The 5ers

The 5ers is a very unique prop fund for several reasons. First, it offers three different and unique styles of challenges, each with their own pros and cons, which we will explain below. Second, the 5ers is the only prop fund currently running that offers the ability to virtually scale your account with no time restraints, as long as you meet the profit target percentage. This is good news for traders who have a good edge. All three of The 5ers challenges have scaling plans, but they vary, as you will see in our detailed analysis. Like FTMO, The 5ers has stood the test of time and has a verified track record of paying out traders.

The 5ers stands out as one of the fairest prop funds for trading. While most funds immediately fail traders for any violation, terminating the account, the 5ers graciously allows up to 5 violations before terminating an account. This does not include hitting the maximum drawdown, but it certainly shows they are not trying to fail you.

The 5ers offers three different styles of challenges. Their most affordable challenge costs $39, making it an extremely budget-friendly option. However, for clarity and simplicity, we will compare the different challenges with the intention of starting with a $100,000 account:

Bootcamp (challenge for $100k in funding)

• Entry cost: $95 + $205 for live account if challenge is passed = $300 (challenge fee is not refundable)
• Challenge: 3 stages, each requiring a 6% profit, with a maximum loss of 5%. This is a ratio of 12/10 for reference when comparing with the other programs. (once funded the profit target and max loss drop by 1%. So you may want to risk smaller amounts like 0.25% or 0.50% per trade if you have a high R:R but low win-rate strategy)
• Drawdown: Static 5% based on initial account balance. Does not trail profit
• Leverage: 1:10
• No minimum days or trades requirements
• No time limit to complete challenge, however, you must enter at least one trade every 21 days to maintain your account. This trade can be a 0.01 lot trade
• News trading is allowed except for bracketing strategies
• Weekend holding of trades is allowed
• Stop loss is required for all trades. However, you have 3 minutes from opening a trade to add a stop loss
• Stop loss or open risk may not exceed 2% of account balance, in any single position
• Scaling plan: Every 5% gain adds $25K to the account until $300K, then it scales up by $50k, $100k, and $500k, and account caps at $4 million. You could achieve a $1mil account after scaling about 12 times or after achieving 60% profit growth total.
• Profit split: 50/50 for first 5% earned, then 75/25 in favor of the trader. Remains at 75/25 until $2M finally becoming 100/0 once the account reaches $2.5 million.

The account growth possible with Bootcamp is very enticing. But it is important to remember that 4% max loss means you will have to be very strict to maintain your account. Also, the 1:10 leverage will discourage some traders. However, for conservative Forex trading 1:10 leverage is absolutely never going to be an issue. If you need higher leverage choose Hyper Growth or High Stakes program.

Hyper Growth Program – Instant Funding (challenge for $20k in funding)

• Entry cost: $450 (not refunded)
• Challenge: One-step challenge requiring a 10% profit with a max loss of 6% and max daily loss of 3%. Profit target is both higher than Bootcamp and also a worse ratio.
• Drawdown: Static 6% based on initial account balance
• Max daily loss: Set at 3%, which, unlike most prop firms, does not constitute a violation and will not result in the termination of the account
• Leverage: 1:30 (or three times that of Bootcamp)
• No minimum days or trades requirements
• No time limit to complete the challenge, but you must execute at least one trade every 21 days to keep your account active. This trade can be as small as a 0.01 lot trade
• News trading is not allowed within 2 minutes of high-impact news. You may however hold trades over news
• Weekend holding of trades is allowed
• Stop loss is not required, however, with the daily pause of 3% it would be wise to use one
• Scaling plan: Account doubles with every 10% profit gained with a total capital cap of $4 million. For advanced traders who are hitting 10% months this represents the quickest path to a large funded account.
• Profit split: 50/50 for first 10% earned, then 75/25 in favor of the trader, finally becoming 100/0 once the account reaches $1.28 million. So the transition to 100% profit share happens at a lower account size and quicker compared to Bootcamp.

You can scale to a $1 million account with just six scale-ups and then reach a maximum of $4 million in funding after the seventh scale-up. Interestingly, although it requires fewer scale-ups to reach $1 million, the total percentage gain needed is still 60%, identical to Bootcamp. Bootcamp and Hyper Growth are quite similar in terms of the speed of scaling up and total profit potential. They differ mainly in leverage, profit targets, and drawdown limits, but these differences are still relatively comparable. Hyper Growth offers 1:30 leverage, which might be more appealing to some traders.

Hyper Growth is unique in that it gives you the opportunity to get a payout from the evaluation itself.

High Stakes Challenge -FTMO Equivalent (challenge for $100k in funding)

• Entry cost: $495, refunded upon passing. Essentially, the challenge is free if you succeed. While FTMO requires you to be eligible for a profit share withdrawal to get a challenge fee refund, The 5ers does not. Once you pass you will get the challenge fee refunded
• Challenge: Two-step program, resembling FTMO, where you need an 8% profit in step 1 and a 5% profit in step 2, with a maximum drawdown of 10% and a maximum daily loss of 5%. This offers more room for loss compared to the other options, but has a higher entry barrier due to the multi-step process.
• Drawdown: Static 10% based on initial account balance
• Max daily loss: 5% of starting equity of the day or starting balance of the day, whichever is higher (same as FTMO)
• Leverage: 1:100
• Minimum of 3 Profitable Trading Days required to pass. A profitable day is considered any day where a profit of at least 0.5% of initial balance is made
• No time limit to complete the challenge, but you must execute at least one trade every 21 days to keep your account active. This trade can be as small as a 0.01 lot trade
• News trading is not allowed within 2 minutes of high-impact news. You may however hold trades over news
• Weekend holding of trades is allowed
• Stop loss is not required, however, with the daily loss limit of 5% it would be wise to use one
• Scaling plan: The5ers scales your account for every 10% profit, up until $500,000 total account equity. This represents much slower growth than Hyper Growth and is also capped quite low, if your goal is a larger funded account. To compensate for this they offer a salary. However, it requires 100% in total profit accumulation to achieve only a $500k account as opposed to the other programs where 60% gets you to $1M.

This program is very similar to FTMO, except the growth potential is much quicker and cheaper with The 5ers.

Which Challenge is the Best Choice?

That really depends on your style of trading and level of expertise. If you are an experienced trader with a high win-rate, and your goal is to scale quickly then the Hyper Growth Program is likely the best choice for you. It is also the most expensive to start. Bootcamp is a great option if you want the ability to scale-up quickly but at a cheaper cost. If you are a profitable trader but with less experience that isn’t ready to scale to $1m, then the High Stakes program may be a better choice for you, as you will get your challenge fee refunded at completion, and have a higher loss limit to work with in your live account.

Summary:

If all things were equal:

1. The Bootcamp offers a reasonable starting point for traders with a relatively low cost and straightforward challenge structure. While account scaling offers considerable potential, the profit split remains on the lower end until reaching $2M, which is somewhat disappointing.
2. The Hyper Growth Program requires a larger upfront cost but potentially offers the fastest account growth, as your account doubles each time you hit 10% profit. Additionally, its profit split structure is more attractive, transitioning to 100% profits at a smaller account size compared to the Bootcamp program. With Hyper Growth, only five of your profit splits will be at 75%; it then scales to 80% and 100% profit shares at the sixth and seventh splits, respectively. In contrast, choosing a $100K Bootcamp account means thirteen of your profit splits will be at 75%. This program could be ideal for traders confident in consistently achieving high profit targets.
3. The High Stakes Program poses the most complex challenge but offers a few unique advantages. Its profit split structure starts at 80% and transitions to 100% profits quicker than the Bootcamp program, with the additional benefit of a monthly salary. However, the potential for account growth is capped, which I consider a significant drawback. Despite this limitation, even with the cap, account growth is still much quicker than FTMO.

If you’re still undecided and are a trader seeking the best profit potential, we have crunched the numbers to determine which program is most suitable for you. In the table below, you’ll see the total profit achievable at cumulative gains of 20%, 25%, 30%, 50%, or 100%.

I’ve highlighted in green the program offering the highest profit at each level of accumulated percentage gain. Bootcamp leads in profit scaling until $1.4M, where Hyper Growth catches up. For the first 20% gained High Stakes will offer the highest payout.

Therefore, if you believe there’s a high likelihood of blowing your account after becoming funded, then the High Stakes program is your best option, as it offers the highest profit at 20%, and a full refund of challenge fee upon passing. However, if you’re confident in maintaining consistent profitability without losing your account, then both the Bootcamp and Hyper programs will yield the same profit at 100% accumulated growth, with Bootcamp growing quicker. Bootcamp or Hyper Growth are the quickest path to becoming a millionaire.

Fees and Spreads

While The 5ers do not disclose their broker, they claim to trade “directly through commercial liquidity providers,” similar to an ECN broker. 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 commissions.

Spreads

Below are two screenshots showing average spreads for The 5ers. As evident, the spreads are quite tight. For instance, EURUSD has virtually no spread, allowing you to place a market order and expect it to fill at nearly the exact price. 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

(Note: The 5ers website had outdated data on swaps for gold and silver. The following fees for swaps has been taken from the correct MT5 data, which is what you will actually pay in a trade.)
We try to keep this data accurate and updated so if you notice a discrepancy please let us know.

• Forex: Commission is $4 / lot round trip
  Swaps: Varies by pair.
  EURUSD swaps are -3.069 for longs and +0.107 for shorts
  USDJPY swaps are 0 for longs and -10.404 for shorts
• Gold/Silver: Commission is $4 / lot round trip
  Swaps for Gold: -10 points (for long & short positions)
  Swaps for Silver: -3.2 points (for long & short positions)
  1 lot for Gold = 100 ounce of Gold. 0.01 lot size would = 1 ounce of Gold
  1 lot of Silver = 5000 ounces of Silver. 0.01 lot size would = 50 ounces of Silver
• Nasdaq100: Commission is $2 / lot round trip
  Swaps: -90 points for long and shorts
• US 30 Index: Commission is $2 / lot round trip
  Swaps: -250 points for long and shorts
• S&P500 Index: Commission is $2 / lot round trip
  Swaps: -40 points for long and shorts
• DAX40 German Index: Commission is $2 / lot round trip
  Swaps: -100 points for longs and shorts.
• UK100 Index: Commission is $2 / lot round trip
  Swaps: -60 points for longs and shorts.
• Japan 225 Index: Commission is $0.5 / lot round trip
  Swaps: -2000 points for longs and shorts.
• Bitcoin (BTCUSD): ZERO Commissions
  Swaps: -30 in USD (In percent terms using current price)
• Ethereum (ETHUSD): ZERO Commissions
  Swaps: -3 in USD (In percent terms using current price)
• Crude Oil (US Oil): ZERO Commissions
  Swaps: -20 (In Points)
• Brent (UK Oil): ZERO Commissions
  Swaps: -20 (In Points)

Prop Fund Fees

The 5ers does not charge any fees apart from the evaluation/challenge cost. There are no fees associated with withdrawing profits or maintaining your funded account.

Restrictions

All The 5ers accounts must maintain activity within a 21-day period. If an account remains inactive for 21 days, it will be terminated. However, you may trade 0.1 lots to reset the inactivity counter. Additionally, you are not allowed to use trade signals on any 5ers account.

Bootcamp: You are limited to holding three Bootcamp accounts simultaneously: one $250k account and two $100k accounts. Additionally, you cannot copy trades between these accounts; trades on each account must be unique. However, you are allowed to copy trades from a Bootcamp account to a Hyper or High Stakes account, or vice versa.

Daily pause is not a termination. Your account will simply be locked from trading until the next day. This is not a violation just a safety mechanism.

If a trade is not secured with a stop loss within 3 minutes of entry, it is considered a risk violation. Your account is allowed a maximum of 5 risk violations before it is terminated.

Hyper Growth: Your total Hyper Growth starting capital is limited to $40k. This means you could start either four $10k challenges or two $20k challenges.
Daily pause is not a termination. Your account will simply be locked from trading until the next day. This is not a violation just a safety mechanism.

High Stakes: You are limited to just one $5k account and your choice of either a $20k, $60k, or $100k account, amounting to a total of two High Stakes accounts.
Daily loss on High Stakes is a termination.

Verdict

If you’re leaning towards an FTMO-style challenge with scaling, High Stakes is a solid choice, especially for newer traders. For those consistently profitable traders Hyper Growth and Bootcamp offer the best-in-industry scaling opportunities. Whatever program you choose, The 5ers stands out with the best spreads, exceptional scaling, and excellent customer service. The 5ers currently gets our highest recommendation.

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