Cheapest Prop Firms
Last updated 2026-10-27
This ranking rewards firms where getting funded costs you the least in total, counting the eval fee against the account you get, plus activation, resets, rebills and data fees.
Three numbers decide what a funded account really costs: the eval fee, the activation fee, and everything the firm bills you between signup and your first payout. The eval price is just the first one. Shop on the eval price alone and you can end up paying more at a cheap firm than you would have at an expensive one.
This page ranks by our Cost Score instead, which measures what it costs to get funded: the eval, resets, the activation fee and data fees. The full math is published on our score calculation method page.
Quick Picks by Use Case
One firm is not cheapest for everyone, so start with the kind of billing that fits how you trade.
Best One-Time BillTradeify
Every current plan is a one-time purchase with nothing due at funding, so the checkout number is the whole number.
Best Cheap Entry That Can Move to LiveTradeDay
No activation fee on any account, and Quick Pay accounts can request a payout from day one.
Best If You Never Want an Activation Fee
see our full no-activation-fee list, which filters for exactly that.
Budget Plan PickerMyFundedFutures
Zero activation across the lineup and four plans that bill very differently, so the cheap plan is the one that matches your style.
Pay Once and ForgetLucid Trading
The upfront fee covers activation too, so passing costs you nothing extra.
The Ranked List
Every card below is ranked by its Cost Score, worked out from the same firm data that powers our reviews. Ties break on the overall score and then alphabetically, and the order updates itself when a firm changes its pricing, so what you see here is the current math, not a snapshot from whenever we felt like updating. Scores, fees, and key stats show next to each firm.
- #1
Tradeify
79/ 100TrustCostPayoutRules- Evals from $99 to $796
- Drawdown: End-of-day trailing
- How Often You Can Get Paid: On demand
- 90% profit split
The 3.0 overhaul moved every plan to one-time pricing, and that single change is most of the cost story. No activation fee at funding, no monthly fee running while you work through the eval. What you pay at checkout is what the account costs.
- #2
TradeDay
72/ 100TrustCostPayoutRules- Evals from $100 to $500
- Drawdown: End-of-day trailing, Intraday trailing
- How Often You Can Get Paid: On demand
- 50% profit split
Monthly rebills, but no activation fee on any account, and the smallest accounts price low. The cost math here rewards traders who pass quickly, because the monthly fee is the only bill that keeps running.
- #3
Alpha Futures
72/ 100TrustCostPayoutRules- Evals from $89 to $859
- Drawdown: End-of-day trailing
- How Often You Can Get Paid: On demand
- 90% profit split
How you are billed depends on the plan: Zero, Standard and Advanced are monthly subscriptions that end when you pass, Direct is a single payment with no eval behind it, and activation fees are gone from the whole lineup. What is left to compare is the funded terms each plan trades for its price, which is exactly the kind of trade-off the Cost Score exists to catch. Read the plan page before assuming the cheapest plan is the cheapest deal.
- #4
Earn2TradeSale
73/ 100TrustCostPayoutRules- was
Evals from $150 to $550now Evals from $75 to $275 - Drawdown: End-of-day trailing
- How Often You Can Get Paid: Weekly
- 80% profit split
Sale: 50% off evals and resets for the first 90 days (seen October 26, 2026).
A subscription on both programs plus a flat activation fee that comes out of your first withdrawal rather than at funding, and the price includes a real education program. If you use the coursework, the bill buys more than an eval. If you do not, cheaper evals exist for the same account sizes.
- was
- #5
Topstep
73/ 100TrustCostPayoutRules- Evals from $49 to $229
- Drawdown: End-of-day trailing
- How Often You Can Get Paid: After a set number of days
- 90% profit split
A monthly subscription, with a choice between paying the activation fee at funding or taking a pricier eval that skips it. The cost risk here is time, since every extra eval month is another rebill.
- #6
Lucid Trading
63/ 100TrustCostPayoutRules- Evals from $100 to $840
- Drawdown: End-of-day trailing
- How Often You Can Get Paid: After a set number of days
- 90% profit split
One payment covers the eval and the activation both, so the funding step costs nothing. That keeps the checkout price close to what you really pay. The trade-offs at this firm live in the rules, not the bill, and the review covers those.
- #7
Funded Futures Family
68/ 100TrustCostPayoutRules- Evals from $79 to $529
- Drawdown: End-of-day trailing, Intraday trailing
- How Often You Can Get Paid: On demand
- 90% profit split
No activation fee anywhere in the lineup, and the monthly fees on Velocity and intraday Premier Plus sit at the low end for the account sizes on offer. The thing to watch is time, since a slow eval month is another bill. Pass quickly and the bill stays small.
- #8
Phidias Propfirm
60/ 100TrustCostPayoutRules- Evals from $88 to $1,125
- Drawdown: End-of-day trailing, Static
- How Often You Can Get Paid: After a set number of days
- 75% profit split
A one-time-purchase option folds activation into a single payment, or you can pay per eval with activation at funding. The entry prices run cheap for the sizes offered, and the rules are tight, which is a Rules Score problem, not a Cost Score one.
- #9
BluSky Trading
71/ 100TrustCostPayoutRules- Evals from $59 to $799
- Drawdown: End-of-day trailing, Intraday trailing, Static
- How Often You Can Get Paid: Daily
- 90% profit split
Plan-specific pricing across a deep catalog, mostly monthly, with an activation fee when you pass on some plans. The catalog depth means there usually is a cheap plan here, you just have to find your exact one and read its page, because two similar-looking plans can bill differently when you pass.
- #10
MyFundedFutures
69/ 100TrustCostPayoutRules- Evals from $105 to $477
- Drawdown: End-of-day trailing, Intraday trailing
- How Often You Can Get Paid: Varies by plan
- 80% profit split
Zero activation across the board and a plan picker that changes the bill more than the account size does. Rapid, Rapid EOD, Builder, and Pro each bill differently, so the cheap answer at this firm is a matching question, not a price question.
- #11
Take Profit Trader
76/ 100TrustCostPayoutRules- Evals from $150 to $360
- Drawdown: End-of-day trailing, Intraday trailing
- How Often You Can Get Paid: On demand
- 80% profit split
Monthly fees, plus a flat activation fee when you get funded unless a sale waives it. The cost math at this firm is a speed bet, because the one-step eval and zero-minimum-days funded structure mean a trader who moves fast stops paying fast. A trader who stalls keeps paying the monthly fee.
- #12
Apex Trader Funding
70/ 100TrustCostPayoutRules- Evals from $199 to $2,290
- Drawdown: End-of-day trailing, Intraday trailing
- How Often You Can Get Paid: Weekly
- 100% profit split
One-time eval purchases, with an activation fee waiting at funding unless you buy the pricier no-activation version, so count the second bill too. Apex sells no resets, so a failed eval means buying a new one. Budget for all the fees, not just the checkout price.
- #13
18th Street Trading
61/ 100TrustCostPayoutRules- Evals from $265 to $1,595
- Drawdown: End-of-day trailing
- How Often You Can Get Paid: After a set number of days
- 90% profit split
No activation fee, no monthly bill and no payout buffer, and the first payout is about twice the fee at every size. The fee itself is more than most one-time plans we cover at 100K and 150K, and with no resets a fail means paying it again.
- #14
Leeloo Trading
60/ 100TrustCostPayoutRules- Evals from $250 to $850
- Drawdown: Intraday trailing
- How Often You Can Get Paid: Monthly
- 100% profit split
Steep monthly rebills paired with a minimum-days structure that means at least one full billing cycle before any payout. A blown account also keeps billing until you cancel it yourself. The rules read free. Getting through them is not.
- #15
Bulenox
69/ 100TrustCostPayoutRules- Evals from $145 to $535
- Drawdown: End-of-day trailing, Intraday trailing
- How Often You Can Get Paid: Weekly
- 100% profit split
The activation fee scales with account size, and that one fact is the whole cost story. Small accounts pencil out fine. Large accounts get expensive at exactly the moment you commit to them, with monthly rebills running underneath. Size your entry with the funding bill in view, not just the eval price.
How We Ranked These
The Cost Score reads eval fees against the drawdown and profit target behind each account, activation fees at funding, reset pricing, monthly fees, data fees, and any other surcharges. All of it comes from our firm data, and a sale only counts when the firm runs sales often enough to rely on.
Commission never touches the math. No firm can pay its way up this list, and when a firm we have no relationship with ranks first, it ranks first.
What to Look For
A firm can look cheap on any one fee and expensive on the whole: the eval fee, the activation fee, resets, the monthly fee, and data or platform fees. So when you compare two firms, add up all the fees, from signup to first payout.
One-Time or Monthly
One-time versus monthly is the biggest fork. A one-time firm charges you once and the billing stops. A monthly firm charges you for every month the eval takes, which means the real price depends on you. Be honest about your pace. A cheap monthly eval that takes you four months is not a cheap eval.
Activation Fees and Resets
Most activation fees in futures land at funding, right at the moment you have the most invested in continuing, which is why they sting. Not every firm bills it there though, one deducts it from your first withdrawal instead, so check where the fee lands before you count it. A firm with no activation fee at all is a cleaner comparison, and we keep a full ranked list of those firms.
Resets are the quiet budget killer. You are most likely going to fail evals while you find your footing, so price the reset before you need one, and check whether the firm offers free resets or a free retake when the month renews. Make sure the reset math still works at the account size you actually want, not just the smallest one.
Rules Before Price
Last thing, and it matters: do not shop price into rules you cannot live with. A cheap eval at a firm whose funded rules do not fit your style costs more than an expensive eval you can actually cash out of. Check the Rules Score next to the Cost Score before you buy, and if you are not sure which firm fits, the firm finder takes you through it.
FAQ
Which prop firm has the lowest price?
It depends on the account size and how the firm bills. The smallest monthly-subscription accounts carry the lowest eval prices, but a one-time eval can cost less in total, because nothing keeps billing while you pass. The ranked list above is worked out again from live pricing data, so it is the current answer, not a stale one.
Which prop firm has the cheapest account?
At the smallest account sizes, several firms price entry evals low enough that the eval fee is not the deciding cost. What separates them is what comes after: activation at funding, reset pricing, and the monthly fee. Check the Cost Score next to each firm above rather than the eval price alone.
Which prop firm is the best and cheapest?
Cheapest and best are two different scores, and the honest answer is that they rarely peak at the same firm. Our Cost Score ranks this page and the overall score ranks our main list. A firm near the top of both lists is the practical answer to this question, and the list above shows each firm's overall score right next to its Cost Score.
Which prop firm has no monthly fee?
18th Street Trading, Apex Trader Funding, Lucid Trading, and Tradeify sell one-time eval purchases with no monthly rebill, and Phidias Propfirm offers a one-time-purchase option that folds the activation fee in. Alpha Futures, BluSky Trading, Funded Futures Family, and MyFundedFutures also sell one-time purchases on some plans. The rest of this page runs a monthly subscription model, where the eval keeps billing until you pass or quit.
What is the cheapest 5K prop firm account?
True 5K futures accounts are rare among the firms we cover, since most firms start their lineups higher. If your budget points at the smallest size, compare the smallest account each firm actually sells using the live data above. Remember the reset fee matters more at small sizes, because one mistake is a bigger share of your budget.
What is the cheapest prop firm for futures?
The list above is the answer, and it comes from the numbers, not from opinion. Every firm on it is a futures prop firm, ranked by total cost of funding. The firms near the top tend to have fewer fees to pay: one-time pricing with no monthly fee, or no activation fee at funding. Those are the two costs traders most often forget to budget.