Futures firms comparator
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48 differences
Building A1, Dubai Digital Park, Dubai Silicon Oasis, Dubai, United Arab Emirates
2nd Floor, 412 S. Wells, Chicago, Illinois 60607, United States
Jelle Dijkstra
James Thorpe
United Arab Emirates
United States
2023
2020
Prime Program requires Risk approval: eligible after 5 payouts on one account (the SIM account maximum), 10 across accounts, or 20% profit on one account. Only accounts with at least one payout move to Live. Choose Live or a cash-out of 50% of MLL per eligible account within 24 hours; no answer means Live. SIM accounts close and evaluations pause. Cash-out or a Live breach: 21 days without new purchases or resuming evaluations. Live starts at $0 with real capital, EOD drawdown, 80% split, daily payouts and no consistency rule. One Live trader per household; other household members cannot hold SIM Funded accounts.
Funded Live Access
Up to 5 active Funded Live accounts per trader.
90% profit split on Funded Live.
Clear position scaling rules and structured account transition.
No Activation Fee
TradeDay 2.0 removes the activation fee that existed in the previous model.
- BrightPlus: up to one approved payout per session; first payout from 24 hours after the first trade. Each subsequent payout requires fresh closed profit of 1% of the original account size.
- BrightCore: winning-day cycles, counted again from the next full session after each payout.
Day-one payouts on Quick Pay (no buffer). Requests submitted before 17:30 CT processed within 24 hours on business days. No frequency limit.
Processing within 24 business hours of the request.
Per request: 25K $1,000; 50K $2,000; 100K $3,000; 150K $4,000.
- BrightPlus: also limited to the balance above the buffer.
- BrightCore: the lowest of the size cap, 50% of current profit, and balance minus (starting balance + $100). The 2x addon doubles only the size cap.
Fast Pass Funded Sim maximum per request: $1,500 (50K), $1,875 (100K), $2,250 (150K).
Minimum request: $250, before the profit split.
$250 minimum per payout request.
At least 18 or the higher local age of majority. Sumsub KYC and a signed contract before SIM Funded activation, within 24 hours of completing both. One profile per person. The minimum trade duration rule must be met in each payout cycle. USDC on ERC-20 or bank transfer.
- US Wire Transfer: Free
- International Wire Transfer: $15/withdrawal
- Crypto L1: $2.5/withdrawal + estimated gas fees
- Crypto L2: Free
Per contract, per side, USD, all fees included: ES/NQ/RTY/YM 2.88; MES/MNQ/M2K/MYM 0.95; NKD/ZC/ZL/ZW 3.65; 6A/6B/6C/6E/6J/6N/6S/NG 3.10; M6A/M6B/M6E 0.84; CL 3.00; MCL 1.20; QM 2.70; QG 2.00; GC/SI/HG/PL 3.15; MGC 1.30; HE/LE 3.60; ZS/ZM 3.63. Round trip: twice these rates.
After a breach, within the time shown on the dashboard. Restarts evaluation even from SIM Funded, keeping the account number and addons. Costs 55% of the current list price including addons; addons cannot change and the hedging warning is not restored.
Available on current plans. See challenges for reset price.
Optional at purchase, with additive surcharges on the base price: 100% Profit Split +20%; 2x Payout Cap +40%; BrightCore only, 3 Day Payout Cycle +20%. Targets, drawdown and contracts do not change.
- BrightPlus: intraday trailing on peak equity, including open profit. In SIM it locks at starting balance + $100 once equity reaches the buffer.
- BrightCore: trailing on the highest closing balance, updated between 4:45 and 5:59 PM ET. In SIM it locks at starting balance + $100 on the first approved payout, even if previously higher.
No lock during evaluation. Touching the floor with live equity breaches the account at any time.
Two drawdown types available, both Trailing Maximum Drawdown:
Intraday TMD
Calculated in real time from unrealized profits during the session.
End of Day TMD
Calculated from realized profits at end of day (16:00 CT close). Follows account growth until frozen at the initial balance.
Funded Sim drawdown type matches the evaluation type purchased.
The split applies to each requested amount; the full request is deducted from the account balance.
Quick Pay Funded Sim
- 80% trader / 20% TradeDay above $4,000 gross profit
- 50% trader / 50% TradeDay below $4,000 gross profit
- Split evaluated per account
Fast Pass Funded Sim
- 80% trader / 20% TradeDay
Funded Live
- 90% trader / 10% TradeDay
No separate daily loss limit.
Up to 10 Evaluation accounts and 5 Funded Sim accounts simultaneously per trader. Up to 5 active Funded Live accounts per trader. Multiple Funded Sim accounts allowed. Single-member US LLC allowed. Multi-member LLC, S-corps and C-corps not allowed.
BrightPlus: starting balance + MLL + $100, retained after every payout. Only closed profit counts. Falling below pauses payouts without breaching the account. BrightCore has no such buffer.
Up to 5 active SIM Funded accounts across all plans and sizes. Unlimited evaluations. With all 5 slots used, another evaluation pass waits until a slot opens.
No time limit, subject to inactivity rules.
Unlimited
No explicit minimum. Consistency requires at least 2 sessions on BrightPlus and 3 on BrightCore in practice.
- Quick Pay: 5 trading days minimum (non-consecutive).
- Fast Pass: no minimum trading days.
Trade2Earn: activity earns BrightTokens redeemable for perks and evaluations, with no cash value. On Live, Prime Ladder pays bonuses every 10 winning days through Diamond (80 days); Prime Trader at 90 is status only. Total bonuses per account: 25K $5,000; 50K $10,000; 100K $20,000; 150K $30,000. Losing days and payouts preserve progress; an account breach resets it.
- BrightPlus: no winning-day requirement.
- BrightCore SIM: 5 per payout, or 3 with the addon. Minimum closed net profit per session: 25K $100; 50K $200; 100K and 150K $300. Days need not be consecutive; at most one per session.
Fast Pass Funded Sim: 5 profitable days per payout; $150/$200/$250 minimum daily profit on 50K/100K/150K.
No activation fee on TradeDay 2.0.
Fast Pass Funded Sim starts at 2/3/4 contracts for 50K/100K/150K, then adds one contract per $2,000 of EOD profit. Quick Pay limits are fixed by account size.
Monthly subscription. See challenges for current list prices and promotions for active discounts.
Only exclusively self-authored software with no third-party access. It must not mirror another trader, be a black box or run simultaneously at other firms. Source-code review may be required.
Allowed if using supported platforms: NinjaTrader, Tradovate, Tradingview, Jigsaw, Quantower. TradeDay does NOT expose Tradovate API. Own systems allowed (NOT purchased from third parties). If multiple users make same trades: All accounts closed.
VPN/VPS allowed without concealing identity or location or bypassing country restrictions. Only the owner may trade the account.
Prohibited within and across your accounts, including different expiries, mini/micro and correlated instruments in the same group. First occurrence: warning, positions closed and profit removed while losses remain. Second: account breach. One warning per evaluation and one over the lifetime of SIM, not renewed by payouts or resets. Both accounts are penalized for a cross-account hedge.
More than 50% of net winning-trade profit must come from trades held longer than 15 seconds. Partial fills count separately. Equality is insufficient. Noncompliance delays passing or blocks payouts without breaching the account; the calculation restarts after each payout. Exploitative tick scalping and HFT are prohibited.
Scalping allowed EXCEPT: High-frequency ATS, >200 trades per day, trades in few seconds for 1-2 ticks, playing with sim matching engine.
Only between your BrightFunded accounts within the same profile. Copying others, signals or group trading is a hard breach.
Allowed from a trader's own account into their TradeDay account, and between two of the trader's own TradeDay Funded Sim accounts. NOT allowed between Funded Live and Funded Sim, and NOT allowed between two different users. Compatible third-party tools: Tradesyncer (TDTC), Flowbots (tradeday), Expert Trading Programmers (TradeDay25OFF).
Open a new trade every 30 calendar days in evaluation and every 7 trading sessions in SIM, excluding holidays. Closing, editing and unfilled pending orders do not count. Advance warning; missing the deadline deactivates the account as a hard breach.
TradeDay does not charge inactivity fees. However, Tradovate archives the account after 1 month without login.
Evaluation only: best session / total net profit, up to 50% on BrightPlus and 40% on BrightCore. Includes commissions and losing days. Recalculated at session close; equality is allowed. Delays passing without breaching the account. Does not apply in SIM.
Quick Pay: 30% consistency in evaluation. Fast Pass: 45% consistency in evaluation and Funded Sim. Funded Live has no consistency rule.
Exploiting simulated prices, latency, fills or liquidity; arbitrage, spoofing, layering, abusive HFT, oversized one-way bets, account rolling, third-party management and risk or size changes inconsistent with normal trading. Terms allow affected profits to be removed, extra limits imposed or accounts closed.
- Using bots/ATS purchased from third parties
- Systems generating >200 trades in a day
- Strategies trading in few seconds to capture only a few ticks
- Attempting to capture queue position advantage by playing with sim engine
- Spoofing and layering (per CME Group rules)
- Order splitting (multiple limit orders at same price simultaneously)
- Trading in illiquid markets to benefit from missed fills
- Exploiting lack of slippage in simulation (e.g., bracket orders in data releases)
- Trading outside best bid/offer
- Using external or slow data feed
- High-frequency trading or short-term trading
- Simultaneous opposite positions between accounts
- Multiple registrations with different names/emails
- Using VPN or VPS to mask location
- Hedging: Prohibited (trading long in one account and short in another for same product)
- Trading within 2% of price limit (Funded Live only, loss of account)
- Microscalping (positions held <5-10 seconds dominating profit)
- Trading Tier 1 news/data releases (2 min before/after, auto-liquidation)
Automatic close at 4:45 PM ET, Monday to Friday, without a breach for auto-close. CME session runs from 6:00 PM to 5:00 PM ET the next day; holiday cutoffs may be earlier.


















