The short answer
Top One Trader sells forex and CFD evaluations and instant accounts from a company registered in the Comoros. Its terms forbid “any negative reviews” on Google, Trustpilot, Reddit and other named sites. There are no refunds, and a chargeback the firm considers improper brings a permanent ban. Its cheapest route, Nova, costs $7 to start but charges an activation fee of up to $1,210 after you pass, a figure its own checkout puts at $1,247.
How it works
Top One Trader’s routes differ in how many steps they have and how the floor moves. The table shows the main rules for each.
| Route | Before funding | Profit target | Daily loss | Maximum loss |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1-Step FLASH | 1 step | 10% | 4% | 7%, trailing |
| 2-Step PRO | 2 steps | 8%, then 5% | 4% | 9% |
| 2-Step Plus | 2 steps | 10%, then 5% | 4% | 8% or 10%, static |
| Nova | 1 step | 5% | None, then 3% funded | 6%, then 5% funded, trailing |
| Instant Funding | None | None | 3% | 6%, trailing |
| Instant Prime | None | None | 2.5% | 5%, trailing |
- The 1-Step trailing limit follows your closing balance and locks at the starting balance once you are 7% up.
- 2-Step Plus shows two static figures, 8% and 10%, without saying which applies when.
- 1-Step FLASH needs 3 profitable days and 2-Step Plus 5 trading days. No route has a consistency rule except Instant (15%) and the Equity Stability Score of 20% on Prime and funded Nova.
- Nova has no time limit.
Here is how the 1-Step FLASH floor moves on a $100,000 account. It starts at $93,000, 7% below the starting balance. If the balance closes a day at $104,000, the floor rises to $97,000. Once a close reaches $107,000, the floor locks at $100,000 and stays there, however far the balance climbs after that.
How much does Top One Trader cost?
Prices for each route and size are in the price box on this page. Four things the box cannot show:
- Nova is paid in two parts: $7 to start, then $165 on a $25,000 account up to $1,210 on $300,000 once you pass.
- Common options are add-ons: trading without a stop loss (+10% of the fee), a 90/10 split (+20%) and weekly payouts (+20%), or all three for +35%.
- Weekend holding is an add-on on Instant and Prime accounts.
- The site advertises discount codes, so check the checkout total.
There are no refunds once you buy.
Nova’s activation fee rises with the account: $165 on $25,000, $275 on $50,000, $550 on $100,000, $880 on $200,000 and $1,210 on $300,000. The top figure is not settled: the homepage says $1,210 and the checkout catalogue says $1,247, and the firm does not reconcile the two. A funded $50,000 Nova therefore costs $282 before any add-on. The firm also advertises unlimited free resets on Nova.
Platforms and trading conditions
Top One Trader offers MetaTrader 5, Match-Trader and TradeLocker, but MetaTrader 5 is not available in the United States, North Korea or Iran.
- You trade CFDs, including forex and single-share equity CFDs.
- Leverage runs up to 100:1 on 2-Step PRO and on Nova’s first step, 50:1 on Instant and Prime, and 30:1 on 2-Step Plus and on funded Nova. 1-Step FLASH is 10:1, a tenth of what the two highest routes allow.
- A stop loss is required unless you buy the add-on. A trade without one is closed.
- News trading is allowed on challenges, but much larger positions around news are prohibited.
- Equity CFDs must be closed by 3:50 pm Eastern before an earnings release, or the account is breached.
The rules that matter
Top One Trader publishes its trading limits on its site. Four rules in its Terms decide what a trader can do and say.
No negative reviews
The Terms forbid “false, misleading, or disparaging statements”, then go further: traders must refrain from “publishing any negative reviews or posts on platforms such as Google, Trustpilot, Reddit, Twitter (X), Facebook”. A truthful negative review is covered. Breach is a material violation, and the clause says what follows from it: the agreement ends immediately, profits are forfeited, and the firm reserves legal action. It binds for two years after the agreement itself has ended.
The clause reads:
“The Trader agrees not to make, publish, or cause to be made or published, any false, misleading, or disparaging statements, reviews, comments, or posts regarding Company or Top One Trader, its affiliates, staff, contractors, or services, in any form of media, including but not limited to online reviews, social media platforms, forums, or any other publicly accessible communication channels. This includes but is not limited to, refraining from publishing any negative reviews or posts on platforms such as Google, Trustpilot, Reddit, Twitter (X), Facebook, or similar websites, which could harm the reputation, goodwill, or business interests of Company. […] Any breach of this anti-disparagement and conduct clause will be considered a material violation of this agreement and will result in immediate termination of the Trader’s agreement, forfeiture of profits, and/or legal action. This provision shall survive the termination or expiration of this agreement for a period of two (2) years.”
No refunds, and a ban for disputes
The Terms say there are no refunds because the service is delivered at purchase. Traders who “improperly dispute charges or request chargebacks” are permanently banned, and the Terms do not say what makes a dispute improper.
Both halves are in the firm’s own policies:
“You pay a one-time fee for an attempt at the Trading Challenge. The provision of this Challenge is a service. Since services are being rendered instantaneously upon purchase, there are no refunds. All transactions made are final. […] Clients who improperly dispute charges or request chargebacks with their bank will be permanently banned from the Platform.”
EAs, signals and IP addresses
Commercially available EAs are banned, with account closure and loss of gains. Your strategy must be unique to you, so following a signal service others follow is a breach. The Terms also prohibit using more than one IP address on your account.
The prohibited-trading section covers the tool and the strategy behind it:
“Using any type of commercially available EA with automated trading strategies is strictly forbidden. Masking of EAs is forbidden. Any violations of these rules will result in the immediate closing of your account and the forfeiture of any gains. Following signal programs where multiple traders are executing the same trades, within similar timeframes, is prohibited. Traders on our platform must be trading with a strategy that is unique to each individual trader. Using multiple ip addresses on your account, or using the same IP address as other accounts not owned by you.”
What Nova costs on a $100,000 account
You pay $7 and must make $5,000 without losing $6,000 from your peak. Pass, and a $550 activation fee is due before the funded account opens, where the daily limit is $3,000 and the trailing limit $5,000.
What Top One Trader says
Right of reply: nothing back. One critical finding, drawn from Top One Trader’s own Terms, was sent to the firm on 6 September 2026. The reply window closed on 20 September with no response. A later reply from Top One Trader will be quoted here in the firm’s own words.
Top One Trader has not addressed our finding that its terms forbid any negative review on Google, Trustpilot, Reddit, Twitter or Facebook, with breach a material violation of the trader’s agreement. That point remains unanswered.
Getting paid: how does Top One Trader pay out?
Top One Trader pays up to 90% on 1-Step FLASH, 2-Step Plus and Instant, and up to 100% on 2-Step PRO, Prime and Nova. The FAQ sets out the rules for 1-Step FLASH and 2-Step PRO:
- The first payout comes 14 days after you receive the funded account.
- Later payouts come every 14 days, or weekly with the add-on.
- The minimum payout is 2% of the starting balance, so $1,000 on a $50,000 account.
- Instant and Prime accounts may follow different timelines, which the site does not set out.
The 2% minimum decides when a first payout is possible. On a $100,000 2-Step PRO account the minimum is $2,000, so a trader who has made $1,500 by day 14 cannot request a payout yet. The homepage advertises 30-minute average payouts and more than $5,000,000 paid to traders. Those are the firm’s own figures. The schedule a trader can plan around is the one above: 14 days from funding, then every 14 days unless you buy weekly payouts.
What can end your account
These rules can end a Top One Trader account. Each comes from its own site and Terms:
- Touching the daily or maximum loss limit.
- Using a commercial EA or following a shared signal.
- Holding an equity CFD into an earnings release.
- Very large positions around news, or other “gambling behavior”.
- Using multiple IP addresses, or sharing one with other traders.
- A negative review on a named platform, or an improper chargeback.
Two of these rules work differently from a plain breach. A trade opened without a stop loss is closed by the firm, and the FAQ says that closure is not a rule violation. The earnings rule is the opposite: an equity CFD still open at 3:50 pm Eastern before an earnings release is a hard breach, and the profit or loss on that trade is removed. Weekend holding is allowed on 1-Step FLASH; on Instant and Prime accounts it needs an add-on.
Who can join
Top One Trader does not publish a full restricted-country list. The limits it does state are these:
- MetaTrader 5 is not offered in the United States, North Korea, Iran or wherever local law forbids it.
- One IP address per account, not shared with other traders.
- Each trader’s strategy must be their own, not copied from a shared signal.
Two details in how that first restriction is written matter more than the three countries in it. The Terms say the platform is unavailable in certain jurisdictions “including, but not limited to” the ones they name, so those three are examples rather than the list, and a trader outside them cannot read the clause as permission. And the sentence restricts the MetaTrader 5 platform rather than Top One Trader’s services in general. The firm also sells Match-Trader and TradeLocker, and the Terms do not say whether the same jurisdictions are closed on those.
Who you are dealing with
Top One Trader names its company and founders. The table shows what its site states.
| Detail | What Top One Trader’s site states |
|---|---|
| Company | Top One Trader, LLC |
| Registered office | Hamchako, Mutsamudu, Anjouan, Union of Comoros |
| License shown | International Brokerage and Clearing House License L15829/TOT |
| US address | 30 N Gould St, Sheridan, Wyoming |
| Founders named | Four: Clay Hodges, Matt Morris, Todd Hodges and Brycen Coffman |
- Accounts are simulated, and the Terms say no live trading is provided directly by the company.
- Top One Futures is a separate company, not a second product line from this one. Its link sits in Top One Trader’s own navigation, but it leads to a different LLC registered in Cheyenne, Wyoming, with its own terms, logins, checkout, support and help center. Nothing in this review covers it, and passing a Top One Trader challenge gives you nothing there.
Two of the four founders are titled Chief Executive Officer. Top One Trader’s About page gives Matt Morris and Brycen Coffman the same title, each under their own photograph and biography, alongside Clay Hodges as Chief Trading Officer and Todd Hodges as Chief Operations Officer. Most firms name one. Nothing on the page says how the role is split, which of the two signs for the company, or which one a trader would be dealing with in a dispute. The same page gives no founding year, and the firm states one nowhere on its site.
On 27 August 2026, Trustpilot published no rating for Top One Trader. The profile showed an 83% five-star share, but that share is a weak signal here, because this firm’s contract prohibits its traders from publishing negative reviews and names Trustpilot among the covered platforms. Sentiment collected under a contractual prohibition on negative reviews is not measuring the same thing as sentiment collected without one. The percentage is not evidence of satisfaction here, and we will not present it as such.
Trustpilot says why it is not publishing one. The profile carries a warning badge reading “This company’s rating is unavailable due to a breach of our guidelines”, and a separate panel headed “Breach of guidelines” reading “We’ve removed a number of fake reviews for this company”.
Those two facts sit on top of each other and have to be read together. The contract forbids a trader from publishing a negative review and names that site as one of the venues it covers. The site has separately removed reviews it judged fake from the same profile and has stopped publishing a score. We are not saying either caused the other, and nothing we hold would support that. What does follow is narrower and still worth knowing before you buy: the only public sentiment figure left on that profile is a star distribution gathered under a contract that bars one side of it, on a profile its own platform has flagged.
Why this grade
Top One Trader’s contract forbids you from leaving a negative review, and names the sites where you must not leave one. That is the heaviest thing against it.
The clause opens by prohibiting false or misleading statements, then drops the qualifiers and prohibits any negative review or post on Google, Trustpilot, Reddit, Twitter and Facebook. A truthful one is caught. Breach is a material violation of your agreement.
There is no refund, on the reasoning that the service is delivered the moment you buy. If you dispute the charge with your bank and the firm judges the dispute improper, you are permanently banned, and nothing defines what improper means. Using a commercially available expert advisor, or following a signal service other traders follow, closes the account and forfeits everything it made.
Two of the six things weighed here are unscored, and neither is the firm’s doing. Whether Top One Trader pays is the largest single part of our grade, and it is unscored because no payout has been followed from purchase to bank. Support responsiveness is unscored for the same reason. Neither test has been run, on this firm or on any other, so the letter rests on what its documents say rather than on how it behaves.
Top One Trader · what the record shows before you start
From the facts we hold for Top One Trader: the published profit split reaches 90%, entry starts at $7, 73 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
Top One Trader publishes clear rules for every route and names its founders, but a ban on negative reviews, no refunds and a Comoros company limit what a trader can rely on.
Best for
- Traders who want a choice of six routes, from $7 to instant funding.
- 2-Step PRO traders who want no consistency rule.
- Traders who price in the add-ons before buying.
Avoid if
- You want to be able to post a critical review on Google or Reddit without breaching your agreement.
- You may need a refund or a card dispute.
- You run a commercial EA or follow a signal service.
Questions traders ask
Which company am I contracting with?
Is this real trading?
Can I get a refund or dispute a charge?
Why is the Trustpilot rating missing?
What is Nova?
Facts checked: 15 September 2026, against Top One Trader’s website and Terms. No payout independently verified. Right of reply: one critical finding, put to Top One Trader on 6 September 2026, unanswered by the 20 September deadline.
