A retail prop firm sells evaluations. It publishes a profit target and a loss limit, charges a fee to be measured against them on a simulated account, and funds a simulated account for anyone who passes, paying a published share of the gains. Understanding how the firm earns is what makes the rest of the comparison legible.
The trader's side of the transaction
You pay a fee, trade a simulated account against a target and a limit, and if you reach the target without breaching the limit you are funded. After funding you keep a published share of gains, subject to payout conditions that usually include a minimum number of trading days and sometimes a consistency rule. Every one of those terms is published, and every one of them is worth reading before the headline, because the headline is the same at almost every firm.
The firm's side, which explains the rules
Firms earn from evaluation fees, reset fees and, at some, activation or platform fees, alongside whatever the funded side produces. That mix is why the loss limit is the product rather than the packaging: it determines how long an account survives, and therefore how often the fee is paid again. This is not a criticism of the firms in this index, all of which publish their pricing and rules openly. It is the reason a comparison built on the profit split alone tells you almost nothing.
Where the firms actually differ
Eight of the ten firms here publish a profit split and every one is 90%, so that column has no spread at all. The drawdown does: Bulenox and TradeDay publish both a trailing and an end-of-day option and make you choose; Take Profit Trader and Tradeify publish end-of-day; OneUp Trader publishes a trailing limit that rises with the balance. Payout terms differ too, with Earn2Trade publishing weekly withdrawals from $100 and three firms publishing daily payouts.
Questions people ask about how do prop firms work
Do prop firms use real money?
The accounts in this index are simulated in both the evaluation and the funded stage. Payouts are real money paid as a share of simulated gains.
How do prop firms make money?
From fees and from the funded side. Every firm here publishes its pricing; none publishes a breakdown of the split between those revenue lines, and this site does not estimate one.
What stops a firm refusing to pay?
Its published terms and its reputation. Funded Futures Family publishes a running payout total and states every payout is published as it happens. This site records what firms publish and does not assess or verify any firm's payment history.