Apex Trader Funding Review

The short answer

Apex sells futures evaluations as a one-time fee with 30 days to hit the target, and two choices shape the account: whether the loss limit trails during the day or only at the close, and whether you pay an activation fee after passing. Passing gives you a simulated Performance Account that pays 100% of each approved payout, but only six payouts per account, each capped. A live account comes only by invitation. Every trade must be closed before 4:59 PM Eastern.

How it works

Apex’s evaluation has no minimum trading days and no consistency rule, but it expires 30 calendar days after purchase. The table shows the two evaluation types at each size.

• EOD type: the loss limit is set once a day at the close and enforced the next session.
• Intraday type: the loss limit follows your highest balance in real time, including open profits, and never moves down. There is no daily limit.
• Either way, touching the loss limit fails the account and liquidates your positions.
• You can pass in one day. After passing you have 7 calendar days to activate a Performance Account, or the pass expires.

How much does Apex Trader Funding cost?

Apex charges one fee per evaluation and never bills monthly. Two choices set the price: whether the loss limit trails during the day or only at the close, and whether you pay an activation fee after passing or a higher price up front. The list prices are:

Two things to note before using that table. The no-activation Intraday column is not ordered by size: $25,000 lists above both $50,000 and $100,000, so check the figure at checkout for the size you actually want. And Apex has run a site-wide coupon that took 90% off every one of those sixteen prices, so check the figure at checkout before you compare on the list price.

Three more costs sit outside the table:

• The evaluation is a one-time fee, not a subscription. It does not renew, and it cannot be extended once the 30 days run out.
• Each route either charges an activation fee after passing or does not. On the Intraday Trail line the fee is $59 at every size. On the EOD Trail line it is $119 at $25,000, $139 at $50,000, $149 at $100,000 and $159 at $150,000. The two no-activation lines charge nothing at that point and cost more upfront. The fee is a one-time, non-refundable payment per Performance Account, and it must be paid within 7 days of passing or the pass expires.
• Apex does not refund any purchase, in whole or in part, including activation fees and data fees. The single exception sits outside the product: if Apex invites a trader into its live program it refunds their active evaluations, and not the failed ones.

Platforms and trading conditions

At checkout you pick one of three connections, Rithmic, Tradovate or WealthCharts, and the price is the same on each. The connection decides which platforms you can use: Tradovate opens Tradovate, NinjaTrader and TradingView; Rithmic opens R | Trader Pro, NinjaTrader, Quantower, Sierra Chart, ATAS, Bookmap, MotiveWave and several more; WealthCharts is its own platform. Choose carefully, because Apex gives no refund for picking the wrong plan or platform.

• You trade futures only.
• Every trade must be closed before 4:59 PM Eastern. Trading reopens at 6:00 PM Eastern.
• Apex also sells multi-account packs alongside single accounts.

The rules that matter

Apex’s rules are short, but three things decide whether an account survives: when the loss limit moves, how the funded account scales, and the conduct rules Apex enforces on top of the numbers.

When the loss limit moves

On a $100,000 account both types ask for $6,000 against a $3,000 loss limit. The EOD type adds a $1,500 daily limit and moves its loss limit only at the close. The Intraday type has no daily limit, but its loss limit follows every new high during the session, so an account can fail on a move the EOD type would not register until the close.

The Performance Account is smaller at first

Once funded, the loss limit stays the same but the contract limit drops, to 2, 4, 6 or 10 by size, and rises through scaling tiers as your end-of-day balance grows. A daily loss limit applies on both types once funded, and hitting it pauses trading for the session. On the Intraday type the trailing limit stops once your profit reaches the drawdown amount plus $100.

Conduct rules Apex enforces

Apex’s prohibited activities go beyond the numbers:

• Every trade needs a stop loss, pending or mental.
• No tiny targets against huge risk, such as a 5-tick target with a 150-tick stop, and no using the loss limit itself as your stop.
• No stockpiling cheap evaluations to blow up in search of a windfall.
• No hedging across evaluation accounts, and no high-frequency or simulation-exploiting trading.
• Payments and payouts must be in your own name, and VPNs or proxies used to hide your location are not allowed.

Getting paid: how does Apex Trader Funding pay out?

Apex states that approved payouts on its Performance Accounts are issued at a 100% split, with a $500 minimum. Payouts can be weekly, but each account gets six at most, and each payout has its own cap. The table shows what you must reach before asking.

• A 50% consistency rule applies to payouts: no single day may make half or more of your profit since the last payout.
• A safety net stays in the account: your drawdown plus $100 can never be withdrawn.
• Each payout is capped. On the EOD type, a $100,000 account can take $2,000, then $2,500, $2,500, $3,000, $4,000 and $4,000. A $25,000 account is capped at $1,000 each time. After the sixth payout the account closes.
• You can hold up to 20 Performance Accounts at once.
• The Intraday type has its own cap ladder. At $100,000 it runs $2,000, $2,500, $3,000, $3,000, $4,000 and $4,000, so the same account size releases money on a different schedule depending on which line you bought.
• How the money reaches you. US traders are paid by ACH into a US bank account. Everyone else is paid through Plane, which sends its invitation after the first approved payout, and the bank account has to sit in the same country as the residency on the account. Apex says it reviews a request within 2 business days and sends within 3 to 4, with most payouts arriving in 5 to 11 business days.

The live account

Performance Accounts are simulated. Apex’s Live Prop Trading Program is by invitation, and moving to it changes everything:

• Apex chooses who moves, and there is no route in by application. It may start watching after, for example, three payouts in a row from one account.
• All your simulated accounts close. Active evaluations are refunded; blown ones are not. Simulated profit is tracked in a “Bonus Vault”, which Apex says is not real money.
• Live accounts start at $0, with a $3,000 end-of-day drawdown, 10 contracts and no daily loss limit at the first level.
• The split is 90%, payouts can be requested daily with a $500 minimum, and the first $3,100 of profit stays in the account as a safety net.
• You can build up to five live accounts, adding each one as you meet scaling requirements, and Apex may pay a monthly bonus from the Bonus Vault on live withdrawals.

What can end your account

These rules can end an Apex account. Each comes from Apex’s own help center:

• Touching the loss limit, at any moment, including on open trades.
• Leaving a trade open past 4:59 PM Eastern. Apex does not take responsibility for positions held through the close.
• Missing the activity rule on a Performance Account: at least two days with $50 or more of profit in every rolling 30 days. After 15 days the account goes dormant, and at 30 it closes with any payout eligibility lost.
• Hedging across accounts or any prohibited conduct listed above.
• Using a payment method issued in a restricted country, even if the payment is declined.
• Reaching six payouts, which closes the Performance Account by design.

Who can join

Apex publishes a closed list of 87 countries it does not serve, under the heading “LIST OF COUNTRIES WE ARE NOT ABLE TO SERVICE AT THIS TIME”, and gives its reasons: sanctions, platform and data limits, fraud risk and support capacity. Three rules decide who it catches:

• A residency exception exists. A national of a restricted country may trade if their ID, home address, mailing address and bank account are all in a non-restricted country.

Apex states it in one sentence, and it matters because a country list alone reads as a flat bar:

A national of a restricted country may trade if their identification, primary residence, mailing address and bank account are all in a non-restricted country.

So the list of 87 is about where you live and bank, not where you are from. A trader who checks only the country list may conclude they are barred when the firm’s own policy would admit them.

• A declined payment is enough to end an account. Using or trying to use a payment method issued in a restricted country “constitutes grounds for immediate account termination”, at any stage, whether or not the payment goes through.

The payment rule is the harsher of the two, and it does not expire when you are approved:

The use or attempted use of any payment method issued from a restricted country is prohibited and constitutes grounds for immediate account termination. This applies to both successful and declined transactions, regardless of the country of residence listed on your account, and remains enforceable at every stage of your account’s lifecycle – including after approval and during active trading.

An attempted use counts, a declined transaction counts, and the rule stays live after funding. A card issued in a listed country can end a funded account long after it was opened.

• Travel suspends everything. While inside a restricted country you cannot buy, trade or request payouts.

Who you are dealing with

Apex Trader Funding Inc, based in Austin, Texas, and trading since 2021, names Darrell Martin as its officer. The table shows what its own site states.

• Apex says it is not a broker-dealer or futures commission merchant.
• Apex’s member terms are not reachable without an account. The link on its own site redirects to a dashboard page that requires a sign-in, so a buyer cannot read the agreement that governs a funded account before paying for one.
• Apex’s help center says that where anything conflicts with its live-program FAQ, the member system, written Apex communications and any applicable broker, exchange or regulatory requirements control.

Why this grade

Nothing about Apex Trader Funding’s price or its company holds it back. What costs it points is in its rules.

Your funded account can be closed over a failed card payment, at any point in its life and however well you are trading. And on half of its lines the drawdown trails your account in real time rather than at the close, so a trade that dips and recovers inside the same day can still end you.

The two lines are not the same product, and the difference is easy to miss. One trails at the end of the day and carries a daily loss limit. The other trails in real time and has no daily limit at all, at the same account sizes and from the same firm. Its pricing data also carries a $49 reset fee and a monthly renewal that its own product card says do not exist.

Apex writes its payout process out to the dollar: the balance you have to hold first, the cap on each payment, six payments per account. Those are promises on a page until someone buys an account and collects, and the same is true of its support.

Our verdict

Apex offers a clear choice between intraday and end-of-day loss limits at a one-time price, and pays 100% of approved payouts, but each funded account stops after six capped payouts and the conduct rules leave Apex wide discretion.

Best for

• Futures day traders who close out before the afternoon bell.
• Traders who want a one-time fee and a firm 30-day window rather than a subscription.
• Traders happy to run several funded accounts, each paying up to six times.

Avoid if

• You want to keep one funded account paying out indefinitely.
• You need more than 30 days to pass.
• A declined card from a restricted country could ever be linked to your account.

Questions traders ask

Facts checked: 17 August to 17 September 2026. No payout independently verified.