No challenge fee · your own margin
Cheapest Prop Firms 2026: What Entry Really Costs
Entry to a prop firm is a challenge fee, a reset or a subscription. EVEDEX charges none: you post 50 USDT of your own margin, which stays yours until a trade loses it.
What entry costs on EVEDEX
Funded Trading and fee terms as of September 15, 2026. Six tiers, own margin → notional: 50 → 1,500; 165 → 5,000; 335 → 10,000; 835 → 25,000; 1,665 → 50,000; 3,335 → 100,000 USDT. Context: how do prop firms make money and prop firm payouts.
Cheapest entry at four prop firms
The smallest advertised entry, what it buys and whether the money comes back. Related: prop firm basics, futures prop firms and what is a prop firm.
| Firm | Cheapest entry | What it buys | Fee returned? | Drawbacks |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| EVEDEX Funded Trading | From 50 USDT of your own margin | 1,500 USDT of notional, up to 100,000 | No fee; the margin stays yours | Web only, no API; margin can be lost in full |
| FTMO | €89 | $10,000 two-step Challenge | Yes, with the first reward withdrawal | Paid upfront; 5% daily and 10% total loss caps |
| FundedNext Futures | $69.99 | $50,000 futures challenge | Yes, with the first reward | Promotional price against a $133.99 list; 40% consistency rule |
| Topstep | $49 a month | $50,000 Trading Combine | Monthly subscription, no refund stated | Charge repeats monthly; 16.8% of Combines passed in 2025 |
| Earn2Trade | From $150 | $25,000 Trader Career Path | No upfront fee; taken from profits | 8.89% of candidates passed in 2025; 30% consistency rate |
Firm pages checked September 21, 2026: FTMO, FundedNext, Topstep, Earn2Trade. EVEDEX terms as of September 15, 2026.
Where the money goes on EVEDEX
Entry is still paid, but it is paid into your own position rather than to a firm.
Margin, not a fee
The 50 USDT you post stays on your own balance and opens 1,500 USDT of notional; six tiers run to 3,335 USDT for 100,000. Nothing is charged for access, and there is no reset to buy.
Small tickets
The minimum deposit is 6 USDT and the minimum order 5 USDT, so the size of a first trade is not set by the price of an evaluation.
Fees capped, then cut
Trading fees are capped at 0.015% maker and 0.045% taker before cashback. Cashback of up to 35% on your own trades brings the effective rates to 0.00975% and 0.02925%.
The real cost
Your margin can be lost in full, and a larger notional makes that faster. That is the real price of entry here, and it is not capped the way a challenge fee is.
Entry in three steps
From a 6 USDT deposit to an open position, with no evaluation to buy.
Deposit from 6 USDT
Sign in with a wallet, email or social account. There is no traditional KYC; deposits pass automated AML screening with Chainalysis before they are credited.
Post 50 USDT of margin
That opens 1,500 USDT of notional, and the ladder runs to 3,335 USDT for 100,000 USDT. No challenge, no evaluation phase and no profit split to give away afterwards.
Count the trading cost
A 1,500 USDT taker order costs 0.68 USDT at 0.045%, a maker order 0.23 USDT. Unfilled orders cost nothing.
What cheap actually means over a year
The headline price is the smallest part of the bill once volume and repeat attempts are counted.
A €89 FTMO Challenge is a single payment, refunded with the first reward withdrawal, but only 2-step and 1-step routes lead there and the loss caps end the attempt early. Topstep's $49 charge repeats every month in evaluation, so a six-month run is $294. FundedNext's $69.99 is a promotional price against a $133.99 list. On EVEDEX the recurring cost is trading fees: 0.045% taker means $4.50 per $10,000 traded, less cashback. Trade $250,000 of volume in a year as a taker and that is $112.50 before cashback.
Cheap prop firm questions, answered
On advertised entry prices checked September 21, 2026, Topstep starts at $49 a month for a $50,000 Combine, FundedNext Futures at $69.99 for $50,000, FTMO at €89 for a $10,000 account and Earn2Trade from $150 for $25,000. The cheapest headline is rarely the cheapest year.
EVEDEX Funded Trading charges nothing for access, because it sells no evaluation. Entry is 50 USDT of your own margin, which opens 1,500 USDT of notional and stays on your balance. It is not a gift: that margin is the money at risk in every position you open.
Several do, but only after you earn. FTMO states a 100% refund of the initial fee with the first reward withdrawal, and FundedNext returns the challenge price with the first reward. Earn2Trade takes no upfront activation fee and deducts it from profits at the first withdrawal.
A reset is the payment for another attempt after breaching a rule, and it is the quiet half of a cheap headline price. EVEDEX has nothing to reset, because there is no evaluation to fail; a losing position simply consumes part of the margin you posted.
Fees are capped at 0.015% maker and 0.045% taker before cashback and apply only to executed orders. A 1,500 USDT taker order costs 0.68 USDT. Cashback of up to 35% on your own trades lowers the effective rates to 0.00975% maker and 0.02925% taker.
The minimum deposit is 6 USDT and the minimum order value is 5 USDT, with margin held in USDT under cross margin. Funded Trading entry starts at 50 USDT of margin for 1,500 USDT of notional, and the ladder runs to 3,335 USDT for 100,000 USDT.
Because most attempts end before payout. Topstep published that 16.8% of all Trading Combines started in 2025 were completed successfully, and Earn2Trade published a 2025 pass rate of 8.89%. Entry fees, resets and monthly subscriptions carry the business, which is why the sticker price stays low.
Not usually. A monthly subscription repeats: $49 at Topstep becomes $294 over six months of evaluation. A percentage fee scales with what you actually trade, so on EVEDEX $250,000 of taker volume costs about $112.50 before cashback, and an untraded month costs nothing.
