"Best" Instant Funding Prop Firms (2023): Quick Reviews ✅ (2024)

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Prop trading is an interesting case – an opportunity to supercharge the size of your trades, gain access to various professional tools, and potentially make a living as a trader. But as always, there are challenges to overcome.

Prop trading is the practice of a company trading using its own capital in order to make a profit. The traders who do this on behalf of the company – prop traders, receive a percentage of all the profits that they make.

Sounds great, right? Well, most of these firms have incredibly high requirements, and passing the selection process is quite difficult. Enter instant funding prop firms – they will give you an account to trade straight off the bat, no application or testing required – so long as you put up a little capital yourself.

Now, we recognize that this sounds slightly shady – and truth be told, there are a lot of untrustworthy firms in this space. But legitimate prop firms do exist, if you take the time to research them, see what they’re offering, and whether or not it is legit.

Well, we’ve done that – we looked at profit splits, bonuses, testing (or lack thereof), registrations, licensing, trial accounts, maximum drawdowns, maximum funding – every relevant factor when coming up with this list of the instant funding prop firms. If you’re still interested, let’s see how they stack up against one another.

1. FTUK – Best Overall

An up-and-coming prop firm from London, FTUK was founded in February of 2021 and has made inroads in the industry by offering both instant funding and evaluation-based prop funding.

The company has a very generous profit split plan, with 80% of profits going to traders. Traders who opt for this company will use EightCap, a brokerage partnered with the prop firm. Tradable assets include currency pairs, cryptocurrencies, indices, commodities futures, as well as precious metals.

As far as maximum funding goes, this will depend on the account size you opt for. There are four available account sizes.

FTUK has a profit target of 10%. Once that goal is reached, traders should close all open trades and contact the company. Hitting the first milestone increases the funding amount by 400%, while each subsequent milestone doubles the funding amount.

As far as maximum drawdown goes, FTUK has a hard limit of 6%. The use of stop losses is mandatory (unless you purchase an add-on), and the maximum allowed risk using the stop loss is 2% per position. Placing a stop loss incorrectly can lead to account termination.

If you opt for the evaluation model, you have 180 days to reach the 10% profit target before you get funded. All trades up to that point will be made using a demo account, so no actual capital is at risk.

One of the biggest drawbacks of FTUK, as you can see in the chart above, is that the initial funding levels offer very limited leverage. Combined with the maximum 2% risk per trade, this significantly curtails your options for fast growth.

FTUK offers access to expert consultations and various courses and educational materials once you’ve signed up, although only remote trading is available – even if you are a UK resident, there is no office to go to.

Traders will be expected to use consistent risk and lot sizes, as well as a consistent trading style. Although none of these rules specify exactly what the criteria are, the company’s approach is lighthanded compared to the competition – if anything catches their interest, they won’t close your account, but they will contact you to iron out the issues.

Another benefit is that, unlike most prop trading firms, FTUK does not have a minimum trading requirement – you can trade as little or as much as you like. The company also supports the use of trading bots, expert advisors, and copy trading.

On top of that, traders can hold trades over weekends, and upon reaching level 2 funding, withdrawals can be requested at any time. Payouts are handled via Deel.

2. Instant Funding – Best Trading Rules

Another newcomer from the UK, InstantFunding.io was launched in June 2022 and has successfully funded over 1,000 traders to date. The prop trading firm is owned by Accelo LTD and has offices in 13 Hursley Road, Hampshire.

The firm offers both instant funding accounts as well as accounts that require challenges and verification. Just like FTUK, the company is partnered with the Australian brokerage Eightcap, which provides clients access to MT4 and MT5 trading platforms.

There are two types of instant funding accounts available – smart accounts and conventional accounts. Let’s go through the differences.

Smart accounts offer 10% drawdown, have no daily drawdown limits, and a profit goal of 10% to begin scaling your account.

Profit splits start at 70%, and once you’ve scaled your account twice, this increases to 90%. Payouts start 14 days after you’ve opened an account, and you’re eligible for a payout once every week from there on out.

Smart accounts offer leverage of 1:100 for forex pairs, 1:20 for metals and commodities, 1:10 for indices, and 1:2 for cryptocurrencies. Overall, this is significantly less than the leverage offered by competitors in the field. The maximum amount of funding for a smart account is $1.25 million.

Conventional accounts have a maximum drawdown of 8%, no daily drawdown limits, and share the smart account’s 10% goal for scaling.

When it comes to max funding, it is equal to 5x your starting balance. Conventional accounts have one major drawback – the profit split is 60%, and while it can rise to 90%, this only happens when you reach maximum funding.

When it comes to tradable assets, InstantFunding is lagging behind the competition. The firm gives clients access to 49 forex pairs, 17 indices, spot trading on silver, along with 4 tradable cryptocurrency pairs on MT4, and an additional 21 if using MT5.

InstantfundingIO allows copy trading, hedging, as well as the use of expert advisors. Positions can be held overnight and over the weekend, although in the latter case, you will have to enable the option through the homepage of your dashboard. For positions held over the weekend, the maximum leverage is 1:30.

Now that we’ve seen the asking price of instant accounts, we can move on to accounts that require testing. This isn’t a random segue – price is the main advantage that accounts which require challenges have.

There are two variations here – a one-step challenge and a two-step challenge.

The one-step challenge has a profit target of 10%, a total drawdown of 10%, and a daily drawdown of 3%.

The two-step challenge has the same profit target of 10%, but a higher daily drawdown at 5%, and the profit target for the first step is 8%, while the target for the second step is 5%.

For challenge accounts, profit splits start at 80%, and are increased to 90% upon scaling twice, just as in the case of smart accounts.

3. SurgeTrader – Best for Speedy Account Approval

SurgeTrader is one of the few American instant funding prop firms. Founded in 2021, the company is based at 405 5th Avenue South, Naples, Florida, and is registered under the name Surge Capital Ventures, LLC. It was also voted the best prop trading firm of 2022.

This company is slightly different from the others on the list – what they offer straddles the line between instant funding and funding after a challenge.

Before we go any further, we should mention that clients in the Balkans, Belarus, Burma, Ivory Coast, Cuba, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Iran, Iraq, Liberia, North Korea, Syria, and Zimbabwe cannot open an account with SurgeTrader.

So, let’s deal with funding first. SurgeTrader operates on an “audition” system. Basically, you pay a fee for the account size you want and gain access to a demo account. The goal is to reach a profit target of 10% without incurring a daily drawdown of 5% or a maximum trailing drawdown of 8%.

Breaking either of those two rules is a hard breach, which leads to account closure. Breaking other rules, such as not using a stop loss or closing all open positions before the market closes results in a soft breach, which means that those trades will be automatically closed. SurgeTrader supports a wide variety of withdrawal options, including PayPal, Revolut, TransferWise, and Payoneer.

Like most of the prop firms in our list, SurgeTrader is also partnered with EightCap, through which it offers access to the MetaTrader 4 and MetaTrader 5 platforms. Users can trade a very wide variety of assets via SurgeTrader – 650 stocks, 24 index funds, 48 forex pairs, and a staggering 382 crypto tokens in total.

The maximum amount of funding available is $1,000,000. Once traders hit a 10% profit target, they can scale their account size to the next level. Those levels are as follows:

• $25,000 starter account – priced at $250
• $50,000 intermediate account – priced at $400
• $100,000 seasoned account – priced at $700
• $250,000 advanced account – priced at $1,800
• $500,000 expert account – priced at $3,500
• $1,000,000 master account – priced at $6,500

Unlike most prop funding firms, SurgeTrader does offer a demo account with a balance of $100,000, allowing you to do a test run before trying to meet the 10% profit target.

There are a couple of added things to keep in mind. Using stop loss orders is mandatory, and the maximum position traders are allowed to use is 1/10000 of their account size in lots (for example, 5 lots for a 50,000 account. Stocks cannot be held into earnings releases

As far as leverage goes, forex pairs, precious metals, indices, and spot trades for oil can be traded at 1:10 leverage, individual stocks at 1:5 leverage, and cryptocurrencies at 1:2 leverage.

Traders can purchase an add-on to get maximum leverage of 1:20 on forex pairs and precious metals, which also increases maximum lot size, but this is still far below the leverage offered by most competitors.

4. The 5%ers – Best for Beginners

An Israeli firm founded in 2016 by Gil Ben Hur and Snir Achiel, 5%ers offers various types of prop trading accounts, as well as a wide array of educational resources.

Let’s take a look at their instant funding offerings.

The company offers three instant funding accounts, depending on the size you’d like to start off with. A $10,000 account costs $260, the $20,000 account costs $450, and the $40,000 account will set you back $850.

However, there is a catch. Whichever account size you choose, you will only have half of that dollar amount available as trading capital until you hit the evaluation target – which is a profit of 10%.

The maximum funding available via 5%ers is $4,000,000. The scaling program works like this – once a trader hits the 10% profit target, the balance of their account will be doubled. This goes on like this until the account reaches a size of $1,280,000 – when another 10% profit target is achieved, the account is then increased to the maximum of $4,000,000.

When it comes to profit splits, 5%ers is a tad underwhelming. Profit splits start at 50% for level 1 accounts, increase to 75% for accounts up to $320,000, 80% for accounts that are worth $640,000, and finally 100% for accounts $1,280,000 and larger.

5%ers allows traders to hold trades over the weekend, as well as overnight, and trading the news is also allowed. The maximum leverage allowed is 1:30.

There are no minimum trades or minimum trading days required while you’re on level 1, but there is a 12-month limit when it comes to meeting the 10% evaluation target. Once you’ve graduated to level 2, you must place at least 4 trades a month, or your account will be paused or terminated.

Traders are also barred from engaging in high-frequency trading where most positions are held for a couple of seconds, as well as from using expert advisors and copy trading.

The maximum leverage allowed is 1:30, the first payout is 14 days after reaching level 2, and payouts can subsequently be requested every 2 weeks.

The 5%ers are also one of the few instant funding prop firms that have a daily pause. Basically, this is a loss protection tool – if you hit a 3% drawdown in a single day, all of your trades will be closed and your account will be blocked for the remainder of the day. As far as maximum drawdown goes, it is set at 6% – breach that, and your account will be closed.

The instant funding accounts also have another drawback – 28 forex pairs, including exotic pairs, are available to trade, as well as 4 indices and gold and silver. That’s quite limited – and pretty substandard when looking at the industry.

What is Proprietary Trading? 🤔

Proprietary trading or prop trading is the practice of a company using its own money to trade securities such as stocks, bonds, and commodities, as well as derivatives such as options or futures, in order to make a profit.

In contrast, when financial institutions or brokerages usually make trades, they do so on behalf of a client, with the client’s money, in return for a commission.

It’s easy to see the appeal – companies that engage in prop trading are brokerages, financial firms, and banks, so their size can and often does give them a competitive advantage. This method allows them to diversify their profit streams while at the same time engaging in a type of outsourcing.

Benefits of Prop Trading 👍

Prop traders get access to large amounts of capital, which are generally hard to come by. This not only allows for larger trade sizes, but it also allows traders to engage in strategies that would have otherwise been nonviable.

On top of that, prop trading firms often give traders access to advanced tools – whether in the form of access to high-quality brokerage accounts, high-speed data feeds, or advanced analytic tools. Prop trading also gives traders the ability to trade various asset classes and markets that might otherwise be unavailable to them.

Plenty of prop trading companies also offer advanced courses and educational materials, while at the same time fostering an actively collaborative environment in which traders can learn from one another.

The average prop trader salary is difficult to quantify, but entry-level positions are usually cited at anywhere between $50,000 and $100,000. With instant prop trading firms, however, salaries are rarely found – instead, the money you take home at the end of the day will chiefly depend on profit splits and personal performance.

Our first point feeds right back into the benefit of profit sharing – while trading with your own accounts might let you keep 100% of the profits, your position sizes would be many times smaller.

In contrast, although you might only keep 40% of the profits from a prop trading account, with the account and trade sizes, you’ll more than likely see larger profits than with your own account.

Disadvantages of Prop Trading 👎

While the advantages of prop trading are many, that doesn’t mean that there are no constraints and potential pitfalls associated with this career path.

For one, prop traders who use companies like the ones we’ve covered aren’t employees – they are contractors, so taxation and the like will have to be handled on your end.

In addition to that, instant funding prop firms offer nothing in terms of employee benefits, making the situation even more complicated.

While all of us like to envision success, prop trading is demanding – so job security isn’t particularly high in the field.

This is also a stressful line of work – FOMO is bad enough when you’re trading with your own capital, but with a much larger account and leverage, the temptation to trade when conditions might not be right is far more dangerous.

Prop traders might also be liable for software and data fees – which, although not significant if you’re successful, can present a financial burden when starting out.

What to Look for in a Prop Trading Firm 🔍

First and foremost – legitimacy. Prop trading firms – particularly those that offer instant funding, are tempting, so the industry is unfortunately rife with scams.

When window shopping, look for companies that have been in business for at least a couple of years, and those that state upfront who they are owned by, where their offices are located, and where their companies are registered.

In practical terms, profit splits are the first priority. There is a lot of variety here – with firms running the gamut from 10% profit splits to 90% profit splits. Payout conditions are also important – so keep an eye on how often payouts can occur and via which mechanism the payments are handled.

Moving on, the trading rules associated with the prop firm in question are also of great importance. Maximum drawdown and daily drawdown limits have the most effect on your trading experience, so make sure to find a company whose limits you are comfortable with.

Strings Attached with Instant Funding Prop Firms 🔗

There are various limitations that are placed on prop traders, and even more that are placed on traders in instant-funding firms.

The most common limitations are maximum allowed drawdown, daily drawdown, minimum trading days, and no gambling rules.

In order, this means that – if your account drops below a certain value at any point, your account will be terminated. If your account drops below a certain value in a single day, your account will be terminated. If you trade less than a certain amount of days, your account will be closed, and if you use inconsistent trade sizes, the same will happen.

Instant prop funding firms are understandably wary of risk – so most enforce strict, zero-tolerance policies. You don’t have any leeway to make mistakes, so before you embark on this journey, you should be absolutely certain that you can hit the required goals without breaching the rules – and that you can do so easily.

Conclusion 🏁

Thanks for sticking with us to the end. Once all is said and done, instant funding prop firms remain an interesting topic with no easy or straightforward answers.

On the one hand, access to capital, advanced software, and the ability to rapidly start trading on a higher level will always be intriguing. On the other hand, various limitations, drawbacks, and disadvantages remain.

It’s tough to give a final answer here – but we’ll try anyway. Prop trading firms that have challenges are notoriously difficult to get into – if you consistently lock in profits with your own retail trading account, and have at least two years of experience, we’d give prop trading a shot with one of the instant funding companies that we’ve reviewed.

All reviews, research, news and assessments of any kind on The Tokenist are compiled using a strict editorial review process by our editorial team. Neither our writers nor our editors receive direct compensation of any kind to publish information on tokenist.com. Our company, Tokenist Media LLC, is community supported and may receive a small commission when you purchase products or services through links on our website. Click here for a full list of our partners and an in-depth explanation on how we get paid.