Catalyst

Catalyst is a prediction market challenge firm that pays a fixed cash amount to traders who pass a one-step challenge on a simulated account. Catalyst uses live Polymarket prices and events, so a trader buys YES or NO contracts on real questions about politics, sports, crypto and the economy. Each contract pays $1 if the outcome happens and $0 if it does not.

Catalyst is not a funded-account program. Catalyst never hands traders firm capital, and Catalyst takes no profit split. The trader pays once, passes or fails inside 60 days, and either collects the fixed payout or starts again. That makes Catalyst closer to a skill contest with published rules than to the forex and futures firms on our prop firm directory.

Trade Catalyst Inc., a Delaware corporation with a registered address in Dover, Delaware, runs Catalyst. Melissa Footlick is founder and CEO. Her letter on the Catalyst About page says she joined Topstep in 2010 as its second employee and spent eleven years there as COO.

As of 9 November 2026, Catalyst sells four challenge tiers: Starter at $10, Pro at $59, Elite at $109 and Max at $199. Every tier pays a fixed amount set before you trade, from $100 on Starter to $3,000 on Max. Catalyst charges no subscription, no activation fee and no reset fee. A failed challenge means buying a new one.

Catalyst's own numbers put the payout at 10x the fee on Starter, 12.7x on Pro, 13.8x on Elite and 15.1x on Max. The ratio of target to max loss is 3 to 1 on every tier. Max is the best return per dollar of fee, and Starter is the cheapest way to learn the rules for $10. Starter is one of the lowest entry fees we track on our cheapest prop firms list.

The Catalyst challenge is a single stage. To pass, a trader reaches the profit target on closed trades within 60 days of purchase, keeps the best day at or under 35% of total profit, and never hits the trailing max loss. Catalyst has no daily loss limit and no minimum trading days. The full rules sit in the Catalyst challenge requirements article.

Profit target counts closed trades only

Catalyst measures the profit target on realized profit. A YES position showing +$400 on the Pro account adds nothing to the target until you sell it or the market settles. Traders who hold winners to resolution lock in the gain only when Polymarket resolves the event, which can be weeks away on political markets.

Trailing max loss includes open positions

Catalyst ends the challenge the moment the balance, including open positions, falls $50, $500, $1,000 or $2,000 below the highest balance reached. The floor rises with your high-water mark and never comes back down. On the Pro account, a run from $10,000 to $10,800 moves the breach line from $9,500 to $10,300. Giving back $500 of that run fails the challenge even though the account is still $300 up.

Contract cap limits one bad trade

Catalyst caps each buy at 25, 250, 500 or 1,000 contracts depending on the tier. Every contract costs less than $1, so one trade that goes to zero costs less than half the max loss on any tier. Two or three losers stacked at the same time can still breach the account, because open positions count toward the max loss.

50 trades and 60 days

Catalyst gives each challenge 50 trades. Buying uses a trade and closing does not, so you can always exit. The 60-day window starts at purchase and runs through weekends and holidays without pausing. A trader buying at 50 cents on the Pro account makes at most $125 per winning trade (250 contracts at 50 cents of profit each), so the $1,500 target needs at least 12 clean wins out of 50.

Catalyst's consistency target caps the best trading day at 35% of total profit. Catalyst does not fail the account for breaking it. Catalyst raises the profit target instead, to whatever total brings the best day back to 35%, and the dashboard shows the new number.

The rule has two practical effects. First, nobody passes in fewer than three profitable days, since with two days one of them always carries at least half the profit. Second, one big win moves the goal post. A $700 day on the Pro account lifts the target from $1,500 to $2,000, because $700 is 35% of $2,000. Traders who catch one large election or sports move should expect to keep trading after it.

Catalyst's prohibited conduct rules come from Section 7 of its Terms of Service, and breaking them ends the challenge and forfeits the payout. The prediction-market rules are the ones that catch traders who arrive from forex or futures firms.

Catalyst also limits entry to individuals aged 18 or over, or the local age of majority if higher. Catalyst blocks restricted and sanctioned jurisdictions by IP address, billing address and the country chosen at signup, and the current list sits in the Catalyst help center.

Catalyst deposits the full fixed payout into the trader's Catalyst wallet the moment the challenge is passed. Catalyst needs no payout request, no waiting period and no risk-manager approval. The simulated balance itself is never withdrawable. Only the payout is real money.

Before the first withdrawal, the trader completes an identity check, and Catalyst reviews each request before sending it. Catalyst pays through Dots, a global payout provider. Depending on the country, Dots offers bank transfer (1 to 5 business days), PayPal, Venmo and crypto (5 to 10 minutes), Cash App (1 to 2 business days), Payoneer, AirTM, a virtual Visa prepaid card and Amazon gift cards. The Catalyst payouts article lists the details.

The $10,000 cap is the rule serious traders should price in first. A trader who passes Max three times has $1,000 of payout room left before reaching the cap. Traders pay for a Catalyst challenge by credit card, debit card or crypto.

The Catalyst coupon code FP25 matters most on the $109 Elite and $199 Max tiers, where 25% is a real amount of money. Catalyst's 14-day refund still applies to a discounted challenge as long as no trade has been placed. Codes for other firms sit on our prop firm discount codes page.

Catalyst borrows the evaluation format from forex and futures prop firms but cuts out the funded stage. The table shows what changes for a trader moving from a typical challenge, such as the ones on our 1-step prop firm list.

The fixed payout removes the stage where most prop firm disputes happen, the funded account review. The trade-off is a hard ceiling. Catalyst suits traders who want a defined prize for being right, not a long-term income from firm capital. For side-by-side numbers on funded-account firms, use the prop firm comparison tool.

Catalyst is a registered US business: Trade Catalyst Inc., a Delaware corporation, publishes its rules, prices, refund terms and payout limits in a public help center, and names its team on its About page. Catalyst runs on a simulated account, so the trader's only money at risk is the challenge fee, which Catalyst refunds within 14 days if no trade has been placed.

As of 9 November 2026, Catalyst holds a 2.8 TrustScore from 17 reviews on Trustpilot, split between seven five-star and ten one-star reviews. Several of the five-star reviews, posted between June and August 2026, describe challenge payouts landing within minutes of passing. The ten one-star reviews come from entrants to Catalyst's free contests, such as its World Cup and Predict the Champion events. Those reviewers describe Catalyst disqualifying contest wins after KYC for multi-account use or coordinated predictions, and Catalyst has replied publicly only to its five-star reviews. None of the one-star reviews concerns a paid challenge payout or a fee refund.

Best for: traders who already follow Polymarket and want to get paid for calls they make anyway, and traders testing whether their event read holds up before risking real money. Avoid if: you want a funded account, a profit split, or earnings above $10,000.

Catalyst is the simplest paid trading challenge we review: one stage, one loss rule, one fixed payout. A trader who can make $1,500 on closed Polymarket trades in 60 days, across at least three good days, without giving back $500 from the peak, collects $750 for a $59 fee. The $10,000 lifetime cap and the trailing max loss on open positions are the two rules to plan around. FundedTrading scores Catalyst 8.4 out of 10.