Prop Trading Firms

Research & Comparison - beyond the shiny websites: actual rules, hidden clauses, and real trader experiences.

This is about the business of proprietary trading, not your trading skill. The flags below tell you whether the numbers work in your favour after you add up all fees, challenge costs, and account losses - not whether you're a good trader. You can get paid out and still lose money overall.

  • Values are normalised for 100k US equity to make comparisons easier.

A single value does not tell you much about the quality - the combination of them and the rules do. Read more details about this. Try the quick profitability calculator.

Firm Price Effective5 1st Target1 Target Risk2 DD3 Notes Flag
FTMO 2-Step $540 $540 15% 0% 5% 10% / 50% -/- Gold
FTMO 1-Step $499 $499 10% 0% 3% 10% / 33% 50% consistency Gold
InstantFunding Instant $4,500 $4,500 5% 5% 1.5% 5% / 100% -/- Positive
InstantFunding Instant GO $3,700 $3,700 5% 5% 2% 5% / 80% -/- Positive
InstantFunding IF Micro $589 $329 5% 5% 1% 6% / 67% 15% consistency Positive
InstantFunding IF Micro Clarity $789 $395 3% 3% 1.5% 6%4 / 50% 20% consistency Positive
InstantFunding One Phase $649 $409 11.5% 1.5% 1.5% 8% / 38% 40% consistency Positive
InstantFunding One Phase Micro $259 $139 8.5% 1.5% 2% 7% / 57% 15% consistency Positive
InstantFunding Two Phase $539 $539 14.5% 1.5% 2.5% 10% / 50% 40% consistency Positive
InstantFunding Two Phase Micro $289 $183 14.5%7 1.5% 2% 10% / 40% 15% consistency Positive
InstantFunding One Phase Clarity $789 $390 10.5% 1.5% 2% 6%4 / 67% -/- Positive
FundingPips Zero $444 $444 4.8%6 1.8% 1% 5% / 60% 15% consistency Caution
FundingPips 1 Step $566 $566 13%6 2% 1% 6% / 50% 35% consistency Caution
FundingPips 2 Step $544 $544 15%6 2% 1% 10% / 50% 35% consistency Caution
FundingPips 2 Step Pro $422 $422 13% 1% 1% 6% / 50% -/- Caution
Blue Guardian Instant $506 $506 7%6 2.5%6 1% 6%4 / 50% 20% consistency Warnings
  • 1 1st Target is the total return you must generate from purchase until money comes your way for the first time.
  • 2 Risk is the maximum per-trade/drawdown loss threshold before the firm's rule kicks in .
  • 3 DD is the total drawdown allowed, and how much of it can be used in a single day. "10% / 50%" means a 10% total drawdown budget, of which up to half, 5%, can be burned in one day.
  • 4 This one trails: the floor rises with your highest balance instead of staying fixed, unlike the static totals shown elsewhere in this table.
  • 5 Effective price, avaiable bonus points or other things that can easy reduce the price (no time-promotions).
  • 6 Profit requirements are based on a mix of contradicting rules and the consistency requirement.
  • 7 inconsistency about targets (Order page say 8+5+1.5, FAQ say 8+4+1.5).

Updated: Jul 16, 2026

No affiliation! Content provided here is based on hours of digging through actual contracts and fine prints, direct support statements & real life experiences. No firm had any say or input on how the content is provided, other than the responses they provided during verifying certain issues.
These numbers were pulled together at some point in time, not monitored continuously, so a firm may have quietly changed a fee, a target, or a rule since. If you spot something that's gone stale, don't just complain about it: fix it yourself, the page is open for edits.