Topstep vs FTMO

Topstep trades CME Group futures exclusively — index futures like the E-mini S&P 500, plus commodity, interest rate, and currency futures — with no forex, CFDs, or crypto available at all. FTMO covers forex, stock indices, commodities, cryptocurrencies, and individual stocks via CFDs, but has no futures product whatsoever. This is the single biggest decision point: a trader's target market decides which firm is even relevant, since there's no overlap in tradable instruments between the two.

Topstep's Live Funded Account runs through Topstep Brokerage LLC, a CFTC-registered introducing broker and NFA member (NFA ID 0567079) — a genuine regulatory registration most CFD-style prop firms simply don't have, even though the Trading Combine evaluation itself remains a simulated, unregulated product. FTMO operates through several Czech-registered commercial entities (FTMO s.r.o. and affiliates) with no financial-services license, since its challenge and funded accounts are entirely simulated. For traders who weigh formal regulatory registration heavily, Topstep's NFA-member introducing-broker structure for live funded accounts is a real structural advantage FTMO cannot match.

Topstep's Trading Combine is a one-step evaluation billed as a recurring monthly subscription until passed or canceled, across account sizes commonly at $50,000, $100,000, and $150,000 buying power. FTMO offers both a 1-Step Challenge (single 10% target, 3% daily/10% trailing loss) and a 2-Step Challenge (10% then 5% targets, 5% daily/10% total loss), with a one-time fee rather than a recurring subscription and account sizes up to $200,000. FTMO's one-time fee structure and larger account ceiling give it more flexibility than Topstep's subscription-based single format.

Topstep's split is front-loaded and generous: traders keep 100% of the first $10,000 in cumulative profit, then 90% after, with weekly payout eligibility reported for over 7,000 traders paid. FTMO's 2-Step starts at 80% (scaling to 90%) or 90% immediately on the 1-Step, with payouts on a fixed 14-day cycle and a reported 99.8% on-time rate. Topstep's 100%-then-90% structure can out-pay FTMO for a trader who profits quickly and stays under $10,000 in cumulative gains, but FTMO's fixed 14-day cycle and well-documented on-time rate offer more payout predictability at scale.

Topstep's primary interface is its own TopstepX platform, alongside NinjaTrader and Tradovate support plus TradingView charting — platforms built specifically for futures execution. FTMO supports MT4, MT5, cTrader, and DXtrade plus TradingView, platforms built for forex and CFD trading. Neither platform set works for the other firm's asset class, so this is really a function of which market you're already trading in rather than a quality comparison.

Because Topstep trades listed futures rather than CFDs, its rules reflect futures-market session structure: news trading is generally permitted, but overnight and weekend position holding is restricted on funded accounts. FTMO is markedly more permissive, allowing weekend holding, news trading, and EA use without exposure caps on standard accounts. Traders who want to hold positions overnight or through the weekend will find FTMO's rules far less restrictive, though this reflects the underlying market structure (listed futures vs. OTC CFDs) as much as firm policy.

Topstep has the longer operating history of the two, dating to 2010 (as Patak Trading Partners) versus FTMO's 2015 founding, and pioneered the funded-futures-account model years before the forex-focused prop-firm wave. However, Topstep's Trustpilot rating is described as lower and more polarized (mid-3s), with negative reviews citing disputed account closures and billing issues, versus FTMO's 4.8 score across 50,000+ reviews with no regulator warnings or enforcement actions on record. FTMO's reputation is both longer-documented in review volume and more consistently positive.