Apex vs Topstep in 2026: Rules, Fees and Payouts Compared

Apex Trader Funding and Topstep are the two biggest names in retail futures prop trading, and after Apex overhauled its entire product line on 1 March 2026, they no longer work the same way. Topstep still runs a $49-a-month 50K Combine where your drawdown only updates at the daily close and a funded account stays open for as many payouts as you can keep it alive.

Apex replaced its old monthly subscriptions with 30-day one-time evaluations, raised its profit split to a flat 100% and kept its 20-account household limit, while adding two catches that change the math. Its $249 50K plan trails your open profit during the session, matching Topstep's end-of-day drawdown jumps the list price to $590, and every new Apex funded account permanently closes after its sixth payout. Here is how their current rules, real 50K costs and payout gates compare across each firm's help center.

Apex vs Topstep at a glance

Both firms trade futures only. Every figure below is for a 50K account, and Apex gets two columns because its Intraday and EOD evaluations trade very differently.

Look closely at where each firm puts its friction. Topstep slows you down during the evaluation with a 55% consistency rule that requires at least two trading days, then gets out of your way once you're funded. Apex lets you pass an evaluation in a single big day with zero consistency rules, then enforces a 50% consistency check, a $52,100 safety net and a hard six-payout ceiling on the funded account. You can see the full breakdown for every account size in Apex Trader Funding rules.

Be careful with older reviews on other blogs. If a comparison says Apex bills monthly or pays 100% of the first $25,000, it is describing Apex's legacy accounts, which Apex retired on 1 March 2026 and later put back on sale as a limited-time offer. Any site claiming Apex has no consistency rule is wrong on both counts: legacy accounts used a 30% rule and current accounts use 50%. Likewise, Topstep's old "100% of the first $10,000" split only applies to traders who joined its new dashboard before 12 January 2026.

What a 50K account costs

List prices tell a straightforward story before promo codes enter the picture. Here is what you pay to reach a funded 50K account on your first try versus failing twice and passing on your third attempt.

• Topstep is a subscription. The table assumes every attempt happens inside the first month. A second month costs another $49 or $95, and each monthly rebill adds one free reset credit to your Reset Bank that stays valid for a year.
• No-activation-fee plans. Topstep's $95/mo 50K Combine drops the $149 activation fee to $0, and adding an optional $1,000 daily loss limit at checkout cuts that monthly price by $10 to $85/mo. Apex also sells a No Activation Fee evaluation at $799 list for 50K Intraday and $1,190 for 50K EOD, with a $0 activation fee at checkout according to its No Activation Fee page.
• Apex's coupon. Apex runs coupon codes often. They cut the evaluation price and never apply to activation fees or resets, and the prices here are list prices.
• Refunds. Topstep returns up to one monthly payment within 14 calendar days of your first Combine if you haven't passed, per its refund policy. Apex refunds nothing, including activation fees and wrong-plan purchases.

At list price Topstep is cheaper in every scenario. A large Apex coupon can reverse that because it cuts the evaluation price, so check the live price before buying. You can rerun this with any number of failed attempts in the prop firm calculator.

25K, 100K and 150K accounts

Apex sells four sizes in its current line: 25K, 50K, 100K and 150K. Topstep's core monthly Combine starts at 50K. An Apex 25K costs $167 list on Intraday with an $89 activation fee, or $490 on EOD with a $109 activation fee. It carries a $1,500 profit target, a $1,000 max drawdown, 4 minis in the evaluation, 1 to 2 minis once funded, a $26,100 safety net and six $1,000 payout caps for a $6,000 lifetime ceiling. Topstep only offered a 25K Static Combine at $75 one-time as a June 2026 limited drop in Topstep Labs, which now sits under past drops.

The price gap widens with account size. An Apex 150K EOD evaluation costs about eleven times one month of Topstep's 150K Combine.

Drawdown rules

Both firms give a 50K account $2,000 of room, starting at a $48,000 floor. What differs is when that floor moves.

Topstep's Combine trails at the end of the day. Only its past Topstep Labs drops used static floors. The Maximum Loss Limit rises with your closing balance and locks at the starting balance, so on a 50K it stops at $50,000 once a closing balance reaches $52,000. Topstep still checks it in real time during the session, open trades included, and states in its Maximum Loss Limit article that it "makes no exceptions".

Apex Intraday Trail follows your real-time peak, unrealized profit included. That is the version with the $249 list price.

Apex EOD Trail works like Topstep's and recalculates once a day at 4:59:59 p.m. ET from your closing balance. It costs $590 list, more than twice the Intraday price.

How intraday vs EOD trailing plays out on one trade

Take a fresh $50,000 account with a $48,000 floor. Your first trade runs up $1,300 in open profit to $51,300, then pulls back and you close it at break-even for a $50,000 balance.

• On Topstep Combine or Apex EOD Trail, the floor only recalculates at the daily close from your realized closing balance. Closing flat at $50,000 leaves your floor at $48,000. You still have the full $2,000 of drawdown room for the next trade.
• On Apex Intraday Trail, touching $51,300 in open profit pulls your trailing threshold up $1,300 on the spot to $49,300, as explained on Apex's intraday drawdown page. The threshold never moves back down. When you close flat at $50,000, you have only $700 of room left before liquidation.

The like-for-like comparison is Topstep at $49 a month against Apex EOD at $590. The cheaper Apex account has the harsher drawdown.

The lock points differ by stage and platform too:

• Topstep Combine: locks at the $50,000 starting balance once an EOD balance reaches $52,000.
• Topstep Express Funded Account: starts at $0 with a -$2,000 floor and locks at $0 once the balance hits $2,000, or immediately after your first payout.
• Apex Performance Account: both Intraday and EOD lock at the starting balance plus $100, which is $50,100 on a 50K once your peak reaches $52,100.
• Apex evaluation on Rithmic or WealthCharts: fixes at the profit-target balance, $53,000 on a 50K once peak equity reaches $55,000.
• Apex evaluation on Tradovate: never stops trailing during the evaluation on either Intraday or EOD, per Apex's EOD drawdown guide.

Platforms, data feeds and commissions

Platform choice and round-turn commissions affect both your workflow and how fast simulated fees eat into your drawdown buffer.

Topstep runs on TopstepX, developed by ProjectX Trading LLC, and on Quantower for Combine and Express Funded accounts with the Premium Feature Bundle included free. TopstepX embeds TradingView charts, but TradingView's commercial licensing blocks connecting your own TradingView account or loading custom indicators.

Apex sells Rithmic, Tradovate and WealthCharts evaluations at the same price, and you cannot switch an account between them after purchase (choosing the right platform). Tradovate gives you native Mac support and a free TradingView connection, but remember that Tradovate evaluations never lock their trailing drawdown. Rithmic locks the evaluation drawdown at the target balance and connects to NinjaTrader, RTrader Pro, Sierra Chart, Quantower, Bookmap, ATAS, MotiveWave and Jigsaw (platform connection guides).

Simulated commissions come straight out of your account balance on every fill. At Apex, 1 mini on ES or NQ costs $1.55 per side, or $3.10 round turn, on Tradovate and WealthCharts, and $1.99 per side, or $3.98 round turn, on Rithmic. Micro NQ is $0.51 per side on Rithmic and $0.52 per side on Tradovate and WealthCharts. Topstep's TopstepX commission schedule lists ES and NQ at $3.78 round turn and MES and MNQ at $1.22 round turn, while a separate Live account costs article cites $3.80 on ES and a flat $3.70 per lot simulated fee in the Combine.

Evaluation rules

Time limits. Topstep gives you as long as you keep paying the monthly subscription. Apex gives you a strict 30 calendar days, cutting off access at 6:00 p.m. ET on day 30 with no extensions.

Consistency and minimum days. Topstep requires your best day to stay at or below 55% of total profit; if you overshoot, your profit target expands to best day ÷ 0.55. In practice that makes two trading days the fastest way through the Combine, as shown in Topstep's consistency guide. Two other Topstep pages say "below" 55%, though the math formula is identical on all three. Apex puts zero consistency rules and zero minimum days on the evaluation itself, so one big trend day can pass the account outright.

Position size and daily loss. Topstep caps a 50K Combine at 5 minis or 50 micros, while Apex gives you slightly more size at 6 minis or 60 micros. On daily risk, Topstep's $1,000 daily loss limit is optional at checkout and can't be toggled later; hitting it flattens you until 5:00 p.m. CT without failing the account. Apex Intraday has no daily loss limit during the evaluation, while Apex EOD enforces a $1,000 limit that liquidates open positions and pauses the day without failing the account.

What happens when you fail or pass. A Topstep reset costs the monthly price again, up to two resets per day, and pushes your rebill date out 30 days. Apex sells no resets on its current accounts, so a blown evaluation means buying a fresh one. Once an Apex evaluation is marked Passed, it locks immediately and you have 7 calendar days to pay the one-time PA activation fee with no extensions (PA activation deadline).

Funded account rules

Topstep calls its funded stage the Express Funded Account, or XFA. Apex calls its version the Performance Account, or PA. Both run on simulated fills, and both tighten the rules the day you pass.

Two funded rules catch new traders off guard here. First, even though Apex's $249 Intraday evaluation has no daily loss limit and allows 6 minis, the funded Performance Account immediately throttles a 50K down to 2 minis and enforces a $1,000 intraday daily loss limit. Second, Topstep pulls your loss floor up to $0 after your very first withdrawal, whereas Apex forces you to keep a $52,100 safety net in the account before every withdrawal.

Execution rules tighten on funded accounts too. Apex requires a pending or mental stop loss on every trade and bans using the full drawdown threshold as your stop. Topstep bans trading maximum size directly into scheduled major news, and blocks new opening trades in equity-index and metals minis for five minutes before and five minutes after a CPI release (high-volatility adjustments).

What happens if you get called up to a Live account

Neither firm makes Live graduation optional. If Topstep's Risk Team calls you up to a Live Funded Account, all of your Express accounts close into one Live account capped at the $150K tier, and any combined balance above that size is forfeited. Only 20% of your transferred balance is available to trade right away, with a $10,000 minimum, while the remaining 80% sits in a Reserve that unlocks in 25% steps as you hit profit targets. On Live, you also pay your own platform license and $133 per month per additional CME exchange beyond the one Topstep covers.

At Apex, moving to the Apex Live Prop Trading Program closes all of your simulated Performance Accounts and puts their balances into a "Bonus Vault" that Apex states is "not real money, not real profits, not real gains, not live funds, and not a cash account". Your Live account starts at $0 with a $3,000 EOD drawdown, a 3-mini limit and a 90/10 profit split across up to 5 live accounts, and the Bonus Vault pays out only as a 20% monthly bonus on live trading withdrawals, or 40% in the first month.

Payout rules

What triggers a payout. Both ask for five days on their standard tracks. Topstep's Standard path needs five winning days of $150 or more, and the day you request a payout doesn't count toward your next five. Apex needs five qualifying days of $200 or more on a 50K Intraday account and $250 on a 50K EOD account. Apex adds two more gates: your largest day must be under 50% of net profit since the last approved payout, and your balance must sit above a $52,100 safety net for the life of the account. With its $500 minimum request, an Apex 50K needs $52,600 before you can withdraw anything.

Take $2,000 of profit on each account. At Topstep the Express balance is $2,000, a request can take half of it, and you keep 90%, so you get $900. At Apex the balance is $52,000, which sits under the $52,100 safety net, so you can't withdraw anything yet. An Apex 50K needs $2,600 of profit before its first $500 request. You can run your own days through both sets of rules in the prop firm calculator.

Topstep has a second route chosen at activation. On the Consistency path you need three trading days with at least one trade each and your best day at 40% or less of net profit, and the cap per request is higher.

Topstep doubles its per-request caps to $4,000 on Standard and $6,000 on Consistency for a 50K if you voluntarily added a daily loss limit when you bought the Combine. Its payout policy has labelled that promotion "Limited Time" since 2 June 2026 with no end date.

At Apex, the account closes after the sixth approved payout, whatever balance remains in it. An Apex 50K account caps out at $14,500 on Intraday or $13,000 on EOD, and then you start over with a new evaluation. Topstep's payout policy sets no cap on the number of payouts, though closing a Topstep XFA voluntarily pays at most 50% of the balance up to $5,000 and forfeits the rest (XFA rules). On Tradovate PAs, Apex also requires that you hold no open positions and meet the minimum balance in real time when submitting a payout request, and any drop below the minimum balance after requesting triggers an automatic denial (how to request a payout).

How fast. Topstep says internal approval takes 1 to 3 business days, then the payment method's own window. For US traders, Aeropay is instant after approval at banks that support real-time payments, with no Topstep fee, and Prop-to-Brokerage is same-day if requested by 12:00 p.m. CT with no fee. ACH takes 1 to 3 business days and costs $30, and international SWIFT wires take 5 to 10 business days for $30. Apex says review takes up to 2 business days, sending 3 to 4, and bank processing 3 to 7, and that "most users receive payouts within 5 to 11 business days total" on its payout method page. Apex lists no payout fee. Neither firm pays in crypto.

Canada and other countries

Both take Canadian residents. Topstep takes Canadians through a US-based sub-account and pays them through Wise in 1 to 3 business days with no Topstep fee, a rail it restored for Canada, the UK and China in August 2026. Apex pays non-US traders through Plane to a local bank in their declared country of residence, no longer uses Wise or Deel, and notes that Canadians can't open a live Tradovate account, though simulated evaluations and PAs work normally (Apex restricted countries).

Apex lists 87 restricted countries and terminates any account that attempts to pay with a card issued in one, even if the charge is declined. Topstep lists 34 ineligible countries, including Russia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Turkey and Ukraine, plus 25 Express-only countries such as Germany, Hong Kong, Vietnam and Serbia where traders cannot advance to Live and are capped at $200,000 in lifetime payouts (Topstep eligibility). Both ban VPNs and trading while travelling in a restricted country.

KYC, taxes and LLCs. Topstep requires a third-party ID and selfie check before your second purchase (identity verification). It issues a 1099-NEC to US citizens who receive over $600 in payouts in a calendar year, reporting the gross amount before any $30 ACH or wire fee, and permits US single-member LLCs to receive payouts while banning C-corps, S-corps and multi-member LLCs (tax questions). Apex collects a US SSN or TIN on the payout form or government ID through Plane for international users, and allows one personal and one business user account per person, provided a personal account never pays to a business bank account or vice versa (registering as a person or business).

What each firm tells you about your odds

Topstep prints its results in the footer of its site. In 2025, traders passed 16.8% of Combines, 51.8% of participants got funded at least once, and 33.3% of funded traders received a payout, per its disclosures page.

Apex published a pass rate of 43.13% for January to September 2023 on its archived homepage and no longer publishes a current rate. That 2023 figure counted customers, so set it against Topstep's 51.8%, not its 16.8%. Apex does run a public payout ledger with masked names.

Both firms' pages contradict themselves in places. Topstep gives its all-time payout total as $1.4B+ on its homepage and $1.5B+ on its pricing page, and its rules page still lists a 7-day Back2Funded window against 30 days in the help center. Apex's "How it works" page still advertises the pre-2026 split and "No Total Cap on Maximum Payouts". I compared every published rate in prop firm pass rates.

Which to pick

Pick Topstep if you let trades run and give some back intraday, since its floor only moves at the close. It also suits you if you want an account with no six-payout closure rule, an instant Aeropay transfer after approval at a US bank that supports real-time payments, or the cheapest start at list price.

Pick Apex if you want to keep 100% of each payout, run up to 20 funded accounts at once, trade on NinjaTrader or connect directly to TradingView via Tradovate, or pass in a single day. Buy the EOD version if intraday trailing would stop you out, and price it against Topstep, not against the $249 headline.

Skip both if you trade spot forex or CFDs. Neither offers them. FTMO does, and I compared it with Topstep in FTMO vs Topstep.

In my comparison of four prop firms I rated Topstep 4.3 out of 5 and Apex 3.5, on a published rubric. The largest part of the gap is payout reality, where Apex has the six-payout limit and the slower 5 to 11 business day timeline. Rule fairness, cost at list price and disclosure, where Topstep publishes its full 2025 funnel, make up the rest.

See Topstep's current prices → · See Apex's current prices →

Disclosure: both links go through il.ly/go/ redirects to each firm's own site. Neither carries a referral code today. If I join an affiliate program, the link will, and I may earn a commission.

Apex vs Topstep FAQ

Is Apex or Topstep cheaper?

At list price, Topstep. A first-attempt pass on a 50K costs $198 on Topstep Standard, or $95 on Topstep's no-activation plan, against $348 on Apex Intraday and $719 on Apex EOD. Apex becomes cheaper when a large coupon is running because the coupon cuts the evaluation price, though it never applies to the activation fee.

Which has the easier drawdown?

Topstep's, against the standard Apex Intraday account. Topstep's floor moves once a day from the closing balance and locks at the starting balance. Apex Intraday moves the floor on every new intraday high, unrealized profit included. Apex's EOD account matches Topstep's daily close calculation and costs $590 list on a 50K.

Does Apex or Topstep pay out faster?

Topstep. It states 1 to 3 business days of internal approval, then an instant Aeropay transfer for US banks that support real-time payments. Apex states 5 to 11 business days in total.

How many accounts can I hold at each?

Topstep allows 5 active Express Funded Accounts and copy trading up to $750K in buying power. Apex allows 20 active Performance Accounts per household across all types. Both ban opposite positions across their own accounts.

Can I reset a failed account?

At Topstep, yes. A reset costs the monthly price again, $49 on a 50K Standard Combine, and pushes your billing date out 30 days. Every monthly rebill also gives you one free reset credit. Apex sells no resets on its current accounts, so a failed or expired evaluation is a new purchase.

Which platforms and commissions do they use?

Topstep runs on TopstepX and Quantower, with ES and NQ commissions at $3.78 round turn on the TopstepX fee schedule. Apex runs on Rithmic, Tradovate and WealthCharts, charging $3.10 round turn on ES and NQ for Tradovate and WealthCharts and $3.98 round turn on Rithmic. Only Apex on Tradovate lets you connect directly to an external TradingView account.

Does Topstep have a consistency rule like Apex?

A different one. Topstep's 55% rule applies in the Combine and raises your profit target if your best day exceeds 55% of total profit. Apex's 50% rule applies only to the funded Performance Account and blocks the payout button until your best day is under half of net profit since the last approved payout.