Oldest Prop Firms, Dated From Their First Priced Sale

Key takeaways

We dated 39 prop firms and programmes three ways (the founding year each firm states, the register date of the company that takes your money, and the first priced sale anyone can still read in an archived page, a dated buyer review or an official video) and ranked on the third.

Read the full summary

We dated 39 prop firms and programmes three ways (the founding year each firm states, the register date of the company that takes your money, and the first priced sale anyone can still read in an archived page, a dated buyer review or an official video) and ranked on the third. 25 established listings have sold for at least three years and carry no serious warning; 4 more have sold as long but carry one. Topstep is the oldest seller we could date (a priced Combine in June 2010, 16.3 years, $47.50 per $1,000 of loss room) and FTMO the oldest forex/CFD seller (April 2015 as Ziskejucet.cz, 11.4 years, $71.62). 8 of the 29 established listings state a founding year at least a year before the first priced sale we found, 13 changed the rules of the product ranked here within the last 12 months, and the five old firms that stopped selling or went dark had sold for 2.6 to 5.0 years first. Age shows a history you can read, not safety.

Freshness: years of selling are counted to October 8, 2026. Sale status was read on October 8, 2026; Trustpilot figures were read between October 4, 2026 and October 8, 2026, each with its own date; some register and price details come from checks between September 30 and October 7, 2026. Euro prices convert at the ECB rate of October 2, 2026 (1.1225) and pounds at 1.3201.

Quick picks among the oldest prop firms

• Oldest futures seller we could date: Topstep Trading Combine $50K, on sale since June 2010 (16.3 years). $95 a month on the No Activation Fee Path, $47.50 per $1,000 of loss room.
• Oldest forex/CFD seller we could date: FTMO Challenge 1-Step $50K, dated from April 2015 under its former Czech name (11.4 years). EUR 319 one time, $71.62 per $1,000.
• Lowest cost per $1,000 among established firms: Blue Guardian 2 Step Nano $50K at $25.40 ($127 for a $5,000 static floor), selling since December 2021 (4.8 years). Its Trustpilot rating is hidden.
• Oldest dated rules among established firms: Funded Trading Plus 2-Step Classic $50K, whose rules page was last updated 07.02.2026 (February 7 or July 2, 2026; the page does not say which) with no dated change since. $79.75 per $1,000, 5.5 years.
• Cheapest way into an established firm: Topstep at $95 for one month, or $99 one time at The Trading Pit Futures Prime 50K and Instant Funding IF Evolve $50K ($49.50 per $1,000 each).

Two firms that have sold even longer than most of these, OneUp Trader since 2017 and Earn2Trade since 2018, are not in the picks: their loss rules carry a serious warning, explained in their own group below. A long history and a forgiving rule set are two separate questions.

Oldest prop firms ranked by years selling

Rows 1 to 25 are the established prop firms, oldest first. Rows B1 to B4 have sold just as long but carry a serious warning. The second table below keeps the same row order.

Notes on this ranking: Rows 1 to 25 sold a priced product on or before October 8, 2023, were on sale on October 8, 2026 and carry no serious warning; they are ordered by years selling, then cost per $1,000, then list price, and no two rows tie on all three. Rows B1 to B4 follow the same order inside their group. ^* The firm names no activation fee for this product (City Traders Imperium, Blue Guardian, FundedNext, The Trading Pit CFD, Funding Traders, Audacity Capital, Goat Funded Trader and FundingPips), so the cost is the challenge fee only; a fee added later would raise it. ^† The5ers’ $50K table puts the floor at 8% ($4,000) while its FAQ says 10% ($5,000); we use the smaller floor, and under 10% the cost would be $49.80 per $1,000. ^‡ Lux Trading Firm sells no $50K account, so its figure is read at $100K, its smallest size: GBP 199 at 1.3201 is $262.70 for a $6,000 floor. Topstep, TradeDay, BluSky Trading, Purdia Capital, OneUp Trader, Earn2Trade, Leeloo Trading and Take Profit Trader bill monthly until you pass; their figure covers a one-month pass plus any activation fee, and each extra month adds the monthly fee. The selling-since column names the evidence; a firm’s own founding year sits in its own column and never sets a rank.

Companies, payouts and warnings at the oldest prop firms

Read the company column against the selling-since column above. At FTMO, The5ers and Lux Trading Firm the company that takes your money today was registered after the brand first sold, and at Leeloo Trading and Take Profit Trader it was registered months or years before. Neither pattern is a problem in itself, but it shows that a register date measures the company, not the brand’s selling history.

How we ranked the oldest prop firms

1. Three dates for every firm: the founding year the firm states, the register date of the company named in its terms, and the first independent dated evidence that a priced funded-account product was on sale under the brand.
2. Only the third one ranks. In order of preference: the first archived copy of the firm’s own pricing, product or checkout page that shows a price, a named product and a way to buy; a firm notice dated at the time and archived at the time; the earliest dated buyer review describing a purchase; an official video showing the challenge. A page that still shows “coming soon”, a countdown, a wait list or template filler does not count, and the date moves to the first page that passes.
3. The three-year line: a listing is established when that first priced sale is on or before October 8, 2023. Firms under the line are listed with their dates in their own section.
4. Breaks: a rebrand, a new company or an owner change with no stop in sales does not reset the count. A pause of all new sales that the firm itself confirms and that lasts more than 30 days moves the date to the reopening, and a relaunch that does not honour existing accounts starts a new count. A payout pause the firm has not said is cleared is a serious warning.
5. Serious warnings: an overall floor that trails the intraday peak including open profit, a daily loss that ends a futures account, or a payout pause the firm has not cleared. These firms are shown with their age in a separate group, in the same order. A live call-up decided by the firm is the first named warning in every block that has one, never a reason to move a firm down.
6. Cost per $1,000 of loss room is a column and the tie-break, never the order: list price plus any activation fee, divided by the overall max-loss floor in dollars, times 1,000, at $50K or the nearest size sold. A firm-published code is a dated secondary figure.

Arms of one brand are separate listings: a forex arm is never dated by its futures arm, or the other way round, which is why The Trading Pit appears twice. A broker group’s age never counts for its prop programme. Many published lists copy one founding year per firm from its About page; we print that year as the firm’s claim and rank on the evidence.

How we date a prop firm, and why the oldest prop firms disagree with themselves

A founding year on an About page usually describes something older than the product you would buy. City Traders Imperium states “City Traders Imperium is a proprietary trading firm founded in 2018 that has funded traders in over 178 countries.” Its UK company was registered in July 2018, but the first archived checkout with a price is from October 2019. Funded Trading Plus shows “Established 2013” because it grew out of a trade room started that year, while the same page’s timeline marks 2021 with “Funded Trading Plus is officially founded.” Goat Funded Trader’s About page says “Established in 2022”, while its help centre says it launched in May 2023, the month of its first priced archived page.

Sometimes the claim is later than the evidence. Topstep’s timeline lists “2010 Founding of Patak Trading Partners” and “2012 Launch of Topstep Trader”, but an archived TopstepTrader page from June 28, 2010 already sold a Combine for a $35 one-week deposit. We use the earlier page and say so.

The company you pay is often younger than the brand. FTMO first sold in April 2015 as Ziskejucet.cz; its contracting company, FTMO Evaluation Global s.r.o., was registered on June 2, 2020. The5ers sold a $30K trading-career place for a $220 application fee in June 2016; its UK company dates from April 9, 2020. Lux Trading Firm’s priced homepage of December 16, 2020 predates its UK company of January 27, 2021. The reverse happens too: Leeloo Trading’s Montana company filed its articles in September 2017, almost two years before its first priced page in July 2019.

Names change without resetting anything. Ziskejucet.cz became FTMO between 2017 and 2020, TopstepTrader became Topstep in 2020, The 5 Percenters became The5ers, Blue Guardian Capital became Blue Guardian, and E8 Funding filed the assumed name E8 Markets on February 29, 2024. Each brand kept selling, so each keeps its full count, and the change sits in the breaks table below.

Unfinished pages are the last trap. FundedNext’s March 2022 homepage showed a countdown and FXIFY’s early 2023 pages a wait list, so both are dated from the first page with a working sale. Tradeify’s earliest priced homepage, from May 2022, still carried unfinished template text, so it is dated from its first store product page in March 2023. The same rule applied to every firm.

You can check any firm the same way. Put the firm’s pricing or checkout address into web.archive.org and open the earliest copy that shows a price and a buy button. Then find the company named in the terms on its official register (Companies House for UK companies, Sunbiz for Florida, ARES for Czech companies) and compare the dates with the founding year on the About page.

When prop firms started selling funded accounts

Proprietary trading, a firm trading its own money through traders it hires or stakes, is far older than any firm in this guide, and no single founder started it. Two desks here still work the old way. Maverick Trading speaks of “Maverick’s rich history since 1997” and admits traders by application and interview. SMB Capital says “SMB was founded in 2005 by two well-educated (Wharton, UConn Law School), experienced, and active traders.” and hires traders through job