Which Prop Firm Is Cheapest After 3 Months? (2026)

Evaluation fees are the smallest cost of prop firm trading. Over 3 months of funded trading, ongoing fees — activation charges, monthly PA fees, platform leases, data feeds, and profit splits — routinely exceed the evaluation price by 3-10x. The firm with the cheapest eval is rarely the cheapest firm over any realistic holding period. This guide calculates actual total cost to first meaningful payout across 7 major prop firms (Topstep, Apex, FTMO, The5%ers, Take Profit Trader, MyFundedFutures, Tradeify), using a 50K account, 3 evaluation attempts (median), and $5,000 gross profit over 3 funded months.

Below: the full cost framework separating upfront from ongoing, per-firm 3-month scenarios with take-home percentage, the 6 and 12-month compound view, the hidden deal-breaker in discounted evaluations, and the decision framework for matching firm economics to trading style.

Cost figures verified against each firm's official pricing pages as of April 2026: Topstep, Apex, FTMO, The5%ers, Take Profit Trader, MyFundedFutures, Tradeify. List prices used unless otherwise noted. Firms frequently offer 50-90% promotional discounts on evaluation fees; sale scenarios discussed separately. Rules and pricing change periodically — verify on the firm's own page before committing.

The Real Cost Framework: Beyond Evaluation Price

When pre-funded traders compare prop firms, they look at evaluation price. When funded traders compare prop firms, they look at total cost to first meaningful payout. These are different calculations, and the cheapest eval rarely wins the second one.

The 7 Cost Components

• Evaluation fee — what you pay to start. Range: $20 (Apex sale) to $349 (FTMO 50K).
• Number of attempts — industry median is 3 per successful pass per published pass rate data. Multiply eval fee accordingly.
• Activation fee — one-time charge to open funded account. Range: $0 (Topstep, FTMO, MFFU, Tradeify) to $160 (Apex).
• Monthly funded account fees — ongoing charges while trading funded. Only Apex charges this ($85/month PA fee) among major futures firms.
• Platform costs — NinjaTrader lease ($99/month), data feeds ($12-124+/month depending on CME Professional classification), or $0 if the firm includes a free platform.
• Profit split — percentage the firm keeps. Ranges from 0% (Topstep first $10K, Apex first $25K) to 20% (FTMO, The5%ers at 80/20).
• Payout timing opportunity cost — capital waiting 2-4 weeks to clear is capital at risk of rule violation, drawdown breach, or firm closure. See payout speed comparison.

Firm-by-Firm Cost Breakdown (50K, 3-Month Scenario)

Assumptions: 3 evaluation attempts (median), $5,000 gross trading profit over 3 funded months, firm's default platform where included, NinjaTrader lease where required. List pricing unless noted.

Topstep (50K Trading Combine)

Apex Trader Funding (50K Full)

FTMO (50K Challenge)

The5%ers (50K Hyper Growth)

Take Profit Trader (50K)

MyFundedFutures (50K Core)

Tradeify (50K Advanced)

Side-by-Side: Net Take-Home After 3 Months

Sorted by take-home percentage, list pricing, free-sim platform option where available:

The Hidden Deal-Breaker: The Eval Fee Illusion

Apex advertises $20 evaluation fees on sale and frequently tops "cheapest prop firm" lists — but over 12 months of funded trading, Apex is the second-most expensive firm in the category. The reason is that evaluation price is a one-time cost while PA fees, activation, platform costs, and payout restrictions are recurring.

How the Illusion Works

Three structural features compound to invert the pricing story over time:

• Aggressive eval discounts drive initial signup. Apex runs 70-90% sales on evaluations, making the upfront cost visually striking. A $20 eval sounds dramatically cheaper than Topstep's $165 or FTMO's $349 list price.
• Activation + monthly PA fees are not discounted. The $160 activation fee is fixed. The $85/month PA fee is fixed. Neither scales with eval promo pricing. A trader stacking 3 Apex accounts for 6 months pays $1,530 in PA fees alone — regardless of what they paid for the evaluations.
• Payout caps and account closure force additional eval cycles. Apex's $1,500 first-payout cap, cap ladder, and 6-payout PA closure mean a trader extracting meaningful profit often pays for additional evaluations to replace closed accounts. Effective cost-per-dollar-extracted climbs faster than the eval price suggests.

The 12-Month Comparison

A trader running a single 50K account for 12 months, generating $20,000 gross profit, pays roughly:

• Topstep: $495 eval + $0 PA + $0 platform + $1,000 split (10% on profit above $10K) = $1,495 total cost, $18,505 take-home (92.5%).
• MFFU Core: $231 eval + $0 PA + $2,000 split (10%) + $60 payout fees = $2,291 total cost, $17,709 take-home (88.5%).
• Apex (list eval): $507 eval + $160 activation + $1,020 PA fees + $1,188 platform + $0 split (100% first $25K) = $2,875 total cost, $17,125 take-home (85.6%).
• Apex (sale eval): $60 eval + $160 activation + $1,020 PA fees + $1,188 platform + $0 split = $2,428 total cost, $17,572 take-home (87.9%).

The eval sale saves ~$450 upfront but PA fees eat $1,020/year. MFFU at list pricing beats Apex at sale pricing by $137 over 12 months. Topstep at list pricing beats Apex at any pricing by $933+. The eval fee is the most visible but least important cost line for anyone planning to trade funded for more than 2-3 months.

When Other Firms Become Cheaper

The 3-month, $5K profit scenario favors Topstep. Different scenarios change the winner:

• If you profit $25K+ in 3 months on a single account: Apex's 100%-first-$25K and FTMO/5%ers' account scaling become more valuable. At $25K profit, Apex keeps $0 split while Topstep keeps ~$1,500 (15% of amount over $10K under 90/10 tier) — narrowing the take-home gap significantly.
• If you pass FTMO on the first attempt: FTMO's fee refund on the successful Challenge drops net eval cost to $0. With a single-attempt pass, FTMO becomes competitive with the futures firms on 3-month take-home.
• If you use Apex discounts consistently: Apex at $20 eval + $160 activation + $85/mo PA = $265 + ongoing. If you only trade for 1-2 months (quick profit extraction strategy), the PA fee stays small and Apex gets close to Topstep — though the 6-payout PA closure structurally caps this strategy.
• If you need NinjaTrader specifically: Topstep's TopstepX is free but feature-limited. If you need NinjaTrader's full DOM and ATM features, add $99/month to Topstep's cost too — which compresses the gap with Apex. See the platform comparison for feature breakdown.
• If you stack 3+ accounts: Apex's per-account $85/month PA fee gets expensive fast ($255/month at 3 accounts = $3,060/year). MFFU and Tradeify have no per-account PA fees, so account stacking keeps their cost flat. Any multi-account strategy favors MFFU or Tradeify over Apex.

The 6-Month and 12-Month Picture

Ongoing costs compound. Cumulative costs assuming continued trading activity (3 accounts where applicable, $5K profit per quarter extrapolated):

Topstep's cost stays flat at $495 because there are no ongoing fees beyond the initial evaluations and the first $10K is 100% yours. Apex's cost compounds at $85/month per account forever — on 3 stacked accounts, that's over $3,000/year in ongoing PA fees alone. FTMO and The5%ers take 20% of every dollar you make, which gets expensive as profits accumulate beyond the first $10K.

3 Mistakes Traders Make Picking the "Cheapest" Firm

Mistake 1: Optimizing for Eval Price Alone

Apex's $20 sale eval looks dramatically cheaper than Topstep's $165 list eval. But over 12 months of funded trading on a single account, Apex ends up ~$744 more expensive than Topstep because of PA fees, activation, and platform costs. Eval price is the most visible cost line but the smallest component of total cost for any trader planning to trade funded for more than 2-3 months. Calculate 6-month and 12-month costs before deciding.

Mistake 2: Ignoring Promotional Discount Cycles

Most futures prop firms run major sales quarterly: Black Friday, New Year, mid-year. Topstep routinely discounts $165 evals to $49-89. Apex discounts $169 evals to $20-60. MFFU drops $77 evals to sub-$30. Buying an evaluation at list price when a sale runs within 30-60 days can triple your eval cost with no strategy benefit. See prop firm savings guide for promo timing patterns.

Mistake 3: Missing the Profit Split Multiplier

A 20% profit split sounds like a small number. On $20,000 annual profit, it's $4,000 to the firm — more than the entire evaluation + activation + platform costs combined at most firms. For high-profit traders, split percentage is the single largest annual cost line. For low-profit or break-even traders, eval and PA fees dominate. The right firm depends on realistic profit expectations, not on minimizing any single cost line.

Who Should Skip Optimizing for "Cheapest"

Cheapest-firm analysis isn't the right framing for every trader. Specific profiles should optimize differently:

• Traders prioritizing specific rule structures. If a particular firm's drawdown type (trailing vs EOD), news trading policy, or max consistency rule fits your strategy decisively, a $200-500 cost difference over 3 months is trivial compared to being structurally unable to trade your edge. Pick on fit first, cost second.
• Forex-only traders. Futures-firm pricing analysis (Topstep, Apex, MFFU, Tradeify, TPT) doesn't apply. FTMO and The5%ers are the main forex-side comparisons, and within that, 80/20 vs 90/10 splits dominate the cost structure at any meaningful profit level.
• Multi-firm account stackers. Traders running simultaneous accounts at 3+ firms optimize for rule diversity and platform compatibility, not absolute cheapest. Per-firm cost is less important than the combined portfolio's drawdown resistance and total payout throughput.
• Traders still evaluating (pre-funded). If you haven't passed a single evaluation yet, eval cost dominates because you haven't reached the funded-phase costs. At this stage, cheapest eval + promo discounts + low pass-rate penalty is the right optimization. After your first pass, reset and re-analyze total cost.
• High-profit traders ($100K+ annual). Split percentage dominates at this profit level. A $2,000 eval cost is negligible compared to $20,000+ annual split expense. For this profile, 90/10 firms (Topstep, MFFU, Tradeify) beat 80/20 firms (FTMO, 5%ers) by substantially more than any eval cost difference.

How We Calculated Total Cost

Cost figures reflect:

• Official pricing pages from each firm's website as of April 2026 (linked in the source note at top). Activation, PA fees, platform costs, and profit splits verified against firm-published documentation, not third-party aggregators.
• List prices, not sale prices for the primary scenarios — this gives apples-to-apples comparison. Sale pricing is discussed separately in the Eval Fee Illusion section because discount availability varies over time.
• 3-attempt median for evaluation cycles — based on published pass-rate data. Individual results vary; single-attempt passers see substantially different economics, especially at FTMO where the Challenge fee is refundable.
• $5,000 gross profit over 3 months as the baseline scenario. This is a modest profit level chosen so that the fixed-fee structure dominates the comparison. At higher profit levels (shown in scenario sensitivity), split-percentage dominates instead.
• Free-platform options used where available (TopstepX for Topstep, free sim for firms with optional lease). NinjaTrader monthly lease added only where required by strategy or firm default.

We did not receive compensation from any firm listed. For our full process, see our editorial methodology.

How to Decide: Match Firm Economics to Trading Style

Final Verdict: Cheapest After 3 Months, 6 Months, 12 Months

3-month scenario ($5K profit, 50K account): Topstep wins at 90.1% take-home, followed tightly by MFFU Core (85.1%) and Tradeify (84.7%). Apex lands at 75.6% despite aggressive eval sale pricing because activation and monthly PA fees erase the eval discount.

12-month scenario ($20K profit): Topstep remains cheapest at ~92.5% take-home because no ongoing fees compound over time. MFFU and Tradeify follow at 85-88%. Apex slides further behind because $1,020/year in PA fees accumulate faster than profit split savings. FTMO and The5%ers hold at 80% take-home regardless of time horizon (pure split-based cost).

Three principles from this comparison:

• Eval fee is the smallest cost line. For any realistic holding period beyond 2-3 months, PA fees, activation, and profit splits dominate. The firm with the cheapest eval rarely wins the total-cost comparison.
• Split percentage multiplies with profit. At high profit levels, moving from 80/20 to 90/10 saves substantially more than any eval cost difference. Match the split to your realistic profit expectation.
• Ongoing fees compound. $85/month PA fees sound small. Over 3 stacked accounts for 12 months, it's $3,060 — more than most traders' annual eval costs combined.

For related decisions: best futures prop firms for overall firm ranking, hidden costs breakdown for the full expense side, how to save money on challenges for promo timing, payout speed comparison for cash-flow planning, Apex vs Topstep for the head-to-head, and rule simulator for matching firm to strategy.