The short answer
AquaFunded sells CFD and futures accounts under one name, and they are separate products with separate rules, countries and payouts. Its “100% refundable” fee comes back only with your fourth payout, and not at all if the account breaches first. On most funded CFD accounts a 2% open loss closes every trade automatically, though One Step Flex sets that line at 1% and Instant Funding sits outside the rule. On Instant models a single trade floating 2% under the starting balance closes the account for good. News profits above 0.5% of the starting balance, per payout cycle, are removed. Futures accounts close after 7 days without a trade.
How it works
AquaFunded runs two catalogs. The table shows the main CFD models and their limits; futures follow below.
| CFD model | Before funding | Profit target | Daily loss | Maximum loss |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2-Step Standard | 2 phases | 8%, then 5% | 5% | 8%, static |
| 2-Step Pro | 2 phases | 10%, then 5% | 5% | 10%, trailing |
| 2-Step Elite | 2 phases | 8%, then 5% | 4% | 10%, static |
| 1-Step Standard | 1 phase | 9% | 3% | 6%, trailing |
| 1-Step Flex | 1 phase | 10% | 3% | 12%, static |
| Instant Standard | None | None | 3% | 5%, trailing |
| Instant Pro | None | None | 3% | 6%, trailing |
- The daily limit is not one rule across the catalog. On 2-Step Standard, One Step Standard and Instant Standard it is set at midnight UTC from the higher of the previous day’s balance or equity, so a winning day raises tomorrow’s floor. One Step Flex is published as a 3% daily trailing drawdown and One Step Pro as 3% of the initial balance, and AquaFunded’s own pages do not agree on every model’s figure or its basis.
- 2-Step Standard and One Step Standard need 3 trading days of at least 0.5% profit each, and One Step Pro needs 5. One Step Flex and the 3-Step model publish none.
- Instant accounts carry a consistency rule: 15% on Instant Standard, and 15% or 20% on Instant Pro depending on when it was bought.
- Futures come in four models: Standard, Flex, Daily and Instant, from $25,000 to $150,000. All measure drawdown at the end of the day, so an intraday dip below the line does not breach you, and AquaFunded labels the Standard and Flex daily loss a soft breach.
- Futures evaluations bill monthly until you pass, and you can hold 3 funded futures accounts at once.
How much does AquaFunded cost?
Prices for each model and size are in the price box on this page. Three things the box cannot show:
- The refund is a rebate. The fee comes back with your fourth payout. Breach before then and it is gone, and the Refund Policy allows no refund once login details are sent.
- AquaFunded usually runs a discount code that must be entered at checkout, so confirm the total before paying.
- Add-ons change the deal: on CFD accounts a 100% split adds 15% to the fee and swap-free adds 10%. A first payout in 7 days is sold separately.
CFD commissions are $5 per lot on forex and commodities, and nothing on indices and crypto.
Two things at the order gate do not match the documents behind them. AquaFunded sells bundles of two to five identical accounts under the heading “Increase reward chances by 5x”. Clause 6.3 says:
Traders are limited to one active account per challenge level, absent prior written approval by the Company.
A trader who buys the bundle the firm offers may be holding accounts its own contract says need written approval first, which leaves the firm a standing basis to act against them.
The trust bars on the same pages carry a rating with no source. The homepage and the futures page show:
Rated 9.4/10 5k+ reviews
The checkout footer shows:
Rated 9.4/10 From 2.8k+ Verified Reviews
The same score is shown against two review counts that differ by nearly half, neither is attributed to a platform, and the largest independent review site covering this firm publishes no rating for it at all.
Platforms and trading conditions
CFD accounts trade on MetaTrader 5, cTrader, TradeLocker or Match-Trader. Futures trade on Tradovate, NinjaTrader, TradingView or Deepcharts.
- cTrader costs $15 more at every account size on the CFD side.
- Hedging within one account, Martingale and trading without a stop loss are allowed on CFD accounts.
- Trades held under 2 minutes can be treated as tick scalping, and funded profit from them removed.
- Futures: no trading within 2% of a CME price limit, and no fully automated or AI trading systems.
The rules that matter
AquaFunded’s limits are clear, but four rules close trades or remove profit before you touch them. AquaFunded’s help center articles are part of its binding rules and can change without notice.
A “no denials” badge, and rules that allow a payout denial
AquaFunded carries a Payout Guarantee / No Denials badge on its homepage and its futures page. Its futures help center lists what AquaFutures may do when it identifies prohibited trading:
If prohibited behavior is identified, AquaFutures reserves the right to take action including profit removal, payout denial, account suspension, evaluation failure, funded account termination, or permanent platform bans.
A payout denial there is tied to behavior the firm defines as prohibited, such as automation abuse, coordinated or hedging activity and account rolling, and it is the firm that identifies it. The badge states no such condition.
The agreement that governs payouts is not published
The Terms bind you to a document you cannot read at purchase:
All additional documents required to be executed by you in order to access and maintain services on the Site (i.e. Aqua Funded Trader Agreement) are incorporated by reference herein.
The Aqua Funded Trader Agreement is signed after you pass. Every payout term a buyer relies on when they hand over the fee sits underneath a document that arrives later.
The rules themselves can also move while you trade:
By agreeing to these Terms, you are agreeing to abide to all rules identified within the knowledge center and other sources within the website. […] Company reserves the right, in its sole discretion, to change the Terms under which this Site is offered. The most current version of the Terms supersedes all previous versions… Your continued use… will constitute your… agreement to abide and be bound by such Terms of Service as revised.
The binding rules include whatever the knowledge center says, the knowledge center can change without notice, and continuing to trade is how you accept the change. There is no published changelog to check it against.
Wave Stop on funded CFD accounts
When your open trades reach a 2% loss of the balance, AquaFunded closes all of them automatically. The account stays open, but every position is gone. The 2% line does not apply everywhere: One Step Flex runs Wave Stop at 1% on the funded account, and Instant Funding accounts are excluded from the rule. A first Wave Stop cuts the profit split to 50% and a second breaches the account, while on One Step Flex it is the third strike that breaches the funded account.
A 2% floating loss ends instant accounts
On Instant and AquaMan accounts, a single trade floating below 2% of the starting balance closes the account permanently. It is measured on one trade, not across everything you hold open. On $300,000 and $400,000 accounts the line is 1%.
News profit is capped
Profit made during a high-impact news release is capped at 0.5% of the starting balance per payout cycle, and the rest is removed. It is not a breach. On a $100,000 account that means $500 of news profit a cycle. Accounts bought before 27 April 2026 stay on the earlier news rules.
AquaFunded works the same example through in its own help center:
“We allow trading during high-impact news events. However, profits generated specifically during these periods are capped at a fixed percentage of your account balance per payout cycle. […] What is the cap percentage? 0.5% of account starting balance. How does the cap work? Any profit made during defined news events is tracked separately. At the end of the payout cycle:
You keep profits up to the cap
Any profit above the cap is removed
There are no penalties, violations, or breaches applied
[…] What happens if I exceed the cap? Example:
Account size: $100,000
Profit made during news: $1,000
0.5% cap → You receive $500
The remaining profit is removed”
What a winning day does to the 2-Step Standard floor
On a $100,000 2-Step Standard, the total floor stays at $92,000. The daily floor does not: close a day at $108,000 and the next day’s floor is $102,600, above your starting balance.
The clause that says where a dispute is heard was never filled in
Clause 14.1 of the Terms served at the order gate on 27 August 2026 is headed Litigation and sends any claim to a forum the document never names. The placeholder from the template it was drafted from was in the live text that day:
“You acknowledge and agree that any controversy or claim arising out of or related to this Agreement, including any claim or controversy concerning interpretation of this Agreement or your use of this Services, will be settled by [YOUR CHOSEN FORUM AND VENUE].”
A second, fully drafted Terms document at /legal/terms-and-conditions sends disputes to arbitration at DIAC in Dubai, before a single arbitrator and with a class-action waiver, so a buyer is not without a route. It is a different document, not another clause of the same one, and nothing AquaFunded publishes settles which of the two governs. On 3 September 2026 the tick-box on the public checkout resolved to that DIAC document, which carries no placeholder.
A chargeback costs more than the payment
Asking your bank to reverse the fee does not simply undo the purchase. The Refund Policy lets AquaFunded take back every payout it has already made you and charge you its legal costs, and it applies whether the chargeback succeeds or not:
“If trader makes a chargeback claim, Aqua Funded shall be entitled to recover from trader any amounts paid by Aqua Funded to trader… including but not limited to any and all profit split payments. If trader makes a chargeback claim whether successful or not, trader expressly agrees to pay for all costs incurred by Aqua Funded… including but not limited to all legal fees.”
The same policy is where the refund promise lives. The evaluation fee comes back on your fourth profit split and not before, and once your login details have been emailed there is no refund at all:
“Once a purchase has been made and the evaluation credentials have been emailed to the customer, no refunds under any circumstances will be accepted. Customers have the ability to “try before you buy” as noted above and can clearly have a full experience and know what to expect prior to purchasing a trading challenge. All sales are final. […] you will receive a refund of the initial evaluation fee… upon traders fourth successful profit split payment. The traders evaluation fee will not be refunded until trader has reached the fourth profit split.”
The policy does not say what the trial is, and nothing above that sentence in the Refund Policy describes one. AquaFunded does sell a product called Try Aqua: a $5,000 instant account for $10 that skips the evaluation, expires 30 days after your first trade, caps total withdrawals at $100 and is limited to one per person. It has its own checkout, separate from the challenges, offers MetaTrader 5, TradeLocker or Match-Trader, and refuses AquaFunded’s current discount codes. Whether or not that is the trial the policy means, it lets you try the platform, not the evaluation this no-refund rule applies to.
What AquaFunded says
Right of reply: no response. Seven critical findings in this review come from AquaFunded’s own documents. All seven went to the firm on 6 September 2026, and none had been answered when the window closed on 20 September. Any reply AquaFunded sends will be published here unaltered.
AquaFunded has not addressed our findings that the dispute clause in the agreement a buyer ticks at checkout is an unfilled template; that the agreement governing the funded stage is published nowhere before purchase; that its refundable-fee badge means a refund only on a fourth payout, and that disputing a charge can make every past payout recoverable; that profit made in a news window above 0.5% of the starting balance is deleted; that its no-denials badge sits above rules that allow a payout to be denied when the firm identifies prohibited trading; and that 127 help-center articles are binding terms it can rewrite without notice. Those points remain unanswered.
Getting paid: how does AquaFunded pay out?
The payout rules depend on which catalog you trade. The table shows the main differences.
| CFD accounts | Futures accounts | |
|---|---|---|
| Split | 90%, or 100% with an add-on | 90% |
| Minimum | $100 | $500 |
| First payout | 14 days after the first trade | Depends on the model |
| Later payouts | Every 14 days | On demand, daily, or after 5 winning days |
- CFD payouts need a balance above the start, no rule breaks, and all trades closed. Crypto is available under $5,000, and Rise from $500.
- Futures payouts lock the floor at the starting balance plus $100. Standard and Daily accounts pay once the balance clears a buffer of $52,100, $103,600 or $155,100 by size, and each Daily request is capped at $1,100, $2,200 or $3,300. Flex pays after 5 winning days of $200, $250 or $300 each, up to half the profit.
- AquaFunded promises to process a payout within 24 business hours or pay $1,000 extra, counting Dubai business days. The clock covers processing, not arrival.
- Scaling on CFD accounts adds 25% of the starting balance for each 12% gain in three months, up to $4,000,000.
What can end your account
These rules can end an AquaFunded account. Each comes from AquaFunded’s own help centers and terms:
- Touching the daily or maximum loss on a CFD account, including open losses.
- A single trade floating 2% below the starting balance on an instant account, or 1% on $300,000 and $400,000 accounts.
- 7 days without a trade on futures, or 30 days on CFD accounts.
- Putting more than 80% of your margin into a single trade, which AquaFunded classes as gambling; it can deduct profits, reset the phase or breach the account.
- Fully automated or AI trading on futures.
Who can join
AquaFunded publishes separate country lists for CFDs and futures, and the futures list is much longer:
- CFD, excluded: Cuba, Iran, Syria, Vietnam, Kenya, Albania, Algeria, North Korea, Senegal, Myanmar, Russia, Belarus, Sudan, South Sudan, Venezuela, and the Crimea, Donetsk and Luhansk regions.
- CFD, instant models only, $50,000 cap: Thailand, Brazil, Bulgaria, Japan, Jordan, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines.
- Futures, excluded: 70 countries and the Crimea region, including China, Hong Kong, Croatia, Iceland, Romania, Turkey, Ukraine, South Africa and Qatar.
Who you are dealing with
Three companies carry AquaFunded’s business. The table shows what its documents state.
| Role | Company | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Terms are entered with | Aqua Funded FZCO | Dubai Silicon Oasis, UAE |
| Simulated trading service | AquaFunded LTD | Saint Lucia |
| Payments at checkout | ODEONPAY ALE S.R.L., trading as Paysagi | Named at checkout |
- The published Terms send disputes to arbitration at DIAC, the Dubai arbitration center, with a class-action waiver. A second Terms document, served at the order gate, names no forum.
- The funded-stage agreement is not published before purchase; it is signed after passing.
- Liability is capped at the lesser of what you paid and $1,000.
The footer names the company that actually provides the service, and it is not the one the Terms are with:
AquaFunded LTD, a Saint Lucia Corporation, located at The Sotheby Building, Ground Floor, Rodney Village, Rodney Bay, Gros-Islet, SW18 1TA, St. Lucia, with company number 2004-00597, provides the simulated trading services advertised on www.aquafunded.com.
A claim about a withheld payout is against a Saint Lucia corporation, the terms you accepted are with a Dubai company, and neither is the merchant of record on your card statement.
Clause 12.1 sets what any of that is worth, in capitals:
YOU ACKNOWLEDGE THAT YOUR USE OF THE SERVICES AND/OR THE COMPANY WEBSITE IS AT YOUR SOLE RISK AND THAT THE COMPANY’S LIABILITY IS LIMITED TO THE AMOUNT THAT YOU PAID TO USE THE SERVICES OR $1,000, WHICHEVER IS LESS.
Whichever is less. A trader who buys a multi-account bundle for several thousand dollars can recover at most $1,000 under any theory of liability.
- No chief executive is named.
On 27 August 2026, Trustpilot published no rating for AquaFunded, alongside 1,194 reviews. Trustpilot has withheld the score, saying the firm breached its guidelines. The star distribution showed 48% at five stars against 37% at one.
Why this grade
AquaFunded’s prices and its trading limits are among the better things it offers. Nearly everything written around them is what drags its grade down.
Its no-denials badge sits above rules that let AquaFutures deny a payout when it identifies prohibited trading. Profit made inside a news window above 0.5% of your starting balance is removed from the account, and that removal is not treated as a breach, so it does not even register as one. The rules you are held to can change between your purchase and your payout, on a page with no changelog, and continuing to trade counts as accepting them.
Getting your money back is worse. There is no refund: the fee returns on your fourth successful payout or not at all, and it is forfeited entirely if the account breaches first. If you raise a billing dispute with your bank, the firm can claim back every payout it has already made you plus its legal costs, with no condition on whether the dispute succeeds. If you then wanted to sue, two contracts name two different forums and one names none, so which applies is unsettled on the firm’s own documents, and the company you would be suing is a Saint Lucia corporation rather than the Dubai company whose terms you accepted.
The two product lines also behave differently and the site does not stress it. On the CFD side the maximum loss trails on four of the seven models and is fixed to the starting balance on three. On the futures side everything is measured end of day, so an intraday dip does not breach you, but seven days without a trade closes the account for good rather than flagging it.
Its futures payout terms are unusually specific, down to a per-request cap at every model and account size, and a 3% processing fee taken from each request, the figure its help center carried on 15 September 2026. CFD payouts carry a 2% fee instead. What none of that shows is whether a payout arrives, and no one has followed one through.
Payout reliability and support responsiveness are both unscored until each one is tested. Its evidence comes from the CFD accounts; the futures products have not contributed to it.
AquaFunded · what the record shows before you start
From the facts we hold for AquaFunded: the published profit split reaches 100%, payouts are requestable on demand, entry starts at $20, 55 trading rules are on record. This summary is assembled from the canonical record, not from the firm's marketing.
Read the full summary
The current grade is C- (preliminary) under methodology firm-grade-v1.1.0. Preliminary means the letter rests on what we have read so far and no payout has been tested yet, so it can move as verification completes.
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Our verdict
AquaFunded offers a wide choice of CFD and futures models, but its refund is a fourth-payout rebate, a 2% open loss closes every trade on most funded CFD accounts, a 2% floating loss ends an instant account, and news profits are capped.
Best for
- Traders who want to pick a model with the exact drawdown basis they need.
- Futures traders who want end-of-day drawdown and daily payouts.
- CFD traders who hedge within one account or trade without a stop loss.
Avoid if
- You expect your fee back without four payouts.
- You hold large open losses on an instant account.
- You trade high-impact news for most of your profit.
Questions traders ask
Which company am I contracting with?
What is the daily loss limit?
Is the fee refundable?
Can I trade the news?
Why is the advertised price different at checkout?
Is there a Trustpilot score?
Facts checked: 4 September 2026. Coupon codes and the platform surcharge re-verified at the firm’s checkout on 4 September; the account-size price ladder was re-read in full on 4 September, when all sixty prices came back at 80% of the August set. No payout independently verified. Right of reply: seven critical findings were sent to AquaFunded on 6 September 2026; the window closed on 20 September with no answer.
