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A prop firm sells you an evaluation, and if you pass, funds an account you trade for a share of the profit. It is not a broker: your money buys a test rather than a trading account, and none of the firms below is regulated as a financial institution. What separates them is the rule set — the drawdown model in particular decides more evaluations than the profit target does.
Keystone Funded runs a conventional two-phase evaluation with unusually permissive trading rules: news trading, weekend holds and Expert Advisors are all allowed, and the drawdown is measured against starting balance rather than trailing the high-water mark.
Northwind Trading targets experienced discretionary traders: high capital ceilings, the most generous split in this group, and a 12% drawdown allowance, offset by a flat prohibition on automated strategies.
Solent Futures Desk evaluates traders on CME futures rather than spot Forex, with a single-phase 6% target, no daily loss limit and weekly payouts once the first has cleared.
Vertex Capital Group compresses the evaluation into a single phase with a 10% target, and offers an instant-funding route for traders who would rather pay more up front than sit an evaluation at all.
Arcline Capital offers a genuinely free trial evaluation alongside its paid two-phase route and an instant-funding option, on an equity-based drawdown model.
Harbourline Prop competes on price. The evaluation is cheap to enter, but the combination of a 10% profit target and a 6% trailing drawdown makes it the hardest evaluation in this group to pass.
| Firm | Daily loss | Max drawdown | News | Weekend | EAs | Max funded |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Keystone Funded | 5% | 10% (Balance-based) | Allowed | Allowed | Allowed | $400,000 |
| Northwind Trading | 5% | 12% (Balance-based) | Allowed | Allowed | No | $1,000,000 |
| Solent Futures Desk | Not applied | Trailing, by contract size (Trailing) | Allowed | No | Allowed | $300,000 |
| Vertex Capital Group | 4% | 8% (Trailing) | Restricted | No | Allowed | $200,000 |
| Arcline Capital | 4% | 8% (Equity-based) | Allowed | No | Allowed | $250,000 |
| Harbourline Prop | 3% | 6% (Trailing) | Restricted | No | No | $100,000 |
No. A prop firm sells an evaluation and then funds a simulated or firm-capital account; it does not hold client money as a broker does, so it falls outside the regimes that cover brokers. That is the single most important difference to understand before paying an evaluation fee.
Balance-based drawdown measures against your starting balance, so profits you bank are yours and cannot be clawed back. Trailing drawdown follows your high-water mark, so a position that goes into profit and retraces can breach the limit even when you are still up overall. Balance-based is materially easier to trade under.
The established ones do, on a published schedule. Payout disputes cluster around firms less than two years old and around rule breaches the trader did not realise they had committed — most often a news-trading window or a weekend-holding restriction rather than a drawdown breach.
Only if you would otherwise fail the evaluation for reasons unrelated to your trading, such as a minimum-days requirement. Instant funding costs several times an evaluation fee and usually carries tighter drawdown rules, so it is the expensive route to the same place.
80% is the market standard opening split, rising to 90% or occasionally 95% through a scaling plan. Anything advertised above that at the entry tier is usually offset elsewhere — a higher fee, a tighter drawdown, or a target that is hard to reach.