Futures firms comparator
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48 differences
Building A1, Dubai Digital Park, Dubai Silicon Oasis, Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Building A1, IFZA Business Park, Dubai Silicon Oasis, Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Jelle Dijkstra
Jakub Zeliska
United Arab Emirates
United Arab Emirates
2023
2023
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.
Futures accounts are simulated (sim-funded).
- 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.
Classic: whenever the conditions are met. Vanguard: after 5 qualifying days for the first payout. Upcomers states same-day processing after approval.
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.
Classic (payouts 1–5): 25K 500/1,000/1,500/1,500/1,500; 50K 800/1,600/2,400/3,000/3,000; 100K 1,400/2,800/4,200/5,000/6,000; 150K 2,000/4,000/5,000/5,000/9,000; 200K 2,600/5,000/5,000/5,000/12,000; 300K 3,700/5,000/5,000/5,000/18,000; 400K 4,700/5,000/5,000/5,000/23,500 USD. Vanguard (payouts 1–7): 25K 500/1,000/1,500/1,500/1,500/1,500/1,500; 50K 1,000/2,000/3,000/3,000/3,000/3,000/3,000; 100K 1,600/3,200/4,800/5,000/6,000/6,000/6,000; 150K 1,900/3,800/5,000/5,000/9,000/9,000/9,000; 200K 2,300/4,600/5,000/5,000/11,500/12,000/12,000; 300K 3,100/5,000/5,000/5,000/15,500/18,000/18,000 USD. The checkout sells Vanguard 400K, but the current public table does not yet publish its cap; confirm with support.
Minimum request: $250, before the profit split.
USD 100.
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.
Realized profit and all positions closed; at least 1% profit since the previous payout. 20% Best Day Rule. Before the first payout, Vanguard requires 5 profitable days with at least 0.5% profit each.
Bank transfer: USD 19.90 + 2.49%. Crypto: USD 19.90 + 30%; reduced to USD 19.90 + 2.49% when more than 50% of the trader's purchases were paid in crypto.
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.
Resets are available when offered by Upcomers. A rule-violation reset permanently limits future payouts on that account to 50%.
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.
Vanguard offers instant funding with no evaluation.
Thunderbolt Classic is a one-step evaluation with a 6% target.
- 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.
Real-time trailing: 4% on Classic and 3% on Vanguard. It locks at the initial balance after the account grows by that same percentage.
The split applies to each requested amount; the full request is deducted from the account balance.
90% selected for these prices. Checkout also allows 80% or 100%, adjusting the price.
No separate daily loss limit.
Classic: 3% in evaluation and 2% when funded. Vanguard: 2%. Resets at 5:00 PM ET.
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 fixed account-count limit; total funded capital cannot exceed USD 1,500,000 across all Upcomers programs.
No time limit, subject to inactivity rules.
No time limit to pass Classic; all futures accounts close after 14 calendar days without closing a trade.
No explicit minimum. Consistency requires at least 2 sessions on BrightPlus and 3 on BrightCore in practice.
Classic can be passed in 1 day. Vanguard has no evaluation.
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.
Vanguard requires 5 days with at least 0.5% profit each before the first payout; they do not need to be consecutive.
+35% every 4 months, up to USD 4,000,000, with 15% cumulative growth, at least 2 payouts and a positive final cycle.
Thunderbolt Classic includes an optional Trial Phase; Vanguard has no evaluation.
No activation fee or recurring platform/data subscription stated by Upcomers.
The contract limit depends on account size and does not drop after funding.
One-time payment based on program, size and profit split. The table shows the regular 90% price before any promotional code.
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.
Bots and automation are allowed when the strategy is unique and responsible; no HFT, tick scalping, arbitrage, feed abuse or mass-shared strategies.
VPN/VPS allowed without concealing identity or location or bypassing country restrictions. Only the owner may trade the account.
Upcomers' general VPN/VPS and identity-verification rules apply.
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.
Allowed within the same account; coordinating opposite positions across accounts or people to bypass rules is prohibited.
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.
Normal scalping is allowed; tick scalping and latency exploitation are prohibited.
Only between your BrightFunded accounts within the same profile. Copying others, signals or group trading is a hard breach.
Allowed between your own accounts; prohibited between different people.
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.
Automatic closure after 14 calendar days without closing a trade; the clock starts at purchase and resets with every closed trade.
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.
20% Best Day Rule: the best day cannot represent more than 20% of total profit when requesting a payout.
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.
HFT, tick scalping, arbitrage or latency abuse, feed/price abuse, mass-shared strategies, martingale, account rolling and any practice designed to exploit the simulated environment.
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.
Hard maximum loss of 1.5% of account size per open trade. Positions in the same instrument and direction count as one trade.


















