I've made multiple with Topstep and I will continue trading with them in 2025. Payouts have been fast (1-3 business days from requesting the money to hitting my bank account in Norway) with no questions asked. I had pretty much discarded these type of firms, but when I discovered copy trading last year I realized it was a game changer which would make it worthwhile. Trading one single account with these firms is not sufficiently attractive to me personally, but if you can trade 5 accounts simultaneously things are getting interesting. I had multiple 5 figure days last year per account. The last being Friday 20th with $10K per account for a total of $50K. This industry have exploded with a lot of scammy firms popping up. I'd go with Topstep as they literally are the the firm in this space which have been around since the start and it seems very professionally run and reliable. Their rules are also very simple and you can learn them in a few minutes. To request a payout you simply need 5 x $200 green days (not consecutive) to withdraw half your balance. After 30 green days you can request your full balance (10 % cut after your first $10K).
I agree, even though TakeProfitTrader is currently running a nice promo which can basically get you the account for free I would still pick Topstep for the following reasons: 1: If you hit the daily loss limit you don't lose the account at Topstep. 2: There is an end of day trailing draw down in both the evaluation stage a express funded account, once you move to funded at TakeProfitTrader the draw down is trailing unrealised PnL. 3: With TakeProfitTrader when you are placed in a live account you start with the initial test balance trailing draw down instead of the full amount that you made in the sim funded account, unlike Topstep, they move the entire balance which gives a larger draw down cushion. 4: With Topstep once you are in a live account the risk department will work with you to increase the daily loss limit or max trading size if you are doing well, one of their best traders for example is currently allowed to go up to 30 contracts instead of the initial 15. 5: The rare times I had a problem with Topstep that was out of my control, such as a platform or data issue, they always resolved it. I am not sure if other firms offer the same customer service.
They are not all equal however. Many horror stories on youtube and twitter if you do your research. Apex was the worst. The trailing real time drawdown kept catching me out. Once I finally had them beat, they denied my $30K payout request and closed my account, saying I was no longer welcome there. It sucks to sink time and yes, money in the form of subscription and activation fees, and then get NOTHING out of it. Topstep and TradeDay will pay you, I can personally vouch for both of them. So many of these firms are flash in the pan scams. They suck the public of sub fees and then a few months later when the payout requests come in, they "regret to inform you that despite our best efforst BestPropSCAM will not be able to continue as a going concern. We are making out best efforts to honor existing payout requests and to refund blah blah blah ..." SPOILER ALERT - The payouts nor refunds ever come. Very few of these firms are worth doing business with. Top Prop Firms for Traders | Reviews & Evaluations — ImanTrading PROP FIRM RANKINGS DETAIL LIST.docx - Google Docs
If you lose the account when you hit the daily loss limit, and the daily loss limit is less than the max loss limit, you are being scammed, imo. I think that is the reason I didn't do business with TakeProfitTrader. Eval fees and such are what these firms want us to focus on. After my Apex experience, I learned that cheap is not better. I'd rather pay for stability and credible trading rules.
Nice to know. So Topstep does not have Trailing unrealized PNL drawdown rule? Trailing unrealized PnL is just not suitable for day trader who trying to catch reversal or turn, I do tend to give trade room to let profit run, and its not uncommon that I would give up 50% of my unrealized profit.
Exactly, it's based on end of day PnL, so if you make $1000 during the day but later in that same day lose $1000 and you end the day break even your draw down will not move up, it only moves based on end of day realised PnL, in both the evaluation stage and funded stage.
I read on TopStepTrader's website of unrealized profits in the live account several months ago. So, you are saying that they eliminated this altogether?