Prop Firms with No Activation Fee
Last updated 2026-10-27
These firms sell plans with no activation fee, so passing doesn't come with another bill, ordered by our overall score for trust, cost, payouts and rules.
You pass the evaluation, you are feeling good, and then the second bill shows up before your funded account does. That bill is the activation fee, and depending on the firm it can be a one-time charge, a monthly drain, or a fee that scales with account size until it costs more than the eval did. Plenty of traders budget for the eval and get blindsided by the activation, which is exactly why the firms that skip it deserve their own list.
This page ranks every firm selling at least one plan with no activation fee on its price sheet, so the price you see at checkout is a lot closer to the whole cost of getting funded.
Quick Picks by Use Case
No Activation Anywhere, Strongest Rules ScoreMyFundedFutures
All four plans skip the fee, so the plan choice is purely about rules.
No Activation and No Subscription EitherTradeify
One-time pricing across the lineup means the checkout number is the number.
Prepay It and Forget ItApex
A pricier option at checkout folds the activation fee into the eval price, so the funded side costs nothing extra.
No Activation and Can Move to LiveTradeDay
No activation anywhere on the lineup, and the road ends at a real live brokerage account.
The Ranked List
Read the fine print before you celebrate, because no activation fee can mean three things. Seven firms here simply never charge one, on any plan. One firm has a specific zero-activation plan sitting next to plans that charge it. And three sell you a no-activation option at checkout, which really means you are prepaying the activation inside a higher eval price. Every card below tells you which kind you are looking at.
- #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
Tradeify cleared out both of the fees this page cares about at once: no activation anywhere, and no subscriptions either since the lineup went one-time. The number on the checkout page is the number, and that simplicity is worth something on its own, because most fee surprises in this industry live in the gap between the advertised price and what you keep paying. Here there is no gap, which is rarer than it should be.
- #2
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
Topstep runs a choose-when-you-pay structure from the subscription side. The standard Combine, Topstep's eval, charges activation when you reach funding, and a no-activation option sells at a higher monthly rate with nothing due later. The math hangs on how long your eval takes, because the pricier subscription adds up every month you are still in the eval. Fast passers should look hard at the no-activation option. Slow builders usually come out behind on it.
- #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
Alpha used to make activation a plan choice, and as of July 2026 it stopped charging the fee anywhere: every account bought after the change funds with no second bill waiting behind the pass. The Zero plan was built around that promise from day one and still pairs it with the loosest eval in the lineup, so it stays the natural pick here. Just weigh each plan's funded terms, because that is where this firm prices the difference.
- #4
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
TradeDay's current lineup, Quick Pay and Fast Pass, carries no activation fee at all, and the road here runs somewhere real: a defined way to move to a live brokerage account. Add day-one Quick Pay payouts and the fees stay out of your way all the way to your bank, which is the real reason it shortlists so well. If your plan ends with real brokerage capital and you want no fee surprises on the way, this is the shortlist entry.
- #5
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
Most of BluSky's catalog carries no activation fee, including the instant accounts and the Propel evals. The exceptions are the ones to know: the Launch plans and the Stocks Intraday plan charge their fee after you pass, right at the moment you activate funding. That is the second bill this page exists to warn you about. If avoiding that bill is the goal, shop BluSky's other plans, and keep in mind they are the larger share of the catalog anyway.
- #6
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
Apex charges activation the traditional way on its standard evals, but every size also sells a no-activation option, a higher eval price with the activation folded in. So the question at Apex is not whether you pay, it is when. Prepaying makes sense if you expect to pass, because the funded side then costs nothing extra. If you are less sure of the pass, the cheaper standard eval puts less cash at risk on the test. Run both totals first.
- #7
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
MyFundedFutures doesn't charge activation on any plan, so the eval fee is close to the entire bill. What is left to compare is the funded rules, and MFFU hands you four genuinely different sets, so that is where your attention should go.
- #8
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
Funded Futures Family charges no activation fee on anything, from the smallest accounts to the Straight to Funded account. For a firm that sells on price that matters more than usual, because the traders shopping the low end are the ones a surprise fee after passing hurts most. Take the money you are not spending on activation and spend the attention on the plan differences instead, since the funded rules here vary a lot from plan to plan.
- #9
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
Lucid charges no activation on any of its three plans, and the one-time purchase model means no monthly rebills piling up behind a slow eval either. On LucidDirect there is not even a reset fee to think about, because there is no eval to fail. The bill you pay at checkout is effectively the whole bill, which makes Lucid unusually easy to cost out. Just weigh that fee simplicity against the shorter operating history before you commit real plans to it.
- #10
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 and no monthly bill: one plan fee covers all four phases, market data included, and every pass pays you a set amount with no payout buffer. The live account is where a running cost starts, $62 a month for Rithmic and data, taken from your balance.
- #11
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
Phidias sells every account two ways, and that choice is the whole fee story here. The Evaluation option charges activation at the moment you pass, while the One-Time Payment option rolls everything into a single upfront price with no activation fee. The prepaid option costs a good deal more at checkout, so the choice really comes down to your pass odds: pay more up front and owe nothing at funding, or risk less on the test and take the fee later. Run both totals before you buy, and read the full review, because the fee question is the simplest thing about this firm.
How We Ranked These
This list holds every firm we cover with at least one plan whose price sheet carries no activation fee, read from our firm data, and each card tells you whether that is the whole firm or a specific plan. Within that filter the order is our overall score, a blend of the same four scores shown across this site, worked out again whenever the data changes. No firm paid for a spot and commission plays no part in the order. The full method is on the score calculation page.
What to Look For
Activation is only one line on the fee sheet, so the way to shop this category is to know every kind of fee and then check each one. There are five kinds of prop firm cost. The eval fee is the one everyone advertises. The activation fee, which this page is about, is charged when you convert a passed eval into a funded account. Recurring fees are either a subscription that bills until you pass or cancel, or platform and data fees that bill monthly. Reset fees are charged when you fail an eval and want to restart it. Withdrawal costs are the transfer fees and minimums that nibble at the payout end. A firm can be generous on one line and make it back on another, which is why a zero in the activation column doesn't automatically make a firm cheap.
Prepaying the Activation Fee
The prepaid options deserve their own math. When a firm sells a no-activation option at a higher eval or subscription price, you are buying insurance against a fee you only owe if you succeed. Prepaying wins when you pass, because the funded side is then free. It loses when you fail, because you paid extra to remove a fee you never reached. Be honest with yourself about your pass odds before you pick which side of that bet to stand on, and no need to feel bad either way, both choices are rational at different confidence levels.
Monthly Plans and Your Pace
Subscription models flip the risk in time instead. A cheap monthly entry with no activation reads friendly, but every extra month in the eval is another bill, so slow, careful traders can end up paying more in months than fast traders pay in fees. Make sure you match the kind of billing to your own pace, not to the pace the marketing assumes.
Add Up Every Fee
So the real question is never which fee is zero, it is what the total cost of getting funded looks like for the way you actually trade. Add up all the fees you realistically expect, eval plus months plus resets plus activation, and compare firms on that number. Each firm's review carries the full fee detail in its cost section when you are ready to go deeper.
FAQ
What is an activation fee at a prop firm?
It is a charge some firms collect after you pass the evaluation, at the moment your funded account is created. It can be a one-time payment, a monthly fee, or a fee that scales with account size, and it is separate from the eval fee you paid at checkout.
Which prop firms have no activation fee?
The ranked list above shows every firm we cover that sells at least one plan with no activation fee on its price sheet. There are three kinds: firms that never charge one on any plan, firms with specific zero-activation plans, and firms selling a prepaid no-activation option at checkout. Each card says which kind the firm is.
Do prop firms have a monthly fee?
Some do and some do not. Subscription firms bill monthly until you pass or cancel, while one-time firms charge a single eval price. Both models appear on this list, and the buying guide above explains how to match the model to your own trading pace.
Is a no-activation plan always cheaper overall?
No. Prepaid no-activation options cost more upfront, and cheap subscriptions with no activation can cost more than everything else if your eval runs long. The number that matters is the total cost of getting funded the way you really trade, not any single fee.
Do I pay activation again after a reset?
Resets and activation are separate fee lines. A reset restarts a failed eval; activation converts a passed one. The interaction differs by firm, so check the cost section of the specific firm's review before assuming either way.