If you trade futures and want capital behind you, two names dominate the conversation: Apex Trader Funding and Topstep. Both fund retail traders on CME products. Both pay real money. But the path to funded — and how much it costs to stay there — is very different.
The cheapest evaluation is rarely the cheapest funded account. Read the drawdown rules before you read the price.
- · Up to 20 accounts per trader
- · 1-step evaluation
- · Trailing threshold drawdown
- · Up to 100% profit split on first $25k
- · Single funded account
- · Trading Combine evaluation
- · End-of-day trailing drawdown
- · 100% of first $5k, 90% after
1. Account costs & sizes
Apex offers seven account sizes from $25k up to $300k. Evaluation fees start near $147/month for the $50k plan and frequently drop to $50–$80 during promos. Topstep's Trading Combine is priced per account size: roughly $49 for the $50k, $99 for the $100k and $149 for the $150k — typically without the aggressive discounting Apex is known for.
If you want to scale risk across multiple accounts, Apex wins on raw capital deployed. If you want one clean account with no copy-trade restrictions to think about, Topstep is simpler.
2. Drawdown rules — the part that breaks accounts
This is where most traders blow up — not the strategy.
Apex uses an intraday trailing threshold based on unrealised PnL. The trail follows your highest equity tick by tick until you're $100 above the starting balance plus initial drawdown, then it locks. That means a big intraday spike can permanently raise your floor — and a normal pullback can stop you out before you ever close a trade.
Topstep uses an end-of-day trailing drawdown. The trail only updates after the daily close, so intraday volatility doesn't reset your floor. For swing-style futures traders this is significantly more forgiving.
Apex rewards traders who scalp clean and bank quickly. Topstep rewards traders who hold winners.
3. Profit splits & payouts
Apex's headline number is generous — 100% of the first $25,000 in profits per account, 90% after. With up to 20 accounts, the math gets aggressive fast. The catch: payouts every 8 trading days, and a consistency rule that caps your best day at 30% of total profits on the first payout.
Topstep pays faster (every 4 trading days), with no consistency rule. The split is less generous after the first $5k, but payout reliability is widely considered the strongest in the industry.
4. Who should pick which?
- · You scalp ES/NQ/MES intraday
- · You want to run multiple accounts in parallel
- · You can bank profits and stop on green days
- · You hunt evaluation promos aggressively
- · You hold trades for hours, not minutes
- · You want one funded account, no copy-trade rules
- · You value payout reliability over headline split
- · You want structured coaching and a TradingView-first UX
5. The honest verdict
There is no universally better firm — there's a better firm for your style. Apex is the better leveraged-scaling vehicle; Topstep is the better single-account home. Most serious futures traders end up with both: an Apex stack to compound and a Topstep account to swing in.
Whichever you pick, the rule that ends most evaluations is always the same: drawdown. Map your max risk per trade to the rulebook before you take a single position.
Capital efficiency
Apex wins on max deployed capital. Topstep wins on capital you actually keep.
Rule friction
Topstep's rulebook is shorter. Less to break, less to overthink mid-trade.
Scaling path
Apex scales horizontally (more accounts). Topstep scales vertically (bigger account).
Funded trading is a logistics game. Whoever respects the rulebook longest wins.
Pick the firm whose rulebook matches your edge — not the firm with the loudest discount.
Funded capital is leverage on your process. Bad process + cheap eval = expensive lesson.