Seven prop firms — six futures-focused, one crypto-focused — scored against a consistent framework. No affiliate spam, no cheerleading, no recommendations: just what you need to evaluate them honestly.
Last verified: 31 May 2026
Important — read this first.
This page has zero affiliate links. We don’t earn anything if you sign up with any firm here. The takes below are our honest reading of the firms based on publicly available rules and reputation, not paid promotion.
Prop firm rules change constantly. Account sizes, profit splits, drawdown rules, payout schedules — firms tweak them every few months. Always check the firm’s current rules document on their own site before paying for an evaluation. The dates on each firm card below tell you when we last verified.
Most evaluations fail. This is the firm’s business model. They sell evaluations cheaper than the funded accounts cost them to maintain, and rely on most traders failing the rules. Plan accordingly — pick a firm whose rules match how you actually trade, not the one with the biggest discount.
How to evaluate any prop firm
Ten questions to ask of any firm before you pay for an evaluation. The answers should be clearly published on their site. If they’re not, that itself is a red flag.
What’s the pricing model? One-time evaluation fee or monthly subscription? Refundable on first payout or non-refundable? One-time is usually cheaper if you pass quickly; subscription is cheaper if you take longer.
What account sizes do they offer, and which actually make sense for you? The biggest account isn’t always best — sizing rules scale with account size, but so does the daily loss limit you have to respect. Start at the size you can actually trade.
How many evaluation steps? One-step is easier to pass but usually has stricter funded-account rules. Two-step is harder upfront, looser once funded.
What’s the drawdown rule — static or trailing? A trailing drawdown that tracks your highest balance is the trap most traders fall into. A static drawdown is calculated once from the starting balance and never moves. Trailing drawdowns are unforgiving on profitable accounts.
What’s the daily loss limit? The hard stop for each session. Hit it and the account is typically blown — game over. Should be 2-5% of account size for sustainability.
Is there a consistency rule? The single most common cause of failed payouts. Many firms require that no single day’s profit exceeds X% of total profits before withdrawal. One huge winning day can make you ineligible for a payout for weeks. Read the small print.
How fast and how often are payouts? Weekly is best. Bi-weekly is acceptable. Monthly is slow. Quarterly is a red flag. Some firms require minimum days held before first payout (often 14-30 days).
What’s the payout reliability? Search the firm name on Trustpilot, Reddit (r/PropTrading), and YouTube. Look for a pattern of recent payouts being honoured, not just marketing claims. This is the single most important factor and the hardest to verify in advance.
What are the news / weekend / overnight rules? Some firms forbid trading during high-impact news; others restrict weekend holds. If you trade these conditions, the firm has to support it.
What’s the refund / reset policy? Some firms refund your evaluation fee on first payout (effectively making the eval free if you succeed). Others let you reset a failed evaluation at a discount. Both are valuable features.
Red flags & green flags
🚩 Red Flags
Founded less than 12 months ago with no payout track record
Consistency rules buried deep in the T&Cs rather than prominent
Pattern of recent "didn’t receive payout" reviews on Trustpilot
Payouts requiring "phone interview" or similar friction
Marketing promising specific income claims (£X/month possible)
Aggressive discount stacking that pressures larger account purchases
No clear refund or reset policy
Rules document hidden behind signup wall
✓ Green Flags
Multi-year track record of consistent payouts
Clear, prominent rules document — readable in 10 minutes
Payouts processed in the stated timeframe, every time
Active customer service (real people, real response times)
Realistic profit targets (6-10% per step) and drawdowns
Transparent about what happens when you breach a rule
Refund on first payout or sensible reset pricing
Detailed FAQ addressing edge cases
The firms
Seven prop firms commonly used by UK retail traders — six futures-focused, one crypto-focused. Listed alphabetically — no rankings. Each take reflects publicly known information at the verification date; always check the current rules on the firm’s own site before purchasing.
Apex Trader Funding
Popular · Check small print
Naming note: Apex Trader Funding is a US-based prop firm and is not affiliated with the APEX indicator product on this site. Separate companies, no relationship.
The most aggressively-marketed futures prop firm of the last two years. One-time evaluation fee, single-step pass, account sizes from small to very large. Pros: easy to pass on paper, simple structure, frequent payouts allowed. Cons: trailing drawdown that catches many traders, consistency rules that bite if you have one big day, and a marketing engine that pushes discounts hard enough that traders sometimes end up with bigger accounts than they should trade.
A newer entrant focused on futures with a simpler rule set than the established players. One-time evaluation fee, sensible drawdown structure. The honest take: the rules are clean, but the payout track record is shorter than the older firms. If you’re going to try a newer firm, check very recent reviews before paying.
Founded around 2023 and grown quickly on the back of clean rules and reliable payouts. Two account tiers (Starter and Expert) with different rule sets — Starter is more forgiving, Expert has stricter consistency requirements but higher profit splits. The community reputation has held up well as they’ve scaled, which matters in this industry.
Smaller, less-hyped futures prop firm with a straightforward subscription model. The appeal is predictability: rules don’t change often, drawdown structure is sensible, and the community reports consistent payouts. Not the cheapest option, not the fanciest, but a solid choice if you value boring reliability over big-account discount stacking.
The original futures prop firm and still one of the most established. Subscription pricing, two-step evaluation (Trading Combine then Funded Account), conservative rules. Profit splits start at 90/10 in your favour after first $5K. The trade-off: rules are stricter than newer firms and the evaluation is genuinely harder. If you pass it, you’ve earned a seat with one of the most reliable payout histories in the industry.
UK-friendly futures prop with a subscription model and a reputation for clean rules. Less aggressive marketing than the bigger US-based firms, which traders either love (less salesy) or hate (smaller community to compare notes with). The drawdown structure is reasonable and the payout history holds up.
Different beast: Crypto props are not just "futures props that let you trade crypto" — the underlying market behaves very differently. Daily loss limits and drawdown rules that feel reasonable on ES or NQ can be hit in minutes on a leveraged BTC perpetual. The market is 24/7, far more volatile, and perpetual mechanics (funding rates, no settlement) add variables traders coming from a futures background often misjudge.
One of the early movers in the crypto prop space, focused on perpetual contracts on major pairs (BTC, ETH and a handful of altcoins) rather than CME-listed crypto futures. The pitch is for traders who already trade crypto and want a funded account in the market they know — not as a way to "try crypto" with the firm’s money. The crypto prop firm category is still young; payout track records are shorter than the established futures firms, so weight recent reviews heavily and treat your evaluation fee as the maximum you are willing to lose if the firm runs into trouble. Read their rules document carefully — crypto rule sets differ meaningfully from futures rule sets (max leverage on alts, weekend rules, funding-rate handling) and the small print matters.
The prop firm industry has changed shape rapidly in the last few years, and not always for the better. A few things every trader should know before paying for any evaluation:
MyForexFunds shutdown (2023): A major forex prop firm shut down by the US CFTC over allegations of fraud and operating an unregistered commodities pool. Customers lost funds. The lesson is not "prop firms are scams" — most are legitimate businesses — but rather that this industry is lightly regulated, young, and capable of large failures. Concentration risk is real.
Vendor-side risk is the real risk. Your evaluation fee, your discipline, your trade plan — none of that protects you if the firm itself goes under. Don’t treat any single firm as your only path. Spread accounts across firms if you trade at scale.
Most "funded" trading is simulated. Most prop firms run accounts in simulation against their own internal accounting, then pay out profits from their own pool when you hit the conditions. You’re not necessarily trading in the real market in the way you might assume. This isn’t inherently a problem, but it affects how the firm makes money (most traders fail; the firm collects evaluation fees) and how confident you should be in their long-term viability.
Rules change — sometimes mid-evaluation. Most firms reserve the right to update their rules at any time, even on existing accounts. Screenshot the rules you signed up under, and watch for change notifications.
Trustpilot and Reddit are noisier than they look. Bad reviews cluster (traders who failed are angry; traders who succeeded are quiet). Look at trends over months, not single complaints. A pattern of recent unpaid payout complaints is a serious red flag; a few angry one-star reviews about losing the evaluation is normal noise.
The bottom line
Pick a firm whose rules match how you actually trade, not the one with the biggest current discount. A discounted account you blow because the rules don’t fit your method is more expensive than a full-priced one you keep.
Read every word of the rules document before you pay. If something isn’t clear, ask their support and screenshot the answer. If the firm is evasive or slow to respond, take that as your answer.
Most evaluations fail. The math of the business depends on that. Going in expecting to pass first time is reasonable; going in betting more than you can afford to lose on a single attempt is not.
And whichever firm you pick: the discipline this site spends most of its content on — sizing, risk acceptance, daily loss limits, process over outcome — is what makes the difference between passing a prop firm evaluation and just paying repeatedly to fail one.
The rules are easier when your discipline is in place
Most prop firm failures aren’t about strategy or setups — they’re about respect for the daily loss limit, the trailing drawdown, and the consistency rules. The psychology series covers exactly the work that turns a trader who can pass into a trader who can keep the account.