Prop firms give traders access to firm capital in exchange for passing an evaluation and following risk rules. The space spans four distinct markets — futures, stocks, forex, and crypto — each with different operators, rule structures, and survival rates. The directories below are the maintained shortlist of firms worth your evaluation fee in 2026, separated by market.
Browse by what you trade
Futures Prop Firms
Apex, Topstep, MFFU, Tradeify, and the firms running on Tradovate, NinjaTrader, and Rithmic. Covers evaluation cost, drawdown models, payout speed, and US trader eligibility — the largest and most US-friendly market.
Stock Prop Firms
Trade The Pool is the only real-share equity firm US traders can use; the rest offer stock CFDs with US-access caveats. Covers the instrument distinction that decides whether you can even open an account.
Forex Prop Firms
FTMO, FundedNext, The5ers, and the surviving forex operators. Includes which firms accept US clients and which collapsed in the recent shakeouts — the most mature space, with mixed US access.
Crypto Prop Firms
The funded-trading shops covering BTC, ETH, and altcoin perps. Limited but growing — covers which firms actually pay and which are still earning their stripes. The newest space, with the smallest sample size.
Compare firms side-by-side
The comparison tool filters every firm tracked across all four markets by your location, account size, trading style, and platform preference.
Is the prop firm route right for you?
Who prop firms work for
Traders with a tested edge who lack the capital to size meaningfully. Skilled traders running <$25K accounts who want access to 50K, 100K, or 250K of firm capital. Disciplined operators who can follow drawdown rules without revenge-trading after a red day.
Who shouldn't bother
Anyone still learning a strategy. Anyone who can't follow a hard stop-loss. Traders who confuse "funded" with "free money" — the average evaluation pass rate is under 10%, and most "funded" traders blow accounts inside 60 days. The evaluation fee is the cost of admission, not an investment.
How firms make it into our directories
Inclusion is editorial, not paid. A firm gets listed when it meets four criteria: at least 12 months of continuous operation, a verifiable trader base with hundreds or thousands of Trustpilot reviews, no credible cluster of non-payment complaints, and rule stability — meaning the firm doesn't quietly change evaluation rules after traders have paid. Firms that fail any of these get excluded regardless of their marketing budget.
Failed firms get explicit post-mortems where relevant. FundingTicks, for example, shut down in January 2026 after retroactive rule changes and is documented in our futures directory rather than quietly removed. Transparency about what didn't work is more useful than a curated list of survivors.
Articles, reviews, and breakdowns
The full archive of prop firm coverage — reviews, payout method comparisons, account-tier breakdowns, and post-mortems on firms that collapsed. Newest first.
