of the total made on your best trading day.

For example, if you made $2,000 on a single day, the sum of three other days should add up to at least $1,600. This is quite easy to manage if you know what you’re doing.

If you consider only the 4 days in question, this system amounts to about a 55% Consistency Rule, which is even easier than the most lenient static percentage rules.

Reset Fee

Sometimes an evaluation will offer a reset option, for a fee equal to or lower than the evaluation subscription. If you happen to start an evaluation poorly, you can opt to pay this fee and start over, with a fresh account balance and 0 trading days.

However, your subscription will not be affected, so you will still have to pay monthly based on the date you initially signed up.

In at least one case, there is a special type of reset available. With Purdia Capital’s Beginner $10,000 and $25,000 Account, there is an option to reset the account for free. This can be done once per day, during the evaluation only.

This makes practicing much more affordable for beginners who may make more mistakes starting out.

The color scale on the reset fee indicates whether there is a significant discount based on the evaluation cost.

Funded Phase

Once funded, there are two main paths forward. Each funded account will have the same specifications as the evaluation in terms of contracts, account size, and drawdown, but there are typically a few more rules to be aware of.

Here your focus is usually on growing your account and showing consistency, rather than meeting a single target to advance further. However, some accounts are somewhat of a secondary evaluation, to prepare to move you to a live brokerage account.

For the most part, you will be able to start withdrawing profits during this phase, unless stated otherwise.

Activation Fee

Some funded accounts come with an activation fee, which must be paid immediately upon passing the evaluation. This fee varies by account size and firm, but it is included in our calculations for the 1st month and 1st year costs on each account.

Monthly Subscription

If there is no activation fee, there may be a monthly subscription fee instead. Some firms have an option to waive the monthly subscription by paying a one-time fee, which ends up being similar to an activation fee.

However, some firms have no option for this, and so you will be billed monthly to cover the cost of the funded account. The good news is, very few firms have a monthly subscription on the funded account. Some of these firms include Apex Trader Funding, Leeloo Trading, and Elite Trader Funding, and each of these has an option to waive the fee (with the exception of the Elite Trader Funding Fast Track Accounts).

When calculating the 1st year on each account, we consider the cost of waiving the monthly fee if there is one, and present the lowest cost associated with each account.

If you plan to trade for a long time, it is always better to waive the fee up front.

How to Compare Funded Account Fees with FundedFilter

Here’s how you can use this tool to more effectively filter the results based on costs.

For example, on Bulenox’s $100,000 Trailing Drawdown account, there is an activation fee of $248. For the Elite Trader Funding $100,000 1-Step account, the activation fee is just $225.

On the other hand, for the Apex Trader Funding $100,000 Rithmic Account, there is no “Activation Fee”. Instead, there is a subscription fee of $85/month ($105 for Tradovate accounts), and an option to waive the fee for $220.

If you filter by “No Activation Fee”, Bulenox and EliteTraderFunding won’t show up, but ApexTraderFunding will, even though waiving the monthly subscription can be seen as a similar type of fee.

To compare their costs more effectively, consider filtering results by your preferred account size (by checking the $100,000 in the account size section), organized by price ascending (using the sort options in the top right). Then, compare the first month costs of each account you’re interested in, by viewing the results. If you’re focused on just a few companies, check those companies as well to hide all of the ones you’re not looking at.

Regardless of the way their funded account fees are designed, you can see what it will cost you to get started on each funded account.

If you only want accounts with no fees beyond the evaluation, you can check both “No Activation Fee” and “No Monthly Subscription”, You will get results including straight-to-funded accounts, like Purdia Capital’s $50,000 Instant Funded Account, as well as traditional evaluation accounts like Tradeify’s $50,000 Growth Account.

News Trading

Some news releases are considered “Tier 1” or “High Impact” events. These include FOMC Meetings/Releases, CPI, Crude Oil Inventory Reports, Bond Auctions, and a few more. On an economic calendar like the one at ForexFactory, they may be marked by a red indicator.

Certain firms will require you to close all positions a few minutes before, during, and after each of these releases. Because most firms permit news trading during the evaluation, it’s important to be aware of this rule during the funded phase, so you don’t fail your account by accidentally keeping a position open.

Applying this filter will show you all the funded accounts that allow news trading with no restrictions. But there can be some nuance at certain firms you should be aware of.

At Purdia Capital, traders are expected to reduce size and show some sense of risk management around Tier 1 News events. Other firms, such as Apex Trader Funding, permit holding through the news, but not taking trades specifically around the release. They will use discretionary judgment on how you trade during the news, to make sure a bulk of your trading strategy is not about recklessly playing the volatility around the news release itself.

The ultimate goal for a successful trader here is withdrawing money and scaling their business, so it’s a good idea to figure out how you want to handle news releases before you start. If you are unsure, it may be best to use this filter and go with a firm that will not restrict your trading whatsoever.

To play it safest, just close your positions ~5 minutes before a news release, and you shouldn’t have any problems with any of these firms.

Swing Trading (Holding Overnight)

While this is not something typically seen in funded futures, it is an option for a select few accounts or firms. This filter will show you those accounts that permit traders to swing trade.

Elite Trader Funding’s Diamond Hands Account is specifically designed for this, and allows holding normal sizes.

Leeloo Trading permits holding overnight on all of their “Accelerator” funded accounts (on the FundedFilter results, look for the accounts named “LL-A”), but only at a reduced size. To hold full contracts, you need to have both permission from Leeloo and an extra buffer of profit on your account per contract.

Copy Trading

Copy Trading is one of the biggest advantages offered by trading these accounts. It involves designating one account as the parent/account, with one or more accounts as its children. When placing orders on the parent account, the child accounts will submit the same orders, without you needing to manage them independently.

The true power of copy trading is understood once you analyze the max drawdown of a funded futures account.

For example, on the Apex Trader Funding Rithmic $100,000 account, you get a max drawdown of $3,000. You may decide to use 5 of your 14 maximum contracts to trade, but with only $3,000 of drawdown, it wouldn’t only take a $600 drawdown (multiplied by 5 contracts) to wipe out your account.

Now imagine if you accumulated five separate $100,000 accounts. Instead of taking a single position of 5 or 10 contracts, you could take a position of 1-2 contracts, and copy trade it with the other 4. You have the same exposure in terms of contracts, and the same total profit potential, but your buffer for losses is effectively multiplied by 5, because each account has its own $3,000 max drawdown.

By utilizing copy trading, traders can scale much more aggressively without actually using up more of their buffer for losses. The only real drawback is the additional cost of acquiring multiple accounts. You have to pass an evaluation for each individual account (though you can copy trade during most evaluations). Newer traders should withdraw a few thousand dollars from a single account first, and then work toward getting more accounts as they get more comfortable.

Be aware that there may be a bit of slippage involved with market orders, so entry/exit prices will not be identical in some cases. If you use limit orders, they will all be identical.

Scaling Rules

Scaling refers to a rule requiring traders to achieve a certain profit before trading larger size. This may be something like $1,500 of profit for every additional 1-2 contracts added. As you build your account up past $5,000-$10,000, you are allowed to trade larger sizes, because you will have the buffer to handle the larger drawdowns.

Here’s an example of the Scaling Rule at OneUpTrader.

If there is no scaling rule, traders are allowed to use the maximum contracts available on every position. This is an extreme level of risk relative to the available drawdown, and not advised for most traders.

This filter allows you to see all the funded accounts that will let you trade the full size from day 1. For the most part, the evaluation phase will not have a scaling rule, but many funded accounts do.

Bot Trading

Bot trading, or automated trading, is a method of trading completely hands-off. Traders will use some automated trading strategy, either theirs or someone else’s, and avoid interfering for the most part.

Most firms do not allow any form of automated trading, but some allow it to a certain degree.

At Apex Trader Funding or Purdia Capital, you are only allowed to use semi-assisted automated strategies. This means you must be involved by monitoring or managing the positions, even if a program is doing the entry and exits. You should be able to explain your approach if they ask.

Other firms, such as Bulenox or TradeDay, have no restriction on automated trading at all. If this is your method of trading, you will want to use this filter to find the few options that allow it.

Note that while automated trading may be permitted, “micro scalping” or high frequency trading of any kind is typically not permitted.

Micro Scalping

Micro Scalping is the term used for trading with high frequency for small profits. Some traders, especially algorithmic traders, may try to use a strategy like this, but it’s frowned upon by funding companies. Not only is it less efficient than better trading strategies, it also racks up commissions and may end up abusing the simulated trading environment, due to the way fills can become inaccurate at greater speeds.

While you may get away with it during some evaluations, most firms are strictly against this in the funded phase. If you find yourself taking hundreds of trades in a day, you may want to reconsider your strategy for both the funded account’s sake and your own longevity in this business.

Activity Requirement

The activity requirement is what traders must do to prevent their account from being designated as inactive, and/or risking losing it. This is usually quite lenient, ranging from one trade per week to one trade per month.

In some cases, like at OneUp Trader, you may be required to maintain a similar pace to what you did during your evaluation.

At Leeloo Trading, they want you trading at least 12 days per month.

I’ve seen a few posts or comments from people who got funded and then took 3 months off, only to realize that their account was disabled. It may be tricky once you’ve accumulated 10 or 20 accounts, so make a system and check what days you’ve traded periodically. You’ve already gotten funded, so don’t risk losing the account over something so simple.

Funded Reset Fee

Usually, if you blow your funded account, you must pass a new evaluation to get funded again.

In some cases, a funded account will have the option to reset the account, allowing traders to resume trading and skip the evaluation phase. This kind of reset is typically more expensive than doing the evaluation.

BluSky Trading and Top One Futures offer the cheapest funded account resets. At BluSky, it’s a static $250 regardless of account size, while TopOne Futures goes up to $499 for their $150,000 accounts. Compare this to MyFunded Futures, where a reset of the $150,000 account costs $1,200, or FundedFutures Network, where a $150,000 account costs $1875 to reset.

At Elite Trader Funding, a funded reset is available, but the price is not advertised. They say they will evaluate your account and give you a personalized price if you choose to go that route.

Ultimately, it will be a question of where you’re at when you failed the account. If the market is giving you a lot of opportunities and you want to get back to it, it can be a good choice to not spend time on another evaluation phase.

Withdrawing Profits

The best gauge of a funded account’s value is how much money you can get out of it, and how easily. Nobody wants to spend months waiting for a payout after earning substantial profits in a short period of time.

But because each firm is more unique with regards to their payout systems, this filter is designed to help you compare a few of the key overlapping requirements.

The process of the more complicated payout structures should be evaluated carefully by the trader when making their decision.

Initial Profit Split

The Profit Split refers to how much of your trading profits are yours, and how much is paid to the firm for taking all the risk.

The reason it says Initial is that there are some cases where the profit split is adjusted based on performance, or upon transitioning to another phase beyond the funded account.

Just a few years ago, 80/20 splits were the standard. In 2025, they are now usually around 90/10. A few firms even go as high as 100/0, with systems designed to move you to live brokerage accounts early where your profit split will often be decreased

For example, at Apex Trader Funding, OneUp Trader, Leeloo Trading, Bulenox, etc., it stays at 90/10 indefinitely.

At TradeDay, you start at 80/20, and upgrade to 90/10 and even 95/5, as you cross certain profit thresholds.

At Day Traders, you keep 100% of your first 3 payouts (up to 5 accounts each payout), but payouts are capped based on the account size. Their system is designed to help you move to a live account as soon as possible, where you would then face a 70/30 split.

An interesting new alternative is Thrive Trading Group, which offers only direct accounts, at a 100/0 profit split. Rather than paying them anything at all, you trade until you are moved live, where they likely use a copy trader to earn back their investment.

Initial Profit Bonus

This is the bonus profit a trader gets to keep, typically from their initial payouts. For the firms that offer it, it’s usually a flat sum that you will keep 100% of, and the profit split will apply to all payouts after crossing this threshold.

For example, at Apex Trader Funding, the trader keeps the first $25,000, per account, the highest in the industry by far. Other firms offer around $10,000 on average, with Aqua Futures offering the 2nd highest at $15,000.

At TickTick Trader, traders keep 100% of their profits for the first 3 months. At the time of writing this, there doesn’t seem to be a cap on how much you can make in 3 months.

However, don’t focus simply on the fact that Firm A offers a higher profit split than firm B; sometimes the bonus profits or payout system of firm B may be significantly better than firm A.

Consider the $50,000 account at two unknown firms below.

Profit Incentives	Firm A’s $50,000 Account	Firm B’s $50,000 Account
Initial Profit Bonus	$10,000	$0
Initial Split	90/10	100/0
Maximum Withdrawn at Initial Split	Unlimited	$6,000
Secondary Split	90/10	70/30
Trader Keeps ? of first $20,000	10,000 + (10,000*0.9) = $19,000	6,000 + (14,000*0.7) = $15,800
Trader Keeps ? of first $100,000	10,000 + (90,000*0.9) = $91,000	6,000 + (94,000 * 0.7) = $71,800

As you can see, while a higher % split can be attractive up front, things can change dramatically if the long-term system is less favorable. Always evaluate the other factors in conjunction with a single metric. This doesn’t mean that firm B is ripping you off – it’s just something to weight with respect to your personal goals.

The color scale here simply compares each account with the industry standard of 90/10, while also considering any initial profit bonuses or other qualifications.

Withdrawal Threshold

Most accounts have a withdrawal threshold, or buffer, which must be reached and/or maintained with each payout request. Each firm handles this in their own way. Some permit traders to withdraw partially or fully from within the threshold, and others may require you to keep it in the account at all times as a safety net.

For example, on the Apex Trader Funding $50,000 account, you must have at least $2,600 of profit before making payout request. Of this, $2,600, you can only access $500 of it during each payout, and additional profits must be from above this threshold.

On the OneUp Trader $50,000 account, there’s a $2,500 withdraw threshold, but none of this profit can be withdrawn. The minimum withdrawal amount for any account at OneUp is $1,000, so you technically need to have $3,500 in your funded account before requesting your first payout. If you happen to fail your account or close it, the money remaining in the account is paid out, at a profit split based on the age of the account.

At Earn2Trade, there is no withdrawal threshold, but traders are only permitted to withdraw up to $5,000 at a 80/20 profit split, before they are moved to a live account.

Withdrawal Consistency Rule

Just like the consistency rule of the evaluation, there may be a withdrawal consistency rule that has to be followed before you can request a payout.

If you are not meeting this rule, you simply have to keep trading until you do. There is no penalty for violating it.

See some of these consistency rules below, for some of the better options available today.

Prop Firm	Consistency %
Apex Trader Funding	30
Bulenox	40
Leeloo Trading	30
Day Traders	30
OneUp Trader	None
Purdia Capital	None
Earn2Trade	None

Capped Withdrawals

There is a feature at some companies which I’ve called capped withdrawals. This refers to the payouts taken while there is a cap on the maximum amount available.

Some companies will have a cap for a certain number of payouts, while others will simply keep it capped indefinitely. The most flexible firms are those that have no withdrawal cap, or don’t take as long for traders to remove the cap.

In addition to having a cap on the withdrawals, there may be a withdrawal days requirement associated with it.

For example, at Apex Trader Funding, you have to make 5 successful withdrawals before the cap gets removed. During these 5 withdrawals, you must meet a requirement of 8 trading days, of which 5 must show a profit of at least $50. After the cap is removed, you must still meet these days requirements, but will be able to withdraw an unlimited amount with each payout.

Withdrawal Days Requirement

Similar to the trading days requirement on certain evaluation phases, there may be a days requirement that must be met with each withdrawals.

In addition to logging a trade, you may need to earn a certain amount of profit on each day for it to count.

For example, for the MyFunded Futures Starter Accounts, you need to have 5 trading days during which you earned $100 per day on the $50,000 account ($200 for the $100,000 account, $300 for the $150,000 account).

At Phoenix Trader Funding, you need 10 trading days, but can only withdraw once per month. Top One Futures has no days requirement, but you can only withdraw once per 14 days.

Live Transition

This filter is for finding accounts that permit you to transition to a live brokerage account at any point during the funded phase. Depending on the firm, this can happen in one of several ways.

You may need to reach a certain number of payouts before you are evaluated to go live. NexGen Futures Trader, TickTick Trader, and Day Traders are all firms with a payout number target. Regardless of how much you withdraw, if you hit this many payouts, you will likely be contacted to begin the next steps.

Alternatively, you may be moved to a live account immediately upon reaching a certain amount of profit across all of your accounts. Purdia Capital moves you from the $100,000 Pro account to a Live account as soon as you reach $3,000 of profit, which is transferred to your live account and immediately eligible for withdraw.

Finally, Thrive Trading Group moves you to live on a case-by-case basis, and does not specify whether it’s a specific dollar amount or payouts.

In some cases, the firm may only move certain traders to live, keeping others permanently in the SIM funded environment.

What does going live do for a trader?

Going live comes with certain advantages or disadvantages depending on the firm.

Advantages: During the funded account phase, you often face a withdrawal cap on every payout, or a days requirement associated with each request. These restrictions are typically removed in the live account, and traders can begin withdrawing from their profits daily, regardless of their pace of trading.

Firms may also offer additional capital and contracts as you grow your account, beyond what is available in the normal funded phase of that account.

Traders may even get to work 1-on-1 with a professional risk manager or trading coach, to help them stay on track for long-term success.

Disadvantages: There may be a reduction in the profit split or contracts available, because of the way the live accounts work. Trading in the simulated funded environment offers us disproportionate contract sizes relative to the max drawdown, simply because firms don’t lose money if a trader has a catastrophic loss. This is a huge perk of funded futures when compared to a personal account.

But firms are not interested in dealing with this excess risk, by allowing a potentially reckless trader to trade large position sizes on day 1 of a live account. Thus, they will often impose a scaling rule on the live account to reduce the likelihood of this happening.

In addition, some firms require traders to designate themselves as a Professional at this phase. This means mandatory data fees each month, which is not the case in most SIM funded accounts.

Is it worth it?

Psychologically, it can be a benefit to some traders, in that they feel like they have actually made it in the futures trading field. Being considered worthy of backing by a professional funding partner, without risking your own money, is undoubtedly a big achievement.

In my experience, though, there is almost no reason to strive for going live with a prop firm. You will likely be better off withdrawing as much money as you can in the SIM funded phase, and funding your own personal account on the side.

Once you’re on a personal account, the data fees will be lower (or non-existent), the profit split will be 100/0, and you can trade however you want.

Ultimately, the decision will be based on your goals as a trader. Are you trading temporarily to build a business you’ll manage on your own terms, or are you okay with being a prop trader indefinitely? There’s no right or wrong answer. Hopefully, this site is a good resource to help you achieve your ultimate goal from trading.

Cryptocurrency Payments

If you’re a big fan of crypto, it may be comforting to know that some firms allow you to withdraw your payouts in crypto. Depending on the country you’re from and your situation, this may be a big advantage over the other payment methods, especially if a direct bank deposit or Paypal is not available.

Some firms that allow cryptocurrency withdrawals include Earn2Trade, OneUp Trader, and The Trading Pit.

How do you like the tool?

If you encounter any problems or have feedback for improving this tool, don’t hesitate to reach out. I do my best to respond to everyone and always take all ideas into consideration. You can use the contact form on the FundedFilter tool to leave me a message, but reaching out via Discord will often be faster.

I hope this tool and guide assist you in picking the right account(s) for the next phase of your trading career. Feel free to share it with anyone who would benefit from it, and check back from time to time for new developments at DojiDojo!