FTMO

Many of the prop firms emerging today are simply imitations of FTMO’s two-step evaluation process. In fact, many have directly copied the entire model, only reducing the cost slightly. However, it’s crucial to recognize that the cost of a challenge should not be the primary factor in your decision. Over the past decade, FTMO has established a formidable reputation for trustworthiness, ensuring that you will receive your payout as long as you adhere to their rules. Moreover, while prop firms may have similar challenge guidelines, this doesn’t imply identical market or trading conditions. This is another area where FTMO particularly excels over their copycats:

1. Low Spreads and Commissions – FTMO provides some of the lowest spreads and commissions in the industry. This often makes the difference between a trade being stopped out and being profitable.
2. Trusted for Over Ten Years – Many prop firms come and go — MyForexFunds, for instance — but FTMO has stood the test of time. Although controversial and inconvenient, their decision to withdraw from the USA demonstrates a commitment to protecting their clients and maintaining their ability to provide funding.
3. Profit Share – The percentage of earnings you retain varies among prop firms, but few, aside from FTMO, offer 80% from the outset. And if you successfully meet the conditions of their scaling plan, they will increase it to 90%.

While FTMO isn’t perfect and there are aspects we don’t favor, such as their scaling plan, it’s difficult to criticize a scaling plan when only a few prop firms even offer one. However, FTMO’s scaling plan is somewhat lacking. A single off month can render you ineligible for scaling. Moreover, even if you consistently meet the requirements and scale up every four months, it would take two full years to grow a $100,000 account to $250,000. More notably, scaling your account to $1 million would take an astonishing 13 years. Therefore, for those aiming for rapid account scaling, The 5ers presents a more viable solution. Check out our Review of The 5ers Prop Fund here

The FTMO Challenge

• Entry cost: $170 for $10k in funding. Challenge fee is refunded upon passing, if you become eligible for a payout. Essentially, the challenge is free if you succeed.
• Challenge: Two-step program requiring 8% profit in step 1 and 5% profit in step 2, with max loss of 10% and max daily loss of 5%.
• Drawdown: Static 10% based on initial account balance
• Leverage: 1:100
• Minimum of 4 Trading Days required to pass. These days do not all have to be profitable, however. You can open a 0.1 lot trade to count as a trading day
• No time limit to complete challenge, take as long as you need
• News trading is only allowed if you choose the Swing Trading option when paying for your challenge
• Weekend holding of trades is only allowed if you choose the Swing Trading option when paying for your challenge
• Stop loss is not required
• Scaling plan: If you can generate 10% each month for four months straight, you will be eligible for a 25% increase in capital

Since FTMO no longer serves United States customer, The 5ers offers a similar challenge, called the High Stakes program you might consider.

FTMO currently provides various starting capital options, ranging from $10,000 to $200,000. They are transparent in their approach, and all their challenges have identical profit and loss requirements: a 10% profit target for the first step, 5% for the second step, and a 10% loss limit for each step as well as when funded. Here are the details for $10k challenge:

Challenge Costs:
$10k Capital: $170,
$25k Capital: $274,
$50k Capital: $378,
$100k Capital: $591,
$200k Capital: $1182.60

The $100k account offers the most value per dollar spent, followed by the $50k account.

Fees and Spreads

While FTMO does not disclose their broker, they claim to be “directly partnered with a liquidity provider.” From our experience trading on The 5ers platform, we’ve found their spreads to be very competitive, an important yet frequently overlooked aspect of proprietary funds. Many of the emerging new prop funds have terrible spreads and/or high fees.

Spreads

Below are two screenshots showing average spreads for FTMO. The spreads are good for FTMO but definitely not ECN.

We compared FTMO with The 5ers by setting up a master trade account and copying those trades to both FTMO and The5ers. To ensure simultaneous execution of all trades without any client-side lag, we utilized a VPN. After two weeks of trading, we achieved a 9.1% profit on FTMO and a 11.6% profit on The 5ers, with the latter showing 13% more profit on identical trades. We experienced a near 1.5% profit loss on FTMO due to spread costs, and one trade was completely lost. This trade was stopped out on FTMO due to spreads, yet remained active on The 5ers. While the loss of one trade might be attributed to chance, the cost of spreads we have clearly proven.

It is also worth noting that, although FTMO offers lower commissions on Forex, charging $1 less per lot round trip, the cost of spreads significantly outweighs it. In truth, much of a traders costs boil down to spreads.

However, it’s important to note that we are comparing top-tier proprietary trading firms. Although FTMO falls behind The 5ers in terms of spread costs, it surpasses almost every other prop fund in the market. The spreads on FTMO are reasonably good; they just can’t beat those offered by The 5ers.

BTCUSD spreads average about $10-12.

We compared The 5ers with FTMO by setting up a master trade account and copying those trades to both The 5ers and FTMO. To ensure simultaneous execution of all trades without any client-side lag, we utilized a VPN. After two weeks of trading, we achieved a 9.1% profit on FTMO and a 11.6% profit on The 5ers, with the latter showing 13% more profit on identical trades. We experienced a near 1.5% profit loss on FTMO due to spread costs, and one trade was completely lost. This trade was stopped out on FTMO due to spreads, yet remained active on The 5ers. While the loss of one trade might be attributed to chance, the cost of spreads does make a big difference. Here we’re looking at two top tier prop firms with tight spreads. Just think about the effect on your profit if you went with a lower-tier prop firm. The spread difference could be a game changer.

Average spreads during normal trading hours

Average Spreads from 4-6PM EST

Trading Commissions

• Forex: Commission is $3 / lot round trip
• Gold: Commission is 0.0010% in USD / lot round trip
  (Note: FTMO website states commission is $1.98 but in our live account the correct rate is 0.0005% in USD per lot. Not a major difference)
  Swaps: -36.67 points for longs and -19.4 points for shorts
  1 lot = 100 ounce of Gold. 0.01 lot size would = 1 ounce of Gold
• Silver: Commission is 0.0010% in USD / lot round trip
  (Note: FTMO website states commission is $1.20 but in our live account the correct rate is 0.0005% in USD per lot. Not a major difference)
  Swaps: -4.62 points for longs and -1.4 points for shorts
  1 lot of Silver = 5000 ounces of Silver. 0.01 lot size would = 50 ounces of Silver
• Nasdaq100: ZERO Commissions
  Swaps: -331.01 for longs and -13.06 for shorts
• US 30 Index: ZERO Commissions
  Swaps: -765 for longs and -29.15 for shorts
• S&P500 Index: ZERO Commissions
  Swaps: -91 for longs and +1.76 for shorts
• DAX40 German Index: ZERO Commissions
  Swaps: -294.02 for longs and -6.42 for shorts
• UK100 Index: ZERO Commissions
  Swaps: -159.95 for longs and -5.43 for shorts
• Japan 225 Index: ZERO Commissions
  Swaps: -264.04 for longs and -273.05 for shorts
• Bitcoin (BTCUSD): ZERO Commissions
  Swaps: -30 in USD (In percent terms using current price)
• Ethereum (ETHUSD): ZERO Commissions
  Swaps: -30 in USD (In percent terms using current price)
• Other Crypto: DASH, DOGE, DOT, ADA, XRP, LTC, NEO, XMR: ZERO Commissions
  Swaps: -30 in USD (In percent terms using current price)

Prop Fund Fees

FTMO does not charge any fees apart from the evaluation/challenge cost. There are no fees associated with withdrawing profits.

Free Trial

FTMO provides a free trial, so if you wish to try their offering before putting out any money, you can sign up for the trial by clicking here.

Restrictions

It’s crucial to understand that when signing up for an account with FTMO, each account type has its own limitations. A standard FTMO account offers 1:100 leverage, whereas the Swing FTMO account provides only 1:30 leverage. However, only Swing accounts are allowed to hold trades over the weekend or to trade news. If you opt for a standard FTMO account with 1:100 leverage, you are not allowed to hold trades over the weekend, nor can you trade within 2 minutes of news announcements. This restriction applies to limit orders, take profit, and stop loss activations. You make the choice between a standard or Swing account after registering for an account but before paying for the challenge.

Verdict

If you reside outside the USA and are seeking a reputable prop fund that is proven to payout and offers competitive spreads and commissions, then FTMO would be an excellent choice. We appreciate their transparency, the absence of hidden rules, and their avoidance of shady business practices. FTMO was one of our top two choices but unfortunately they have stopped offering challenges to USA citizens.