How to Choose the Right Funded Futures Account with FundedFilter

Navigating the world of funded futures trading can be daunting, especially with the myriad of options available. Each prop firm offers unique features, account types, and trading conditions that can significantly impact your trading experience.

This guide simplifies the decision-making process, through the use of FundedFilter. This is a powerful comparison tool I developed to help traders find the right funded futures account tailored to their specific needs and goals.

By the end of this guide, you’ll understand how to effectively compare different accounts and also how to leverage FundedFilter to locate the best deals available. Whether you’re looking for the cheapest prop firm, the fastest payouts, the most professional team, or the best at all of the above, you now have a powerful tool to quickly compare your favorite firm with the competition.

Understanding FundedFilter’s Unique Rating System

Before diving into the specifics of account comparison, it’s essential to familiarize yourself with FundedFilter’s unique rating system. The platform evaluates accounts based on four key categories: Evaluation, Funded Account, Cost, and Payout.

• Evaluation: This rating reflects the conditions and requirements of the evaluation phase. A higher rating means a more straightforward and less-restricted evaluation environment.
• Funded Account: This assesses the features and benefits of the funded account itself. Earning a higher score here means the account offers more freedom to traders relative to the competition, and a better path to growing one’s business. See one example from ApexTraderFunding on the right, which offers multiple advantages in the funded account.
• Cost: This includes all fees associated with the account, and compares each account to the competition in the same tier. A higher rating means you’re getting more value for the amount paid for the account.
• Payout: This rating indicates the ease of the payout system and the quality in terms of profits and bonuses available to traders. A higher rating means you’re able to withdraw significantly more money, and with relative ease compared to the industry on average.

Use these ratings as a starting point, but keep in mind that each account may have different advantages. If you are experienced and confident in getting to the funded phase, the evaluation score may be less important than the funded account rules or the payout system.

Step 1: Define Your Trading Style Requirements

Every trader has a unique style, and there are nearly endless ways to make money from day trading. Depending on your style, you may incorporate News Trading, Swing Trading, Copy Trading, Dollar-Cost Averaging (DCA), Automated Trading, and more. But because not all companies allow each of these to be used in your strategy, it’s important to be aware before signing up for a new account. FundedFilter allows you to figure this out easily.

For instance, if you’re a swing trader, you can easily filter for the accounts that permit swing trading strategies. If you need to be able to hold positions during a news release, filter out the accounts that don’t allow it.

This way, you can avoid the accounts whose restrictions could hinder your trading performance.

My advice: If you’re a beginner, don’t trade the news. Focus on the amount of drawdown you’re getting, and work on your strategy instead of picking the perfect account at first. For those who are more experienced, filter for accounts that permit news trading, whether you plan to take advantage of news releases or not.

Step 2: Compare Account Costs Effectively

Understanding the costs associated with each account is crucial, especially if you are new to prop firms and on a budget. There’s no sense in overpaying for an account when the exact same type of account is available elsewhere for less.

FundedFilter provides various methods to sort and filter accounts by cost, allowing you to see beyond the initial fees. By sorting by Price, you will get results with ongoing sales taken into consideration.

The costs displayed on each account in the results considers factors such as:

• Monthly subscription fees
• One-time activation fees
• Data fees (and whether they are optional)
• Waiving Subscription fees

By comparing similar account types across different firms, you can identify the best value for your investment. For example, you might find that one firm offers a lower activation fee but has higher ongoing costs, while another has a higher upfront cost but a better quality funded account. The account with ongoing costs will have this reflected in the Yr. 1 Funded price, which is a total of all costs you can expect if you kept the funded account for an entire year. This cost does not include any actual trading or commissions from trades.

Direct accounts cost more, but enable traders to skip the evaluation phase entirely, which may be a more appealing option for some.

My advice: If you’re not as experienced yet, avoid direct accounts. Instead, filter by account size and sort by price ascending first. Then, apply another filter or two depending on the rules you prefer (such as drawdown type).

Step 3: Evaluate Drawdown and Risk Parameters

Risk management is a vital aspect of trading. FundedFilter enables you to narrow down the accounts until you find the ones that align with your risk tolerance.

When comparing accounts, consider:

• Maximum Drawdowns: How much are you willing to risk? Would a static drawdown be required for your approach, or is a trailing drawdown acceptable?
• Daily Loss Limits: Would you benefit from having a maximum loss limit on a single trading day? This may train you to be a more disciplined trader. See the filter options on the left. A trader who only wants to deal with a static or EOD Trailing drawdown, with no Daily Loss Limits, can easily find the accounts that satisfy this preference.
• Account sizes: How many contracts are you planning to trade at once, and is the available drawdown appropriate for that size? For example, some $50k accounts offer 10 contracts, while others permit just 5. But if the account only offers $2,000 of maximum drawdown, trading 5 contracts is more than enough to blow an account if you’re not careful. The difference in contracts may not be a big deal if you aren’t going to be scaling up anytime soon.

Finding the right balance between opportunity and protection is key to successful trading.

My advice: If you’re a beginner, look for an account with a Static or EOD Trailing Drawdown. If you opt for a daily loss limit, make sure it’s a soft limit, so you don’t fail the evaluation by hitting that limit accidentally.

Step 4: Assess Profit Withdrawal Systems

Understanding how and when you can withdraw profits is essential. FundedFilter allows you to compare profit splits, bonus structures, and withdrawal thresholds across different accounts.

Evaluate:

• Profit split percentages
• Initial Profit Bonuses
• Consistency requirements for withdrawals
• Withdrawal thresholds

Using the profit-related filters, you can find accounts that offer favorable withdrawal conditions, ensuring you can access your earnings when needed. See the difference in payout systems between three firms below.

My advice: Filter for the firms that offer you a 90/10 split, and especially the ones that offer a decent ($10,000+) initial profit bonus. This has become the standard, so there’s really no reason not to expect it anymore. Then, compare the results to find an account with a straightforward, easy payout system, that doesn’t have excessive requirements.

Step 5: Consider Long-Term Scaling Potential

This step is not for most traders. You should first master your strategy on one account, and work on withdrawing consistently before worrying about extra accounts. But if you plan to scale your trading and reach a higher level than most ever will, it’s important to find accounts that are compatible with those goals. For example, you may consider firms that allow copy trading and have higher maximum account limits.

Additionally, consider:

• Live transition options: Can you easily transition from the funded to a live account?
• Payout systems: Is it relatively straightforward to withdraw from multiple accounts at the same time?

Copy trading is a big factor in scaling, because it is not humanly possible to day trade 20+ accounts simultaneously without it. The varying fills would include too much slippage, and even with pure limit orders, it’s so much extra work that I doubt you’d enjoy it. But not all firms allow this, so you do need to be careful with which ones you choose.

Some firms will restrict you to having just one live account, even if you had multiple funded accounts. This severely limits your ability to grow compared to staying in the SIM funded phase with multiple accounts.

Again, until you’re approaching both mastery within your strategy and a supreme level of confidence and comfort with multiple prop firms, this is not something you should be concerned about.

Finding the Right Account for Different Trader Types

The New Trader

For those just starting, it’s crucial to balance cost with learning opportunities. Use FundedFilter to find accounts with lower fees and educational resources. There are some accounts that are specifically more for beginners, such as Purdia Capital’s Beginner 10k/25k accounts. These Beginner Accounts at Purdia allow you to reset them for free once per day, so you can try many times on the same evaluation without stressing about mistakes.

The Experienced Trader

Experienced traders often seek maximum flexibility. Filter for accounts that come with less restrictions on trading news, scaling up, or a more flexible drawdown. In addition, you may want to consider accounts with more easy payout systems, based on the trading days requirements and the type of consistency rule (or lack thereof).

The Scaling Trader

If your primary focus is accumulating accounts and scaling your business faster, you will want to look for firms offering multiple accounts and copy trading. You may be able to pass multiple evaluations in the same period of time this way, and begin expanding your business more quickly. Apex Trader Funding allows traders to have 20 funded accounts at once, the highest in the industry.

Keep in mind that separate evaluations will have their own subscriptions, as well as funded account fees (if applicable).

Advanced Filtering Techniques

To refine your search further, consider combining multiple filters for precise results. Use the sort function alongside filters to rank options based on your priorities.

The color-coding system within FundedFilter provides a quick visual assessment, making it easier to identify the best choices at a glance.

Making Your Final Decision

After creating a shortlist based on your filtered results, take the time to ask yourself key questions before committing to an evaluation. Consider additional research beyond FundedFilter’s data points to ensure you’re making the best choice for your trading journey.

There is a favorite feature available for you to quickly save the accounts you’re interested in. Then, if you apply the Favorites Only filter, you can view just your top selections and compare them more easily. This is also a good way to check on when your favorite accounts go on sale, all in one place.

Conclusion

Choosing the right funded futures account may feel overwhelming at first. I know it too well, having 10-15 tabs open as I compared the offerings at multiple firms. It’s exhausting, and you’re better off saving your mental energy for actually trading.

But it doesn’t have to be so difficult anymore. I am sure that FundedFilter will help you easily figure out which firms are most suited for you, and you are free to reach out on Discord for more advice if you need it.

Expect more features to be added over time, and please share feedback and suggestions if you have any. Good luck!