FTMO

Overview of FTMO

FTMO is the most established prop firm we have reviewed, scoring 77/100 after we assessed its challenge terms, live crypto pricing, platforms and payout record. The firm has run evaluations from Prague since 2015 and reports over $500 million paid to traders.

Crypto is where the score splits from the reputation. FTMO offers 31 crypto CFDs with tight spreads and a 0.065% commission, but leverage is capped at 1:3.33 on every coin and funded Standard accounts cannot hold positions overnight or over the weekend. Crypto traders who hold positions need the Swing account.

Who FTMO Suits

FTMO fits traders who put trust and track record first. A decade of operation, a 4.8 Trustpilot rating at a scale no rival matches, a fully refundable 2-Step fee, and a platform lineup that allows EAs and copy trading without paid add-ons make it the safest default in prop trading. US access through the OANDA partnership and an ASIC-licensed entity serving Australian residents extend that trust case into the two markets where prop firms usually go quiet.

Crypto-first traders should weigh the fork before paying. The 31-pair list at 1:3.33 sits well behind the dedicated crypto firms on both depth and leverage, and anyone planning to hold crypto positions past a session close must take the Swing account, because funded Standard accounts close the door on overnight and weekend holding and the 1-Step has no Swing option at all.

FTMO Account Models Compared

The Standard 2-Step is the classic FTMO route: two demo phases stand between you and a funded account, each needing at least four trading days, the fee comes back in full with your first reward, and the maximum loss limit is static so a winning account cannot be squeezed by its own gains.

Swing costs roughly a third more at each size and removes exactly the rules that hurt crypto traders. Overnight and weekend holding are allowed, news restrictions do not apply, and the targets and drawdowns are identical to Standard. For anyone trading a 24/7 market with positions that outlive a session, the price gap between Standard and Swing is the real cost of trading crypto with FTMO.

The 1-Step is the cheapest way in and the only model that pays 90% from the first reward, earning those terms through tighter conditions elsewhere: its fee is never refunded, the daily loss limit is 3% rather than 5%, and the maximum loss trails your best end-of-day balance. A Best Day Rule also applies, and with no Swing variant available a funded 1-Step account always carries the overnight and weekend holding bans.

Crypto Trading Fees

FTMO charges a one-off fee for each challenge, with nothing recurring behind it. Platforms, data feeds, resets after a failed attempt and reward processing all cost nothing, so the entry fee is the complete price of trying, and on the 2-Step it comes back in full with your first reward.

Costs on the trading side are published rather than promised. FTMO shows live bid and ask pricing for every symbol on its site, and the crypto spreads we observed were tight for a prop firm, with BTCUSD around a dollar wide and the majors all inside a few basis points. A 0.065% commission applies to crypto trades on top of the spread, which sits in the same band as FXIFY's 0.07% and undercuts FundedNext's round-turn cost.

Euro pricing is the one structural niggle. Every rival we compare FTMO with prices in US dollars, so most traders pay a conversion spread on top of the listed fee, and the per-size costs move with the exchange rate. Against that, the refund on the 2-Step is as clean as refunds get in this industry, arriving with the first reward rather than being staged across several payouts.

Trading Rules and Drawdown

FTMO's rules differ more by model than by phase, and the sharpest restrictions only arrive after funding, so the fair way to read this table is by column rather than by row.

Both loss limits track equity, meaning open profit and loss counts against you, not just closed results. The daily limit resets at 00:00 CE(S)T against your balance at that moment, and the 2-Step's maximum loss never moves from 10% below your starting balance, which is the single most trader-friendly drawdown design in this shortlist. Its 1-Step counterpart trails your best end-of-day balance and only comes back down when a reward withdrawal resets the account.

Restrictions concentrate on the funded stage. An evaluation can be traded through news and held over any weekend, then the funded Standard account restricts trading around selected high-impact events and requires positions closed before markets shut on Friday, with crypto caught by the same bar despite trading through the weekend. Swing accounts are exempt from both restrictions for a higher entry fee.

Funding and Withdrawals

FTMO pays on a fixed rhythm rather than a queue. Rewards can be requested every 14 days, the account is reviewed within 1 to 2 business days, and the withdrawal itself lands in a further 1 to 2 business days once the invoice is confirmed.

Profit Split

The split you trade on depends on the route you took in. Passing the 2-Step starts you at 80% of simulated profits, with the Scaling Plan lifting it to 90% once its conditions are met. Qualifying through the 1-Step pays 90% from the first reward, which is the model's core selling point and the counterweight to its tighter drawdown and Best Day Rule. Rewards can also be left on the account instead of withdrawn, building balance and drawdown buffer for larger positions.

Withdrawals

Payments run through bank transfer, Skrill or crypto, with USDT, BTC and LTC supported, and rewards can be denominated in EUR, USD or GBP. There is no minimum reward beyond covering the transaction cost, roughly $20 of closed profit for a bank wire, and FTMO adds no fees of its own on any method. The 14-day request cycle is slower than the on-demand payouts some newer firms advertise, but the flip side is a documented processing standard FTMO has run at scale for years.

Scaling and Funded-Account Terms

FTMO caps starting capital and then grows it on a published schedule. The maximum initial allocation is $400,000 per trader across all FTMO Accounts combined, whether reached through one large account or several smaller ones, and merging accounts is allowed within that ceiling.

The mechanics are unusually concrete for this industry. Meeting the requirements earns a 25% balance boost each four-month cycle, so a trader at the $400,000 cap moves to $500,000, then $600,000, with the daily and maximum loss limits recalculated on the new balance at the same 5% and 10% proportions. Growth continues to a hard ceiling of $2,000,000, and the 2-Step's split rises to 90% along the way.

Trading Platforms and Tools

FTMO runs MT4, MT5 and cTrader across every challenge type and account size, with the full symbol list available on each. Platform choice carries no fee, and automation is unrestricted, so EAs, copy trading between your own accounts and trade copiers all work without a paid add-on.

MetaTrader 4

MetaTrader 5

cTrader

Desktop, web and mobile versions are available for all three platforms, and FTMO supplements them with its own account dashboard and an application suite covering trade journaling and analysis. The dashboard is where rewards are requested and where the Best Day Rule and drawdown limits are tracked live, which matters more here than at most firms given how much of FTMO's rulebook is measured on end-of-day numbers.

US clients get a different platform menu. Trading runs on MT5 and TradingView through the OANDA partnership, with MT4 and cTrader unavailable under US regulatory rules, and TradingView is notable because the global FTMO offering does not include it, making the US the only region with native TradingView execution.

Crypto Markets and Coverage

FTMO lists 31 crypto CFDs, all quoted against the US dollar and all simulated. The list covers every major plus a long mid-cap tail, and Solana is on it, which matters because the nearest general-firm rival cut its crypto list to nine pairs without SOL.

BTC

ETH

SOL

XRP

ADA

DOGE

LTC

AVAX

+ 23 more

The full list runs BTCUSD, ETHUSD, SOLUSD, XRPUSD, ADAUSD, DOGEUSD, DOTUSD, LTCUSD, BCHUSD, BNBUSD, LNKUSD, XLMUSD, UNIUSD, AAVUSD, ALGUSD, XTZUSD, ETCUSD, XMRUSD, DASHUSD, NEOUSD, ICPUSD, GRTUSD, IMXUSD, FETUSD, MANUSD, SANUSD, GALUSD, VECUSD, NERUSD, BARUSD and AVAUSD.

Leverage

Leverage is the constraint to understand before paying. Every crypto pair runs at 1:3.33, meaning each dollar of simulated balance controls $3.33 of exposure, and the figure is fixed across models and account sizes. That sits above FundedNext's 1:1 but well below the 5:1 the dedicated crypto firms offer on majors, and the account-level leverage FTMO advertises (1:100 Standard and 1:30 Swing) does not apply to crypto, so treat 1:3.33 as the only number that matters here.

Trading Hours and Holding

Crypto trades close to around the clock, running 00:05 to 23:55 daily with weekend hours varying by platform maintenance. Access and holding are different questions though, because funded Standard and 1-Step accounts cannot hold positions over the weekend, which turns a 24/7 market into a five-day one for anyone on those models. Swing accounts carry no such restriction and are the only route that lets a crypto position run its course.

FTMO vs FundedNext vs Topstep

FTMO is the strongest of the three established firms for a crypto trader, pairing the widest coin list with the most trader-friendly drawdown and a fully refundable 2-Step fee. FundedNext undercuts it on entry price and tops it on maximum split, and Topstep offers the only exchange-listed crypto route, but both trail FTMO on crypto coverage.

FTMO leads this group on the ground that matters most here: crypto coverage on fair terms. Its 31 pairs triple FundedNext's list and dwarf Topstep's two products, the static 10% drawdown on the 2-Step is the friendliest risk design of the three, and the fee refund with the first reward means a successful trader ultimately pays nothing to qualify. The cost of those strengths is the holding restriction, since only the Swing account lets a crypto position run past a session close.

FundedNext is the value pick of the trio. Entry starts at $32.99 against FTMO's euro pricing, payouts run on a 24-hour cycle with USDT and USDC withdrawals, and the split can reach 95% with a paid add-on. The crypto offer is where it gives the ground back, with nine pairs at 1:1 leverage covering the majors and little else.

Topstep is the structural outlier. Its crypto exposure comes through CME-listed Bitcoin and Ether micro futures rather than simulated CFDs, so pricing and margin follow a regulated exchange, and the firm has operated since 2010, longer than anyone in this comparison. Coverage is the trade-off, two products against FTMO's 31, and the monthly subscription keeps billing until you pass.

Trust and Safety

FTMO is legit, and its corporate disclosure is the most complete of any prop firm we have reviewed. The company has operated since 2015, names its legal entities with street addresses, publishes the legal documents behind its products, and holds a 4.8 Trustpilot rating across more than 44,900 reviews as of July 2026, a sample size no rival in this cluster approaches.

Legal Entities

Every FTMO account is a demo account trading fictitious capital, with the reward being the real-money share of simulated profits. The firm states this plainly across its sites and legal documents rather than burying it, and we treat that candour as a point in its favour, since the prop firms worth avoiding are the ones that blur what is being traded.

Australian residents get something genuinely different. The funded account is issued to them as a financial product, a derivative under Australian law, by an AFSL holder that publishes a Product Disclosure Statement, a Financial Services Guide and a Target Market Determination, bringing ASIC's design and distribution obligations into play. That framework covers Australian clients only, and the product everywhere else remains a demo offering from the Czech entity.

Scale claims come from the firm itself and we attribute them as such: FTMO reports 3.5 million customers, over $500 million paid in rewards and service to more than 140 countries. The independent signal sits alongside those numbers, with the Trustpilot base large enough that cherry-picking cannot explain it, and a payout process the firm has run publicly for a decade.

Availability is broad with a long tail of exclusions. Roughly 70 countries are restricted, Indonesia and Kazakhstan among the notable ones, while the US is served through the OANDA partnership and the UK, Australia, Canada and the EU are all accepted. Identity verification arrives after you pass, before the FTMO Account Agreement is signed, so no documents are needed to start a challenge.

Our Verdict on FTMO

FTMO scored 77/100, a GOOD rating, and it earns that score as the establishment benchmark of prop trading. The 2-Step fee comes back in full with your first reward, the static 10% drawdown is the fairest risk design in this shortlist, three platforms run EAs and copy trading without add-on fees, and payouts follow a published 14-day rhythm backed by ten years of processing at scale.

Crypto is where the compromises live. The 31-pair list beats every general prop firm we have reviewed and includes Solana, but leverage is fixed at 1:3.33, and funded Standard and 1-Step accounts cannot hold positions through a session close, which reduces a 24/7 market to intraday trading. The Swing account removes those restrictions for roughly a third more in entry fees, and any crypto trader who holds positions should treat Swing as the real FTMO price.

The 1-Step suits a narrower reader than its 90% headline split suggests. Its fee is never refunded, the daily limit tightens to 3%, the drawdown trails your best end-of-day balance, and the Best Day Rule reaches into every payout, with no Swing option to lift the holding bans. Confident intraday traders get the best split in the lineup from day one, and everyone else gets better odds on the 2-Step.