Search for the best prop firm to start with and you will find ranked lists written by affiliates who are paid per sign-up. The honest answer is that there is no best firm. There is only the firm whose rules, platforms, payout terms, and total cost fit the way you trade, and a cheap evaluation with rules that forbid your style is the most expensive one on the page.
This guide gives you the criteria to compare firms yourself, in the order to check them, plus a short section of facts verified on five well-known futures firms’ own pages as of November 2026. Rules and prices change often, so confirm everything on the firm’s current pages before paying. Nothing here is financial advice.
1. Check platforms and data connections first
Futures prop accounts reach the market through a data and order connection, most often Rithmic or Tradovate, and every firm publishes an approved platform list. If you already trade on a platform you like, shortlist only the firms that support it. If a platform is not on the list, assume you cannot use it, whatever a video or forum post says.
Bulenox, for example, issues Rithmic access with R|Trader Pro and lists NinjaTrader, Tradovate, Quantower, and Sierra Chart among more than 20 supported platforms. Aeris routes live futures orders through your own Rithmic login, so it can work with firms that issue Rithmic credentials, but it is not on any firm’s approved list unless the firm says so: check the list before buying. Our guide to connecting a Rithmic account shows what the connection involves.
Also note where your credentials live. A desktop platform keeps logins on your machine; a cloud service holds them with the vendor. Both models exist, and the firm’s rules on VPS, VPN, and device location can constrain which you may use.
2. Compare drawdown type and daily loss rules
The drawdown model decides how your account fails, and firms structure it very differently. A real-time trailing drawdown follows your highest point including open positions; an end-of-day version updates only at the session close; a static drawdown never moves. The differences are large enough to change which strategies are viable, so read trailing drawdown explained and prop-firm daily loss limits before comparing numbers.
Structural choices matter more than small price differences. Bulenox lets you choose between a real-time trailing model with full contract size from day one and an end-of-day model where contract size scales with your balance and the daily loss limit pauses trading for the day instead of closing the account. Topstep’s Daily Loss Limit is optional in its Trading Combine and automatic in its Live Funded Account, and triggering it flattens positions, cancels pending orders, and blocks trading until the next session without counting as a rule violation. Two accounts with the same price and profit target can be completely different products.
3. Read the payout policy before the profit split
The headline split, usually 80 to 100 percent, is the least informative number in the offer. What decides your actual cash is the conditions around it. The range on the market is wide: Apex advertises that its newer simulated-funded accounts pay 100 percent of requested rewards with no split, Earn2Trade publishes a 30 percent consistency requirement on its Trader Career Path, and Tradeify advertises daily payouts with no consistency rule once funded. Identical headline splits can produce very different outcomes, so reconstruct the full path from profit to payment for each firm you shortlist.
The conditions that decide your cash
For every shortlisted firm, write down these items from its current payout page before comparing splits:
- Qualifying or profitable day requirements before each withdrawal.
- Per-day profit minimums for a day to count toward those requirements.
- Consistency caps on how much of the total your best single day may contribute.
- Payout caps per request and the payout schedule, from daily to monthly.
- Safety buffers you must keep above the drawdown after a payout is approved.
4. Add up the total cost of the account
The advertised evaluation price is one line item, and the cheapest sticker price is often not the cheapest account. Multiply the total by a realistic number of attempts, not one: most traders need more than a single evaluation, and the firm’s economics assume it. If three attempts at one firm cost more than a subscription you could cancel after passing at another, the cheaper sticker is an illusion. Budget the total and treat it as money you can lose entirely.
The line items to add up
Before comparing two firms, total every charge between you and the first payout:
- Evaluation billing: monthly until you pass or cancel, or one time; Apex, for example, advertises one-time fees with no recurring billing.
- Reset prices for restarting a failed evaluation.
- Activation fees charged by some firms when you pass.
- Exchange data or platform fees on live stages.
- The trading platform itself, if it is not included. Aeris starts free, and the free plan already includes live trading on one Rithmic account.
5. What five well-known futures firms publish
The facts below come from each firm’s own official pages, checked in November 2026. They are stated without ranking or recommendation, and they will change, so verify them on the current pages before you pay.
Topstep
One of the longest-running futures evaluation firms: its site says it has operated for 15 years, has paid out more than $1.5 billion to prop-firm traders, and that traders keep up to 90 percent of profits. Its help center describes the Daily Loss Limit as optional in the Trading Combine evaluation and automatic in the Live Funded Account, with a session that runs from 5 p.m. CT to 3:10 p.m. CT. The company also operates a separate futures brokerage for traders using their own capital.
Apex Trader Funding
Its site advertises one-time evaluation fees with no recurring billing, up to 20 accounts per trader, end-of-day drawdown options, and a 50 percent consistency rule on new accounts, with 100 percent of requested rewards and no profit split in the simulated-funded stage. Accounts bought before March 1, 2026 sit under separate legacy terms, so check which program a quoted rule belongs to.
Earn2Trade
Publishes exact evaluation parameters. Its $25,000 Trader Career Path evaluation lists a $1,750 profit goal, a $1,500 end-of-day drawdown, a $550 daily loss limit, a two-contract limit, a 30 percent consistency requirement, no minimum trading days, news trading allowed, a cutoff of 3:50 p.m. CT, and up to five concurrent accounts. Few firms publish this level of detail on a single page, which makes it a useful benchmark for what to demand from others.
Bulenox
Advertises funding up to $150,000, keeping up to 90 percent of profits, no minimum trading days, and news trading allowed. Buyers choose the risk model at purchase: a real-time trailing drawdown that tracks the highest point including open positions, or an end-of-day drawdown with contract scaling and a daily loss limit that pauses trading instead of closing the account. Access runs through Rithmic with R|Trader Pro, and the site lists more than 20 supported platforms.
Tradeify
Advertises funding up to $750,000, a 90 percent profit share, daily payouts, an instant-funding option that skips the evaluation entirely, no consistency rule once funded, and end-of-day drawdown. Instant funding replaces the evaluation fee with a higher entry price, so compare the total cost both ways.
6. Weigh reputation, support, and the fine print
Structure first, then the company behind it. Prefer firms with years of operating history and a visible record of paying out. Test support before you buy: ask a specific question about a rule and judge the speed and substance of the answer. A firm that cannot explain its own drawdown calculation before the sale will not be clearer during a payout dispute.
Finally, read the terms that match how you actually trade: news-trading windows, holding positions over the close, account sharing, and the copy-trading policy if you plan to run several accounts at once. Account-count limits differ (Apex advertises up to 20; Earn2Trade caps its programs at five), and copying rules differ by stage. Our guides to copying trades across prop-firm accounts and choosing a trade copier cover that workflow. Keep dated copies of the rules you signed up under.
Where Aeris fits
Once a firm gives you a Rithmic login, Aeris connects to it in about a minute; our guide to connecting a Rithmic account walks through it. Aeris never sees the password: it is kept in the operating system’s credential storage and sent only to Rithmic. The app itself is a native Windows and macOS desktop platform with a DOM, footprint charts, chart trading with stops and targets, practice accounts on live prices, and flatten and a kill switch on every plan.
- Free plan: live trading on 1 Rithmic account, with practice accounts and the full charting stack included, so you can rehearse a firm’s rules before paying its fee.
- Prop plan at $69 per month, or $49 per month billed yearly: live trading on up to 20 accounts, with the multi-account trade copier coming soon for traders who pass several evaluations.
What Aeris does not do
Aeris does not track or enforce prop-firm rules, so the firm’s dashboard remains the authority on your drawdown and payout status. And Aeris is not on any firm’s approved platform list unless the firm says so, so confirm before you buy. See pricing, the trade copier page, and Aeris vs Tradesyncer for details.
Frequently asked questions
Sources
Primary sources checked November 4, 2026.
- Topstep — program overview, payout history, and profit share(opens in a new tab)
- Topstep — Daily Loss Limit in the Trading Combine and funded accounts(opens in a new tab)
- Apex Trader Funding — program overview and account terms(opens in a new tab)
- Earn2Trade — Trader Career Path evaluation parameters(opens in a new tab)
- Bulenox — account sizes, risk models, and supported platforms(opens in a new tab)
- Tradeify — funding, payout, and drawdown terms(opens in a new tab)