Elite Trader Funding

Elite Trader Funding (ETF) is a US futures prop trading firm that has run simulated evaluation accounts since February 2022. Pass an evaluation and ETF hands you a simulated funded account with real cash payouts. Stack enough of those payouts and ETF moves you onto LIVE ELITE, where you trade its own capital in real CME futures markets through the broker EdgeClear.

ETF is not a forex or CFD firm. It funds only futures contracts, which puts it in the same lane as TradeDay, My Funded Futures, Topstep, and Apex Trader Funding rather than the FTMO-style forex challenge firms. See the full prop firm directory for the forex and CFD side of the market. If you're new to how any of this works, our explainer on prop firm challenges covers the basics first.

ETF runs six evaluation types, each built around a different drawdown style rather than different difficulty. Pick based on how you actually trade, not by price alone.

Across every plan you'll find the same baseline: a 5 trading day minimum to pass (3 on Fast Track), up to 100% profit split during the evaluation, and a $47 reset fee if you fail. Live pricing changes with promotions, so check the plan picker for current numbers rather than trusting a number printed here. ETF's own cost calculator gives a same-day estimate.

ETF runs three distinct drawdown mechanics, and which one applies depends entirely on the plan you buy, not the account size.

The three drawdown types

The safety net

Bank your drawdown amount plus $100 in realized profit and your original drawdown gets removed from the account entirely. On a 50K account with a $2,000 drawdown, for example, the minimum balance sits at $50,100 and the safety net at $52,100. Touch $52,100 and the floor locks at $50,100 for good. Read the mechanics in our prop firm drawdown guide if trailing drawdown is new to you.

Passing an evaluation does not hand you a live account. It unlocks an Elite Sim-Funded account: a simulated funded account that still pays out real money, capped at $25,000 in total sim payouts per trader, with a $150,000 lifetime cap across re-entries. Keeping the account active costs $87 a month or a one-time fee from $177 to $307 depending on plan and size. Most traders can hold up to 5 active Elite accounts.

The loss limit rule, in plain terms

Until your account is up 20% in profit, your normal drawdown rule is the only thing that can fail you. Cross 20% and a second rule activates: give back more than 35% of your accumulated profit from that point and ETF can pull your LIVE ELITE eligibility. The math is your starting balance plus 65% of accumulated profit. Grow a $100,000 account to $120,000 and the rule turns on. Push to $150,000 total profit and your floor sits at $132,500. Drop below that and the rule triggers, checked at payout requests and during routine audits.

This is the single most misunderstood rule on ETF's site, and the one most traders find out about the hard way after they've already banked a large unrealized gain.

Staying active

Log in at least every 30 days and place one valid trade per account each calendar week, or the account gets disabled. Reset a failed Elite account up to 3 times without repassing an evaluation, on eligible account types.

ETF supports TradingView, NinjaTrader, Tradovate, Quantower, Sierra Chart, MotiveWave, and several other futures platforms across the evaluation and Elite Sim-Funded stages. Every ETF plan trades futures contracts on live market data with no real money at risk during the evaluation. On LIVE ELITE, ETF's own capital trades on real CME futures markets through the broker EdgeClear.

ETF has paid out more than $13 million to over 13,000 funded traders since it launched, all processed through Rise via ACH bank transfer or crypto.

Elite Sim-Funded payouts

Each payout cycle has a $100 minimum, with a per-cycle maximum that scales by account size and how many cycles you've completed. A 50K account can request $100 to $1,250 in its first cycle, growing toward $2,000 in later cycles. You keep up to 100% of simulated profits until you hit the $25,000 per-trader cap.

Active Trade Days (ATD)

Every payout cycle requires a set number of days you actually traded and met the plan's criteria: 8 on your first cycle for standard Elite plans, 10 after that. Direct to Funded varies by account size, between 5 and 20 days.

LIVE ELITE payouts

Once you cross $25,000 in cumulative sim payouts, or are otherwise selected after 5 payouts or 50 active trading days, you move to LIVE ELITE. That's an 80/20 split, uncapped, with daily payouts on business days, a $250 minimum, and a 48-hour payout approval guarantee.

Yes. Elite Trader Funding is a registered Delaware LLC that has operated since February 2022, and its payout record checks out: $13M+ paid to 13,000+ traders through Rise, a payment processor also used by other established prop firms. Its Trustpilot profile shows a score of 3.8 out of 5 from more than 1,100 reviews, rated Great.

That said, a real portion of the 1-star reviews describe payout disputes, disagreements over rule interpretation, and account failures traders felt were triggered late or unclearly. One independent review site scored ETF 47 to 48 out of 100, citing unclear published criteria for LIVE ELITE selection as its main concern rather than any evidence of nonpayment. ETF is not regulated as a broker or investment firm during the evaluation and Elite Sim-Funded stages, which is standard across the futures prop industry since no real client capital is at risk until LIVE ELITE.

Our read: the complaints cluster around rule clarity, not around ETF failing to pay traders who met its terms. Read the rules before you fund an account, particularly the loss limit rule and the 30-day activity requirement, and you avoid most of what shows up in the negative reviews. For a general framework on vetting any prop firm, see our guide on how to tell if a prop firm is legitimate.

ETF competes directly with other futures-only prop firms. Here's how three of them stack up on the things that matter most: drawdown style, profit split, and payout cap.

ETF's $25,000 sim payout cap is the clearest structural difference on this list. TradeDay, My Funded Futures, and Funded Futures Family don't publish an equivalent ceiling on sim-funded earnings, which matters if your priority is maximizing payouts before you ever touch a live account rather than racing toward ETF's LIVE ELITE program. For a wider view across the category, use the FundedTrading prop firm comparison tool.

Elite Trader Funding earns a 3.8 out of 5. Four years of operating history, a real Discord community, and a payout ledger that checks out against Trustpilot data put it well ahead of the newer firms that launch and fold within a year. The evaluation menu differs by drawdown mechanic rather than just price alone, which is more thought than most futures firms put into plan design. The $25,000 sim payout cap and the 20%-profit loss limit rule are the two things that catch traders off guard, and both are avoidable if you read the rules before you fund an account rather than after.