Best Prop Firms for Full-Time Income, Six Funded Months Tested

Key takeaways

We ran one steady trader, +$800 a week from the same five-day pattern on a $50K account, through each of 16 prop firms’ own payout rules for six funded months (120 trading days), and ranked on six-month take-home: cash paid by funded day 120 minus everything paid to get and keep the account.

Read the full summary

We ran one steady trader, +$800 a week from the same five-day pattern on a $50K account, through each of 16 prop firms’ own payout rules for six funded months (120 trading days), and ranked on six-month take-home: cash paid by funded day 120 minus everything paid to get and keep the account. FundedNext Stellar Lite On-Demand with the 95% add-on takes home $17,302.67, FundingPips 2 Step Flex Monthly $17,301.00 and FXIFY Two Phase Classic $17,220.00; the futures leaders are Topstep XFA Consistency ($16,465.01, the cheapest to run at $95) and Tradeify Select Flex ($16,071.00). Month 1 misleads at fourteen of the fifteen ranked products: FundingPips and FXIFY pay $0 in month 1 yet lead on monthly income later ($3,466.67), while five streams stop before day 120 because an account closes after its fifth or sixth payout, concludes, or moves to a live account whose payouts the firm does not publish. For a steady trader the binding rules are caps, cadence, payout counts and live moves; the consistency rules barely matter.

Freshness: firm pages checked October 7 to 8, 2026; Trustpilot figures read October 5 to 7, 2026 (Axi’s September 30, 2026), each with its own date. Firms change payout rules without notice, so re-read the payout article for your product before you buy.

Quick picks among the best prop firms for full-time income

• Most six-month take-home: FundedNext Stellar Lite On-Demand with the 95% add-on, $17,302.67 after the $298.99 cost, with no payout cap or count limit.
• Fastest first income: E8 Markets E8 Pro, $200.00 on funded day 2 and about two payouts a week after that.
• Highest monthly income in months 4 to 6: FundingPips 2 Step Flex Monthly and FXIFY Two Phase Classic, $3,466.67 a month at 100%, after a month with no payout.
• Best at half pace (+$400 a week): FundedNext Stellar Lite again, $8,501.84 after the cost.
• Cheapest to keep running: Topstep, $95 for one month on the No Activation Fee path, no monthly fee once funded, $47.50 per $1,000 of loss room.
• Best futures: Topstep XFA Consistency, $16,465.01. Best forex/CFD: FundedNext, $17,302.67.

Page-one roundups for this search rank firms on the challenge card: the headline split, the scaling ceiling and the price. The “can you make a living” pages multiply a 3% to 5% month by the split and stop there. None follows a funded account past its first payout, yet a full-time income is a stream, and what decides it is what each firm’s rules do in months 2 to 6. That is the column this guide adds. For the general case of whether full-time prop trading is sustainable, see our explainer is prop firm trading sustainable full time.

Best prop firms for full-time income compared over six funded months

Notes on this ranking. Every figure is the cash each firm’s published rules pay the same steady trader by funded day 120, recomputed day by day, and every mark in the table is explained here:

• ^A Activation fee not stated: the firm publishes no activation fee for this product, so the cost is the evaluation price alone and could be higher. Applies to: FundedNext, FundingPips, Blue Guardian.
• ^P Payout fee not stated: the firm names no per-payout fee for this product, so none is deducted. Where a firm publishes one, it is taken off the cash at its stated rate (FundedNext up to 3.5%, The5ers 3.5%, Blue Guardian 3%). Applies to: FundingPips, FXIFY, Tradeify, MyFundedFutures, E8 Markets, Apex Trader Funding, Alpha Capital Group, FundedNext Futures, Lucid Trading.
• ^D Data fee not stated: the futures firm’s pages we read do not say whether market data or platform fees are included while funded, so none is added. Applies to: MyFundedFutures, Lucid Trading, Take Profit Trader.
• ^M Monthly price: the evaluation bills monthly until you pass, and one month is counted; the firm says the subscription stops once you are funded. Applies to: Topstep, TradeDay, Take Profit Trader.
• ^E Euro price converted at the ECB rate for October 2, 2026, 1.1225 dollars per euro: FTMO’s €319 is $358.08. Applies to: FTMO.
• ^S Stream stops: the account closes, concludes or moves to a live account inside the six months, and the firm does not publish what pays after that, so the count stops at that payout. Applies to: Apex Trader Funding, Alpha Capital Group, FundedNext Futures, Lucid Trading, TradeDay.
• ^R Two readings: where a firm’s wording can be read two ways, the figure shown is the reading that pays less; the other reading is under the table. Applies to: FXIFY, Blue Guardian, The5ers, Apex Trader Funding, Alpha Capital Group, FundedNext Futures, TradeDay.
• ^W No-fee payout rail: Topstep is computed on Aeropay (US) or Wise (China, Canada, UK), which carry no Topstep fee; a wire or ACH costs $30 a payout. Applies to: Topstep.

The other readings, computed: FXIFY, if “once per month” means a calendar month (31 days) instead of 30, the first payout moves to day 24 and the six months take home $17,820.00; Blue Guardian, if the three 0.5% days are only an evaluation requirement, half pace takes home $7,179.28 instead of losing the fee; The5ers, if the 10% milestone means the balance itself must reach 10% above the level (it never does with payouts taken), there is no scale-up and the six months take home $13,569.80; Apex Trader Funding, if the next payout needs only five qualifying days of $250 instead of eight trading days, the six payouts pay $10,500.00 by day 79, and half pace pays nothing because no day reaches $250; Alpha Capital Group, if the fifth payout only starts a review and the account stays open, the six months take home $17,041.00 at $2,880.00 a month; FundedNext Futures, if the $2,100 buffer is built once for the account rather than in each cycle, the five withdrawals end on day 57 and take home $4,756.01; TradeDay, if the Funded Live account is traded on until day 120 on the terms TradeDay does publish ($0 start, 90% split, and $156 a month of professional data per exchange plus a $2 card fee), the six months take home $13,818.50.

Accounts that end with money in them: Apex Trader Funding: The Performance Account closes after payout 6 on funded day 56 with $2,100.00 left in the account; the firm does not say whether that balance is paid, and all of it is the $2,100 safety net, which the rules never let the trader withdraw. FundedNext Futures: The account concludes after withdrawal 5 on funded day 91 with $10,500.00 left in the account; the firm does not say whether that balance is paid, and all of it is the $2,100 buffer each cycle had to build, which the rules never let the trader withdraw. Lucid Trading: Payout 5 is the last on funded day 36 with $2,100.00 left in the account; the firm does not say whether that balance is paid, and all of it is the $2,100 buffer, and Lucid says “You can not take payout from the buffer balance”. TradeDay: The fifth request moves the account to Funded Live on funded day 36 with $1,003.13 left in the account; the firm does not say whether that balance is paid, and it is profit the 50% limit kept in the Funded Sim. In each case the leftover is mostly money the rules never let the trader withdraw, so the take-home figure is what the published rules pay.

Half pace and capacity at prop firms for consistent traders

Half pace is the same pattern at half size, +$400 a week. Accounts for $5,000 a month divides $5,000 by one account’s monthly income in months 4 to 6 and rounds up; it is arithmetic, not a recommendation. Cost per $1,000 is the cost to get funded divided by the smallest overall loss floor through the first payout, times 1,000; Topstep’s $47.50 is the lowest and Apex’s $359.50 the highest.

How we ranked prop firms for full-time income, one steady trader for 120 days

We gave every product the same trader for the same six months at $50K and applied each firm’s own payout rules day by day. The figures illustrate the rules; they are not a forecast of anyone’s results.

1. The steady pace (ranked). Every week: Monday +$300, Tuesday +$200, Wednesday −$200, Thursday +$300, Friday +$200. That is +$800 a week, $3,200 a 20-day month and $19,200 over 120 funded trading days. The best day is $300, 37.5% of a week’s profit, with one losing day a week.
2. Half pace (shown, not ranked). Half of every day: +$150, +$100, −$100, +$150, +$100. That is +$400 a week and $9,600 over the 120 days. A rule that counts only days of $250 or more counts none of them.
3. The window and calendar. Funded day 1 is a Monday, days are Monday to Friday with no holidays, and “month m” is funded days 20(m−1)+1 to 20m. A rule worded in calendar days is met on the first trading day on or after it, so 14 calendar days after day 1 is trading day 11, and 30 calendar days is trading day 23.
4. The requests. Every day is closed profit after commissions, no loss limit or conduct rule is broken, nothing is held overnight, and the trader trades every weekday. The trader requests the most the rules allow at the earliest end of day they allow it. A request counts as cash that day; the firms’ processing times are their own statements and are not counted. After each payout the firm’s rule for what happens next applies: the floor, the buffer, the cap or split for the next payout number, a payout-count close, a rule-based live move or a scale-up.
5. Cash. Each gross request times the split at that payout, less any per-payout fee the firm publishes. Fee refunds are shown in the firm’s entry, never added.
6. Take-home. Six-month cash minus the cost to get and keep the account at list price. A fee the firm does not state is never assumed to be zero; the cell is marked instead. Promotions are shown with their code and end date but never set the rank.
7. Order. One product per firm, its best on take-home among products that pass. Ties go to cost per $1,000 of loss room, then the lower list price. Forex/CFD and futures share one table because the paces are the same dollars everywhere.

Six-month take-home = cash paid by funded day 120 − (list price + activation + add-ons used + stated recurring fees for six months)

What is not modelled: failed evaluations and resets (we assume a first-attempt pass, which most traders do not achieve), losing months, taxes, and payout processing time. A live move the firm makes at its own discretion is a warning in the firm’s entry, not a change to the count. Where the firm publishes no terms for what follows a closure or a rule-based live move, the count stops there.

Worked once, with the first-ranked product. FundedNext’s On-Demand rule pays a cycle once it reaches 2% ($1,000) with the best day at 40% or less. Days 1 to 6 make $1,100 (best day 27%), so day 6 pays $1,100 x 95% less 3.5% = $1,008.43. Days 7 to 12 make $1,000 for $916.75, days 13 to 20 make $1,100 again, and the three-request pattern repeats every 20 days: eighteen payouts, $17,601.66, minus the $298.99 cost = $17,302.67.

Can you make a living from prop firm payouts?

The usual answer multiplies a 3% to 5% month by the split. On a $50K account that is $1,500 to $2,500 a month, or $1,350 to $2,250 at a 90% split. Our steady pattern makes more than that, 6.4% a month, and the same multiplication would promise $2,880 a month at 90%. The rules paid something else. Once the stream had settled (months 4 to 6), the ranked products paid between $2,393.20 and $3,466.67 a month where the account was still paying, $510.00 at FundedNext Futures Direct, whose account concluded on day 91, and $0 at four products whose account had closed or moved live by then.

Over the whole six months, nine of the fifteen ranked products paid at least 90% of what “the pace times the split” would suggest, and five paid less than half of it. The gap is never the split: it is the payout count, the buffer that never leaves the account, the cap, the clock and the live move.

Five thousand dollars a month takes two accounts at most firms that keep paying, three at The5ers and ten at FundedNext Futures Direct, against caps that run from one $50K account (FXIFY, The5ers High Stakes) to 20 performance accounts (Apex). None of this is a promise. Most traders do not pass an evaluation on the first attempt, a losing month is not in the pattern, and every funded account ranked here is simulated: FTMO says it plainly, “Although FTMO Traders trade with simulated capital only, they are entitled to receive a Reward in the form of real money”.

Why a prop firm’s first month misleads a full-time trader

Month 1 is the number most traders judge a firm by, and it was the wrong number at fourteen of the fifteen ranked products. Only FundedNext paid the same in month 1 as in months 4 to 6.

• Month 1 understates the stream (nine products). FundingPips ($0.00 in month 1, $3,466.67 a month later), FXIFY ($0.00 in month 1, $3,466.67 a month later), Topstep ($2,205.00 in month 1, $2,879.94 a month later), Tradeify ($1,946.25 in month 1, $2,993.43 a month later), FTMO ($1,710.00 in month 1, $2,640.00 a month later), MyFundedFutures ($990.00 in month 1, $2,880.00 a month later), E8 Markets ($2,143.75 in month 1, $2,559.99 a month later), Blue Guardian ($1,566.55 in month 1, $2,638.40 a month later), The5ers ($1,466.80 in month 1, $2,393.20 a month later). Monthly clocks pay nothing in month 1, buffers hold back the first $2,100, and half-the-profit requests start small and grow.
• Month 1 overstates the stream (five products). Apex Trader Funding ($600.00 in month 1, $0.00 a month later), Alpha Capital Group ($2,880.00 in month 1, $0.00 a month later), FundedNext Futures ($720.00 in month 1, $510.00 a month later), Lucid Trading ($540.00 in month 1, $0.00 a month later), TradeDay ($1,020.00 in month 1, $0.00 a month later). A payout-count close, a conclusion after five withdrawals or a live move ends or thins the stream after a good start.

What changes after payout 1, from the firms’ own pages: Apex caps payouts by number and closes the account after six; Lucid’s fifth payout is its maximum; TradeDay’s fifth request moves you to a live account that starts at $0; Alpha Capital Group’s fifth payout starts the Alpha Prime move; FundedNext Futures Direct concludes after five withdrawals; The5ers restarts its payout clock at every scale-up; FTMO starts a new account and a new 14-day clock after every reward; Topstep and Tradeify pay half the profit, so the requests grow until they settle. Our guide to the best prop firms for part-time traders ranks the weeks to a first payout on its own.

Consistency rules at prop firms for a steady trader

A consistency rule caps the best day as a share of profit, and for this trader it hardly matters. The pattern’s best day is $300 of an $800 week. A 25% limit needs $1,200 of profit, 35% about $857, 40% $750 and 50% $600, so every limit here is met within about a week and a half. The firms’ own formulas:

• FXIFY Two Phase Classic, 25%: “The profit achieved in a day must not exceed 25% of the total profit made.”
• FundingPips 2 Step Flex Monthly, 35% of the cycle’s profit, plus seven days of 0.5% in the cycle, which is the part that binds at half pace.
• FundedNext, 40%: “your best trading day’s profit should not exceed 40% of your total generated profit at the time of your request”.
• Topstep XFA Consistency, 40% per payout window; it holds the first payout to day 5, the only delay it causes.
• Alpha Capital Group, 40%: “A trader becomes eligible once the result is 0.40 (40%) or less.”
• TradeDay, 45%: “no single day can make up more than 45% of your total gross profits (gross profits being current profits + payouts)”.
• Apex Trader Funding, 50%: “No single profitable trading day may account for 50% or more of total profit earned since your last approved payout.”
• FundedNext Futures Direct, 20% of the cycle against the account’s best day so far; the $2,100 buffer per cycle binds first.
• No consistency rule at payout: Tradeify Select Flex, MyFundedFutures Rapid EOD, E8 Pro, Blue Guardian 1 Step and Take Profit Trader PRO.

So the answer to “which prop firm is best for consistent traders” is not the one with the loosest consistency rule. For a steady trader the binding rules are the payout cap, the clock, the payout count and the live move. If you would rather avoid consistency rules altogether, our guide to prop firms with no consistency rule shows which products have none.

Month by month, how the top prop firm payouts settle

FundedNext is flat from the start. FundingPips and FXIFY pay nothing in month 1 and then one 100% reward in each later month, larger or smaller as each 30-day cycle catches four or five weeks of profit. Topstep and Tradeify climb for three months as half-the-profit requests catch up with the pace. Each row adds up to the six-month cash in the first table.

Ranked prop firms for full-time income, most six-month take-home first

Fifteen products, one per firm, eight forex/CFD and seven futures, in order of six-month take-home. Each entry opens with what decides that firm’s stream, then gives the same fields for every firm. Where a firm can move you to a live account at its discretion, that is the first watch-out; the rule most likely to cut the stream comes next, then recurring costs.

FundedNext Stellar Lite pays every cycle that reaches 2%, the most over six months

Stellar Lite on the On-Demand option has no payout cap, no payout-count limit and no live move, so the steady pattern simply repeats for six months. A request is allowed when the cycle’s profit reaches 2% ($1,000) and “your best trading day’s profit should not exceed 40% of your total generated profit at the time of your request”. The $300 best day is 27% of a $1,100 cycle, so the 2% minimum, not the 40% rule, sets the rhythm: $1,100 on day 6, $1,000 on day 12, $1,100 on day 20, and the same three-request pattern every 20 days.

Each request pays 95% with the Lifetime Reward add-on, less the processing fee: “For Performance Rewards processed through RiseWork, a processing fee of up to 3.5% is applied.” We take the full 3.5%. Without the add-on (90% split, $229.99) the six months take home $16,445.21, so the 30% add-on is worth buying at this pa