The Biggest Futures Prop Firms by User Count (And Why That’s the Wrong Question)
Nobody publishes audited trader numbers, so every “biggest firm” ranking is built on proxies — review counts, self-reported payouts, search volume. We ran the proxies anyway. The result is less useful than what fell out of it: the two largest futures firms carry the two lowest satisfaction scores in the category.
Popular and good are not the same measurement, and in this sector they point in opposite directions.
What the proxies say
Trustpilot review volume is the least bad public proxy for user base. It’s imperfect — firms differ in how hard they push for reviews, and older firms accumulate more — but it’s at least measured by a third party rather than announced by the firm.
| Futures firm | Reviews | Score |
|---|---|---|
| MyFundedFutures | 21,534 | 4.9 |
| Apex Trader Funding | 20,934 | 4.2 |
| Topstep | 14,737 | 3.6 |
| Take Profit Trader | 10,510 | 4.4 |
| FXIFY Futures | 6,205 | 4.3 |
| Lucid Trading | 5,815 | 4.4 |
By self-reported lifetime payouts the order changes completely: Topstep claims over $1.4 billion, Apex around $835 million. Those figures are unaudited, counted differently by different firms — gross versus net, all product lines versus the flagship — and mechanically favor whoever has existed longest. Topstep has operated since 2012, which alone explains much of its lead.
By brand search volume the picture inverts again, with Topstep reportedly commanding vastly more monthly searches than Apex. We’re not quoting the numbers, because the only source we found for them is a site that also publishes fabricated regulatory notices, including an NFA notice number that returns nothing on NFA’s own system.
“Apex is the largest futures prop firm by trader count” is the most repeated claim in this category. We found it on a site selling challenge-passing services and on the blog of a competing firm. Payout leaderboards are self-reported. Review counts reflect review-request policy as much as user count. No futures prop firm publishes audited trader numbers, and we could not find a single independent source that does. Treat every ranking on this subject, including this one, as an estimate built from proxies.
The pattern worth noticing
Rank by size and you get Apex and Topstep at the top. Rank by satisfaction and they’re at the bottom of the same list — 4.2 and 3.6, against MyFundedFutures at 4.9 on comparable volume.
That’s not a small gap. Topstep’s 3.6 is close to the 3.2 demotion floor we apply to firms with over 5,000 reviews. If it had a tenth of the review volume it would be flagged under our own rules.
Several ordinary things could explain it. Scale attracts complaints. Longer operating history means more traders who eventually breached. Aggressive discount-driven acquisition brings in traders who were never going to pass. None of that requires the firm to be doing anything wrong — but it does mean “most used” is close to uninformative as a recommendation, which is how it’s usually deployed.
What actually changed at the top
Here’s the more useful finding, and it’s why size rankings age badly. Apex replaced its entire product on 1 March 2026. Version 4.0 isn’t a rule tweak — it’s a different firm underneath the same brand, and accounts bought before that date stay on the old rules with no conversion path.
| Removed in 4.0 | Added in 4.0 |
|---|---|
| Monthly subscription fees | One-time pricing |
| MAE rule, 5:1 RR rule, One Direction rule | Choice of EOD or intraday trailing drawdown |
| Manual payout review | Automated payouts |
| Account resets | 30-day evaluation expiry |
| 250K and 300K account sizes | 6-payout lifetime cap per account |
| 7-day minimum before payout (now 5) | Overnight trading ban |
| 30% consistency rule (now 50%) | All metals suspended |
Some of that is genuinely better. Losing monthly fees, halving the manual-review friction and relaxing consistency from 30% to 50% are real improvements, and the 50% rule now resets after each approved payout rather than compounding.
The ceiling nobody leads with
The item that should change how you price the firm is the 6-payout lifetime cap, and this one is confirmed in Apex’s own documentation rather than inferred from reviews. The help center states that each Performance Account may receive a maximum of six payouts, that accounts are limited to those caps regardless of the total profit generated, and that after six payouts the PA is closed and you obtain another by qualifying for a fresh evaluation. (Apex help center, EOD Payouts)
Each payout is separately capped on a rising ladder, with per-request ceilings reported between roughly $1,000 and $5,000 depending on account size and payout number — and on the smallest account the cap reportedly never rises at all. We’re describing the shape rather than quoting a lifetime total, because the figures circulating for it come from competitor write-ups and we haven’t read the tables ourselves. The structure, though, is Apex’s own published rule.
This is structurally identical to the $100,000 lifetime cap we found buried in Funded Futures Family’s own terms, and considerably tighter. It converts a funded account from an asset into a consumable with a known expiry, which changes the calculation in two places: what the account is worth, and therefore what you should be willing to risk to save a payout cycle.
Three 4.0 rules are operational rather than financial and worth knowing before you buy: all positions must be flat by 4:59 PM ET, dollar-cost-averaging into a losing position triggers automated termination, and the platform rejects any order without an attached stop and target. The third is enforced at execution level, so it isn’t a policy you can accidentally breach — but it does mean discretionary stop placement after entry is no longer possible.
How to actually pick
Size tells you a firm can process payouts at volume and probably isn’t about to vanish. That’s worth something — the sector removed 80 to 100 firms in 2024 alone — but it’s a floor, not a recommendation.
- Check the payout ceiling before the profit split. A 100% split to $25,000 means nothing if a six-payout cap closes the account before you get there. Ceilings are where the real terms hide.
- Confirm which product version you’re buying. Apex has two rule sets running simultaneously right now, and most articles about the firm describe the old one.
- Weigh satisfaction against scale deliberately. MyFundedFutures at 4.9 on 21,534 reviews is a stronger signal than Apex at 4.2 on 20,934, and the volumes are close enough that it isn’t a sample-size artifact.
- Price it yourself. Our true cost table normalizes evaluation fee, activation and cycles to reach a first payout — a very different ranking from headline price.
- Distrust every ranking, this one included. If a page tells you which firm is biggest without saying where the number came from, the number came from the firm.
The honest limits
Review counts are not user counts. A firm that emails every funded trader asking for a review will out-review a larger firm that doesn’t. We use it because it’s third-party measured, not because it’s accurate.
The 4.0 details are from secondary sources. Five independent write-ups agree on the substance, one citing Apex’s help center directly, but we have not tested a 4.0 account ourselves. Confirm against Apex’s own help center before purchasing.
Low scores have innocent explanations. Breached traders leave reviews at a higher rate than satisfied ones, and firms with more traders and longer histories accumulate more of them. A 3.6 is a reason to look harder, not a verdict.
The short version
No futures prop firm publishes audited trader counts, so every size ranking rests on proxies. By Trustpilot volume the order is MyFundedFutures at 21,534 reviews, Apex at 20,934 and Topstep at 14,737; by self-reported lifetime payouts Topstep leads with $1.4 billion against Apex’s $835 million. The more useful finding is that the two largest firms carry the two lowest satisfaction scores in the category — Apex at 4.2 and Topstep at 3.6, against MyFundedFutures at 4.9 on comparable review volume. And Apex replaced its entire product on 1 March 2026: monthly fees, manual payout review and account resets are gone, replaced by one-time pricing, a 30-day evaluation expiry, an overnight trading ban and a 6-payout lifetime cap that closes each Performance Account once six payouts are approved, regardless of profit remaining. Most articles about Apex still describe the old product. Size tells you a firm will probably still exist next year. It tells you nothing about whether you should trade there.
Frequently asked questions
Which futures prop firm has the most users?
No firm publishes audited trader counts, so this can only be estimated. By Trustpilot review volume, MyFundedFutures leads at 21,534, with Apex at 20,934 and Topstep at 14,737. By self-reported lifetime payouts Topstep claims over $1.4 billion against Apex’s $835 million, though those figures are unaudited and favor older firms. Apex is the most commonly named as largest by trader count, but the sources making that claim sell challenge-passing services or compete with the firms they rank.
Is Apex Trader Funding the biggest futures prop firm?
It’s the one most often described that way, and its review volume supports being at or near the top. But Topstep has operated since 2012 against Apex’s 2021, claims substantially higher lifetime payouts, and reportedly commands far more brand search volume. Which is “biggest” depends entirely on the metric, and no independent audited figure exists for any of them.
What changed with Apex 4.0?
On 1 March 2026 Apex replaced its product entirely. Removed: monthly subscription fees, the MAE and 5:1 RR rules, manual payout review, account resets, and the 250K and 300K account sizes. Added: one-time pricing, a choice of end-of-day or intraday trailing drawdown, a 30-day evaluation expiry, an overnight trading ban, suspension of all metals, and a 6-payout lifetime cap after which the account closes. Consistency relaxed from 30% to 50% and qualifying days dropped from seven to five. Accounts bought before that date stay on the old rules with no conversion path.
What is the Apex 6-payout cap?
Each Performance Account allows a maximum of six payouts on a rising ladder, then closes permanently and you must purchase a new evaluation. Each payout is separately capped on a rising ladder, so you cannot withdraw a large balance early even if the account holds it. It matters more than the headline profit split, because a 100% share of the first $25,000 assumes an account that keeps running, and this one has a hard end.
Does the biggest prop firm mean the best?
Not in this sector. The two largest futures firms by review volume carry the two lowest satisfaction scores in the category, while MyFundedFutures sits at 4.9 on comparable volume. Scale does tell you a firm can process payouts reliably and probably won’t disappear, which matters in an industry that lost 80 to 100 firms in 2024 — but that’s a minimum standard rather than a reason to choose one.
Related on this site: true cost rankings · a review checked against primary sources · firms to avoid · what a payout cycle does to your risk
Trustpilot figures were refreshed 6 September 2026. Payout totals are self-reported by the firms and unaudited. The 6-payout cap and the 5-qualifying-day requirement were confirmed against Apex’s own help center. The per-payout ladder figures were not, and are described in shape rather than quoted; confirm those against Apex’s documentation before purchasing. Firm founding dates other than Topstep’s were not independently verified and have been omitted. Nothing here is financial advice. Futures trading carries substantial risk of loss.
