Topstep was founded by Michael Patak in 2012; it is a proprietary trading firm based in Chicago, Illinois.
Topstep offers futures traders funds via a funded trading program. Traders will get funded when they pass the evaluation.
The evaluation process (Called the Trading Combine) evaluates the trader’s skills. The trader chooses an account size with specific rules and features and gets funded after reaching the profit goals.
In this article, we will cover the legitimacy of Topstep and everything you need to know about its founders, accounts, and rules. You will also make a detailed analysis of the pros and cons of this futures prop firm.
What is Topstep?
Topstep (formerly TopstepTrader) is a proprietary trading firm for futures traders.
When you start one of the Topstep challenges, you have to reach a profit target while respecting 2 rules; Max loss limit and Daily loss limit.
When a trader passes the test successfully, he will get a real funded futures trading account, supported by Topstep proprietary trading firm partner.
When the Trader makes profits, he will get 90% of the profits, and 10% goes to Topstep.
When the Trader loses, the funded trading account will be closed, and the trader must redo the challenge to get funded again.
What trading evaluations does Topstep offer?
Topstep offers futures traders three options to evaluete their skills:
- $50K BUYING POWER account size
- $100K BUYING POWER account size
- $150K BUYING POWER account size
Those challenges’ prices fluctuate but
.Who is Topstep’s Founder?
Topstep was founded as an LLC by Michael Patak in 2012. It’s one of the oldest and known funded trading programs. The idea behind creating Topstep is to offer traders a platform where they don’t have to risk their own money and test their strategies in the real market.
Topstep is that they are transparent about their founders, teams, and goals.
Go to the Topstep website and search for the “Our Team” tab below the page to get everything you need about the team.
What is the Trading Combine?
The Trading Combine is the name of the Topstep challenge/test for traders.
The Topstep Challenge (The Trading Combine) is a 1 step evaluation. A trader gets a real funded trading account when he passes the challenge.
What are the rules of the trading combine?
The rules during the trading combine challenge are: 1- Don’t reach the Max Loss limit. 2- don’t reach the Daily Loss Limit.
- Respect the Max Loss limit: also known as the Trailing Maximum Drawdown. The Max Loss limit defines the minimum account balance allowed at at the end of the trading day; The Max Loss limit moves up when you make profits at the end of the day, but doesn’t move when you lose.
So Let’s explain with the Trading Combine $50k account: The account Loss Limit for the $50k account is $2000. So your minimum balance when you open your account is $48000, which means your account will be eliminated if you reach this minimum balance. If you made $500 in profits on your first day, your balance would be $50500, and your minimum account balance will also move to $48500. If you lose $ 300$ in your second day, your balance will be $ 50200, but your minimum account balance will not return; it will remain at $48500. This means the Max Loss limit doesn’t push back when you make losses. The Max Loss limit will never go over the account’s starting balance, which in this case is $50,000. This means that when you continue making profits, you become much safer. Your Trading Combine will be eliminated if your balance, at any point, drops below your Max Loss limit.
The image below shows how the Max Loss limit moves every day in accordance with the account balance.
- Daily Loss Limit: it’s your max loss permitted in a single day. The value of the daily loss limit also depends on the account size that you have chosen:
| Account Size | Daily Loss Limit |
|---|---|
| $50K BUYING POWER | $1,000 |
| $100K BUYING POWER | $2,000 |
| $150K BUYING POWER | $3,000 |
What are the objectives of the Trading Combine?
The objectives during the trading combine challenge are: 1- reach the Profit Target. 2- Follow the Consistency Target.
- Reach the target profit: it depends on the offer that you did choose:
| Account Size | Profit Target |
|---|---|
| $50K BUYING POWER | $3,000 |
| $100K BUYING POWER | $6,000 |
| $150K BUYING POWER | $9,000 |
- Consistency Target: When you reach the target profit, make sure that your best-day profit is below 40% of your total profits earned. If you find that your best day equals or is more than 40% of your total profit, then you will have to continue trading until it goes below 40%.
When traders can trade during the Trading Combine?
Traders must be intraday Futures traders since all positions must be closed before 3:10:00 PM Central Time every Monday to Friday. Trading closes for the weekend Friday at 3:10:00 PM CT and resumes at 5:00:00 PM CT Sunday. Traders must also be aware that Trading is restricted on holidays.
What products can traders trade during the Trading Combine?
The following table shows the CME Group products that traders can use to trade in the Trading Combine®:
| Commodities | Symbols |
|---|---|
| CME Equity Futures | (ES) (MES) (NQ) (MNQ) (RTY) (M2K) (NKD) |
| CME Foreign Exchange Futures | (6A) (6B) (6C) (6E) (6J) (6S) (E7) |
| CME Agricultural Futures | (HE) (LE) |
| CME NYMEX Futures | (CL) (QM) (NG) (QG) |
| CME CBOT Agricultural Futures | (ZC) (ZW) (ZS) (ZM) (ZL) |
| CME CBOT Equity Futures | (YM) (MYM) |
| CME CBOT Financial/Interest Rate Futures | (ZT) (ZF) (ZN) (TN) (ZB) (UB) (GE) |
| CME COMEX Futures | (GC) (SI) (HG) |
What is The Maximum Position Size at Topstep?
The Maximum Position Size is the maximum position allowed (absolute value) at any given time. Traders must respect the Maximum Position Size; always check the maximum number of contracts your account allows trade. And remember that Topstep considers Micro Contracts as complete contracts. The following table shows the number of contracts allowed in every account size:
| Account Size | Maximum Position Size |
|---|---|
| $50K BUYING POWER | 5 Contracts |
| $100K BUYING POWER | 10 Contracts |
| $150K BUYING POWER | 15 Contracts |
What happens after completing the Trading Combine?
After traders pass the Trading Combine challenge, here are the significant events that will occur:
- Topstep will turn off your monthly subscription fees to avoid being charged next month.
- The trader receives a document that he needs to fill out and sign. It’s the funded trading account agreement between the Trader and the funding company. When the trader signs it, he will verify his email during this process to validate the document.
- As you may already know, traders make monthly payments for the live market data. Unfortunately, Topstep doesn’t provide this for free.
It doesn’t matter when the trader makes the first payment, Topstep will not activate it until his account is enabled. So the trader must pay earlier to speed up the process.
The live market data fees are a $105 monthly payment, but you can check other options below:
| Exchange | Permitted Product | TSTrader, TradingView | All Other Platforms |
|---|---|---|---|
| CME | ES, MES, NQ, MNQ, RTY, M2K, NKD, 6A, 6B, 6C, 6E, 6J, 6S, E7, HE, LE, GE | $125 per month | $105 per month |
| NYMEX | CL, QM, NG, QG | $125 per month | $105 per month |
| COMEX | GC, SI, HG | $125 per month | $105 per month |
| CBOT | ZC, ZW, ZS, ZM, ZL, YM, MYM, ZT, ZF, ZN, ZB, UB, TN | $125 per month | $105 per month |
What is the Topstep funded trading account?
Topstep funded trading account is the real trading account that traders receive after completing the Trading Combine test successfully. All earnings in this account will be split between the Trader (90%) and Topstep trading firm (10%).
what are Topstep Funded trading account rules?
Topstep Funded trading account rules are:
- Don’t hit the Max Loss Limit.
- Don’t Hit the Daily Loss Limit.
When a trader gets the funded trading account from Topstep, he must trade more carefully and follow his winning strategy. Because if the trader loses this account, he will have to redo the Trading Combine challenge.
Many rules are the same as in the trading combine, but there are also some differences. Here are all rules for the funded account:
Don’t hit the Max Loss Limit:
The Max Loss Limit (Trailing Maximum Drawdown) defines the minimum account balance allowed at any time during your trading day; it moves when you make profits but doesn’t move when you lose trades.
The image below shows how the Max Loss limit moves every day in accordance with the account balance.
Don’t hit the Daily Loss Limit
- Daily Loss Limit: it’s your max loss permitted in a single day. The value of the daily loss limit also depends on the account size that you have chosen:
| Account Size | Daily Loss Limit |
|---|---|
| $50K BUYING POWER | $1,000 |
| $100K BUYING POWER | $2,000 |
| $150K BUYING POWER | $3,000 |
what are Topstep Funded trading account objectives?
Topstep Funded trading account rules are:
- Follow the Scaling Plan.
- Make 5 Winning Days of more than $200.
Follow the Scaling Plan
You will have to respect the scaling plan. Let’s take the $50k account as an example. Even if your account allows a maximum contract of 5 contracts, you will not be able to use all those contracts on the first day; you have to respect the scaling plan. You will be allowed to use only 2 contracts until you make a profit of $1501; you must contact Topstep to use 3 contracts instead of 2. When you make $2001 profits in your account, you get Topstep support to update your number of contracts to use all 5 contracts.
Note that Topstep considers micro contracts as full contracts too.
Make 5 Winning Days of more than $200
More info, more understanding
Topstep Withdrawal
Even if Topstep allows you to withdraw your first 5000$ profits and split the subsequent profits 90% for the Trader and 10% for the firm, there is a Withdrawal Policy provided by Topstep. Here is all information needed to know about withdrawals:
- Traders can make withdrawals after 5 winning trading days.
- A winning day according to Topstep, is when you make $100 profits or more daily.
- After 5 winning trading days, you can withdraw up to 50% of your earnings.
- After that, you must wait for another 5 winning trading days to withdraw 50% of your earnings.
- If you break a rule, you will receive all profits more significant than the account’s starting balance.
- This is a very Important note: after you make a withdrawal, your Maximum Trailing Drawdown will automatically be set to $0. That means that you can’t go below your starting balance anymore. So it’s better not to make significant withdrawals until you reach $0 Maximum Trailing Drawdown by yourself.
- You can withdraw 100% of your first $5000 only once with Topstep. After that, if you create another account, the profit split will be 90/10.
- You can withdraw via Checks, ACH Wire, or Standard Bank Wire.
- Topstep doesn’t allow withdrawals via PayPal.
Supported Platforms
Like most funded trading programs, Topstep supports almost all known platforms. But they recommend only four trading platforms for their users:
TSTrader®
This trading platform is built by and for Topstep users only, Tradovate powers it. It’s an online platform that you can access from your browser, also available for mobile browsers. It’s free to use during the trading combine and for the funded account.
TradingView
It’s the most known online trading platform. You can also use it for free for the Trading Combine and the funded account. If you plan to use this offer, We recommend you to check this page to get 20% off.
NinjaTrader
This is the most used trading software by professionals. It offers everything a trader needs; unfortunately, Topstep doesn’t provide a free license for the funded account; you can get a free license only for the Trading Combine. And it’s not available for mobile.
TradeStation
This is also an online trading platform, and Topstep helps you use it for free during the Trading Combine and the funded account. And it can be accessed from your mobile too.
Other supported platforms:
Conclusion
Topstep is the market’s safest and most transparently funded futures trading program. You can access their website here to learn everything you want before starting your challenge, even if we already gave you all the information needed in this article.
But there is a critical note about rules. When you break a rule, like max contracts allowed or trading times, it acts exactly like their competitor Earn2Trade, the trading account will be closed, and you have to add a reset fee or wait for your next monthly payment to access a new trading account.
But even with this little problem, Topstep remains the leader of funded trading programs on the market. If you want to join Topstep, we recommend you Click here to Get 20% off futures Trading Combine.
