Alexandre Mercer
Senior Futures Market Analyst
Apex Trader Funding vs Topstep is the comparison most futures traders run before their first evaluation, and the two firms answer opposite questions. Topstep sells reliability and speed of payout; Apex sells price and scale. Which one is right depends almost entirely on whether your profit arrives evenly or in bursts.
Every figure here comes from our review profiles, current at the time of writing. Both firms change pricing and rules regularly — confirm on their official pages before buying.
| Apex Trader Funding | Topstep | |
|---|---|---|
| Founded | 2022 | 2012 |
| Rating / Trustpilot | 4.2 / 5 | 4.6 / 5 |
| Entry price from | $19.90 | $49 |
| Standing discount | 80% OFF (SAVENOW) | 20% OFF (TOPSTEP20) |
| Max allocation | $300K | $150K |
| Profit split | 90-100% | 90-100% |
| Payout cycle | Bi-weekly | Daily |
| Minimum trading days | 1 | 2 |
| Consistency rule | 30% | None |
| Platforms | Rithmic, Tradovate, NinjaTrader | Tradovate, NinjaTrader, TradingView |
| News trading | Allowed | Allowed |
| Weekend holding | Not allowed | Not allowed |
Cost of failure. At $19.90 from and a standing 80% discount, an Apex evaluation is close to the cheapest way in the industry to test a strategy against real rule pressure. If your plan is to run several attempts, that difference compounds.
Scale. A $300K ceiling against Topstep's $150K, plus the ability to run multiple funded accounts on one strategy. For a trader with a stable intraday edge, total allocation is the constraint that actually caps income.
Rithmic routing. Rithmic is still the preferred data and order path for a large share of serious futures traders, and Apex supports it alongside Tradovate and NinjaTrader.
A 1-day minimum, which means a fast pass is genuinely fast.
Daily payouts. This is the single biggest structural difference in the table. Profit sitting in a funded account is profit exposed to your own future trading; a daily cycle converts it out of harm's way.
No consistency rule. If your month is made by two or three strong sessions — a completely normal distribution for breakout and news-driven traders — Apex's 30% cap will delay your payout while Topstep's absence of one will not.
Track record. Trading since 2012 with a 4.6/5 Trustpilot score, against 2022 and 4.2/5. Longevity in this industry is a real risk metric, not a vanity one.
TradingView execution, which matters if your analysis already lives there.
This is where most traders pick the wrong firm. Under a 30% cap, requesting a payout on $6,000 of profit where the best day contributed $2,700:
At Topstep the same $6,000 is requestable as soon as the minimum-day requirement is met. If your equity curve is lumpy, that is not a small difference — it is the difference between a two-week and a two-month cash cycle. More worked cases in prop firm payouts explained.
| If this is you | Pick |
|---|---|
| You want money out weekly and trade evenly | Topstep |
| Your profit comes in a few large sessions | Topstep (no consistency cap) |
| You want the cheapest possible attempt | Apex Trader Funding |
| You need more than $150K of allocation | Apex Trader Funding |
| You trade through Rithmic | Apex Trader Funding |
| This is your first futures evaluation | Topstep, for the payout cadence and the track record |
Neither is a bad choice, and many traders end up running both. If you want more of the field before deciding, see the best prop firms of 2026 or open the side-by-side comparison table.
Apex is better on price, maximum allocation and Rithmic support. Topstep is better on payout speed, track record and the absence of a consistency rule. For a trader whose profit arrives in a few large sessions, Topstep is the materially better product despite the higher entry price.
Our review profile records a 30% consistency rule at Apex Trader Funding, meaning no single day should account for more than 30% of the profit in a payout request. Topstep is recorded with none. Always confirm on the firm's current rules page, as this figure has changed before.
Apex lists from $19.90 with a standing 80% discount code; Topstep lists from $49 with 20% off. Apex is meaningfully cheaper per attempt, which matters most if you expect to need more than one.
Topstep operates a daily payout cycle with a 2-day minimum trading requirement, the fastest recorded cycle on our futures directory alongside Take Profit Trader's on-demand model.
Yes — running evaluations at more than one firm is allowed and common, provided you are not copying identical trades across accounts in a way that breaches either firm's copy-trading clause. Read both policies before mirroring a single strategy.
Written By
CME & Eurex futures trader with 10+ years of prop desk and retail evaluation experience.
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