The prop firm space has split into two camps that share a vocabulary and not much else. Forex/CFD firms — FTMO, FundedNext, Funding Pips, The5ers — and futures firms — Apex, Topstep, My Funded Futures, Bulenox. People pick one because it’s the one they’ve heard of, then discover halfway through an evaluation that the rules assume a style of trading they don’t do. So before “which firm,” it’s worth settling “which type.” The two categories differ on cost structure, drawdown mechanics, rule culture, what “funded” means, and how you scale. Here’s each of those in turn.
Where the money goes
Forex firms charge a higher upfront fee ($299–$540 for a $100K account is typical) and most of the good ones refund it on your first payout. There’s usually no activation fee and no monthly cost. You pay once, and if you pass and withdraw, you effectively paid nothing.
Futures firms charge less upfront — frequently under $150 with the discount codes that are always running — but add an activation fee when you pass ($85–$150) and sometimes monthly data or platform fees. Some also sell the evaluation itself as a monthly subscription, so a slow pass costs more than a fast one. The real cost ends up closer than the pricing pages suggest, but the shape is different: forex is pay-more-now-get-it-back, futures is pay-less-now-keep-paying.
Which shape suits you depends on how confident you’re. If you expect to pass in a month, futures is cheaper. If you expect to need two or three attempts, the forex refund model tends to win, because the refund covers the successful attempt and the resets are the only real cost.
Drawdown works differently, and it matters more than the fee
Most forex firms use a static or balance-based drawdown: your floor is fixed relative to your starting balance or your end-of-day balance. If you start a $100K account with a 10% max loss, the floor is $90K and it stays there, or it ratchets up only when you bank profit.
Most futures firms use a trailing drawdown that follows your unrealised equity high. A trade that goes up $2,000 and comes back to breakeven has permanently raised your floor by $2,000 — you’re still at breakeven, but you now have $2,000 less room before a breach. Traders who move from forex to futures without understanding this get closed out while “up on the trade,” and it’s the single most common complaint we see from people making that switch. Some futures firms have moved to end-of-day trailing, which is far more forgiving, and a few have started offering static drawdown accounts at a higher fee. Check which one you’re buying. Our static vs trailing guide covers the mechanics in detail; the Drawdown Calculator lets you model it against your own stops before you find out the hard way.
The rules skew differently too
- Consistency rules are near-universal at futures firms — typically 30–50% of total profit from any single day — and rarer at forex firms, though they’re creeping in.
- News restrictions are more common and more specific at forex firms. Futures firms usually let you trade the release, but the trailing drawdown punishes the volatility anyway.
- Weekend holding is mostly a forex question — futures markets close for the weekend regardless, and most futures firms require you to be flat before the daily session close as well.
- Contract/lot caps are standard at futures firms, scale with account size, and get stricter after funding. Forex lot caps exist but are less commonly enforced.
- Minimum trading days are similar in both camps, but futures firms more often add a “minimum profitable days” requirement before a payout.
None of these is better or worse in the abstract. A rule set that suits an intraday index scalper will feel suffocating to a swing trader and vice versa. The rules that close accounts are mostly the same list in both categories — they’re just weighted differently.
The instruments and the sessions
This sounds obvious but it shapes everything else. Forex firms give you currency pairs, usually indices, metals and often crypto, tradeable more or less around the clock from Sunday evening to Friday close. Futures firms give you the CME complex — ES, NQ, CL, GC and so on — with the liquid hours concentrated in the US session. If you live in Europe or Asia and trade in the morning, a futures account is asking you to trade the thin overnight session or stay up late. Forex firms fit a wider set of time zones. That’s a boring practical point that decides more outcomes than most of the rules do.
“Funded” doesn’t mean the same thing
At most futures firms your first funded account is a simulated account with real payouts, and you move to a live-capital account only after several successful payouts — often three to five. Forex firms mostly stay simulated throughout and pay from the firm’s own funds. Neither is inherently worse; plenty of traders have been paid hundreds of thousands from sim accounts. But if you read “funded” as “trading real capital from day one,” neither category delivers that, and the futures firms are at least explicit about the path. The distinction matters for one practical reason: execution. Sim fills are perfect; live fills aren’t. A strategy that relies on getting filled at the exact tick can look wonderful in a sim funded account and fall apart at the live stage.
Payout mechanics
Forex firms mostly pay on a schedule — every two weeks or monthly, sometimes on-demand after the first payout — as a percentage split, 80–90% is normal. Futures firms often let you withdraw sooner but with more conditions attached: a minimum number of winning days, a cap on how much of the account you can take in a single payout, a buffer you’ve to leave above the drawdown floor. Read the payout rules with the same care as the trading rules. A 90% split you can only access once a month with a $2,000 minimum is a different product from an 80% split you can access weekly with no minimum.
Multiple accounts
Futures firms lean into it — Apex allows 20 simultaneous accounts, and copying the same trades across them is expected and built into the pricing. Forex firms mostly cap you at a total funded allocation across accounts and prohibit copying between them. If scaling by running several accounts is part of your plan, that pushes you firmly towards futures. If you’d rather scale one account through a scaling plan, the forex model is built for that.
So which first?
Start with forex if: you swing or position trade, hold over weekends, trade outside US hours, want the fee back when you pass, and would rather pay once than keep paying. You accept a stricter news window and a more scheduled payout in exchange.
Start with futures if: you day trade during the US session, are comfortable with — or have specifically modelled — trailing drawdown, want the cheapest possible entry to test yourself, and like the idea of scaling with multiple accounts later. You accept activation fees, consistency rules and a longer path to live capital in exchange.
If you’ve never done a prop firm evaluation before, there’s a reasonable argument for starting forex regardless, simply because the static drawdown gives you more room to make the early mistakes everyone makes. Move to futures once you know how you behave inside a rule set.
Our best forex firms and best futures firms pages each rank only their own category, so once you’ve picked a lane you’re comparing like with like. And if you’re genuinely undecided, the Find My Firm quiz asks the questions above and points you at three firms rather than forty.