Elite Trader Funding - Prop Firm Review

Pricing snapshot

Firm Overview

Elite Trader Funding (ETF) is a US futures prop firm, operating as Elite Trader Funding, LLC from Wilmington, Delaware, and trading since February 2022. It is not regulated, and says so directly in its terms: it is “not a broker-dealer, a commodity trading advisor, a futures commission merchant or a commodity pool operator”, and “not any kind of entity that is regulated by CFTC/NFA rules”.

To ETF’s credit, it is unusually candid about what it sells. Its own blog carries a post titled “Is Elite Trader Funding Sim-Funded?”, and answers it directly: “when you pass your evaluation at Elite Trader Funding, you’re placed into a sim-funded Elite account… the capital isn’t live market capital yet”, adding “we don’t pretend sim-funded is ‘real funded’“. The footer of every page says the same.

That candour is worth acknowledging, because plenty of firms in this sector are considerably less clear. It also means our earlier description of buying a live funded account was our error, not a claim ETF ever made.

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Three Stages, And Only Two Are Purchasable

• Evaluation - simulated. “A paid test in a simulated futures account… no real money at risk.”
• Elite Sim-Funded / Direct to Funded - still simulated. “You trade a simulated funded account, and ETF pays you real money from those sim gains.” The payouts are real; the capital is not.
• LIVE ELITE - real capital, and the only live stage. “LIVE ELITE is earned, not purchased… There is no checkout button for LIVE ELITE.”

The payouts from the simulated stage are genuine money, so this is not a criticism of the model - it is simply a description of it, and one traders should be clear on before buying.

The ,000 Cap And What Happens When You Reach It

This is the mechanic that most affects a trader who does well, and it deserves careful reading.

Sim payouts are capped at $25,000 in total, per trader, for life. Reaching that cap - or 5 payouts, or 50 active trading days, whichever comes first - moves you to LIVE ELITE, where the split becomes 80/20 and is uncapped.

The part to understand is what happens to your simulated balance at that point. From the terms:

“Upon conversion, all Elite Sim-Funded Accounts will be closed and no payouts from those accounts will be owed.”

And from the LIVE ELITE page: “your sim balance and sim earnings do not carry over.”

LIVE ELITE starting balances run $1,250 to $2,500 depending on the account you came from. So a trader with a large simulated balance who converts does not bring that balance with them. ETF also reserves the right to convert a trader “at any time, before, during, or after a payout request”.

Declining the move carries a cost as well: a fee of 5% of earnings up to $12,500 (2% above), and a two-year prohibition on using ETF’s services.

None of this is hidden - it is all in ETF’s published terms - but it is the single most consequential thing on the page for anyone who expects to be successful, and it deserves to be read before purchase rather than after.

The Weekly Trading Requirement

A rule that quietly ends accounts, and it is worth putting in bold:

“All traders are required to execute at least one valid trade per account every calendar week.” Failing to do so means: “Account Disabling: the account will be disabled, interpreted as voluntary abandonment. Profit Forfeiture: all accumulated profits or credits in the account will be forfeited.”

It applies even after a payout has been approved. There is also a separate 30-day login requirement. Both can be paused in advance via the self-serve trading-break form at etf.fund/trading-break, which is the sensible route if you are going on holiday. File it before the week is missed, not after.

Asked which rule most often ends an account at ETF, the firm named this one itself, and its own framing is worth quoting: the weekly trading requirement is “not a market rule at all”, and a single missed week closes the account and voids pending payouts “even for accounts otherwise in good standing”. Its advice is to trade at least once every calendar week without fail, and to file the break form in advance if you genuinely cannot. Among the market rules, ETF points to the intraday daily loss limit on End of Day accounts as the most common failure, and advises sizing so that an open trade can never touch it. Naming your own most common account-killer is not something every firm does, and it is to ETF’s credit here.

The Product Line

Six evaluation routes are on sale, plus Direct to Funded, which skips the evaluation entirely. Every one of them ends in an Elite Sim-Funded account, and every one of them is simulated.

Micro limits are ten times the mini limit on the evaluation plans; on Direct to Funded the relationship is one to one. Profit targets and exact drawdown amounts vary by account size, so check the firm’s pricing page. Fast Track targets $2,000 on a $500 floor; Diamond Hands targets $5,000. Direct to Funded floors are $1,500 on 10K, $5,000 on 50K and $5,000 static on 100K.

ETF defines the three models clearly on its own site, which is helpful: live trailing “follows your highest unrealised profit, including open positions”; end-of-day trailing “only ratchets up at the session close on realised profit”; static is “a fixed dollar floor set on day one that never trails”.

If you want a floor that does not move, take the Static plan or the 100K Direct to Funded. The 1-Step uses the harshest model, intraday trailing, and that should be a deliberate choice rather than a default.

How the floor is measured differs by plan, and it matters. The 1 Step trails your highest unrealised profit, so open positions move it. The Static plan is measured on balance. End of Day and Diamond Hands trail the highest end-of-day balance, but this is the detail worth reading twice: the daily loss limit is calculated from the previous day’s ending balance, and open-position losses count against both it and the maximum loss intraday. An open trade that touches either level fails the account before you ever close it.

The safety net, and the rule that undoes it

The safety net is genuinely useful. Once realised profit reaches your maximum drawdown plus $100, the drawdown locks permanently: the minimum allowed balance fixes at your starting balance plus $100 and stops trailing for good. On the End of Day and Diamond Hands plans the daily loss limit is removed at the same moment. That safety-net amount can never be withdrawn. Approved payouts are deducted from your balance, but the minimum allowed balance itself does not move when you withdraw.

Working in the other direction is the Loss Limit Rule, which is easy to miss. Once an account is up 20%, giving back more than 35% of accumulated profit removes it from the programme. So the further ahead you get, the more a drawdown costs you in absolute terms, and a strong run followed by a bad week can end an account that is still comfortably above its floor.

Fast Track is a different animal

Fast Track is the one plan that does not behave like the rest, and it is worth separating out. It is 10K only, targets $2,000 on a $500 floor, needs 3 trading days rather than 5, and carries a hard 10 calendar day limit after which it auto-fails. It cannot be reset and does not renew. It is excluded from the One Day to Pass and Double Down Deal add-ons, is ineligible for one-time activation, and is the only plan carrying an evaluation consistency rule: your best day must not exceed 40% of total profit to pass, and 30% consistency is required before each payout.

Fees and Payouts

Two separate charges apply, and they are easy to conflate. The evaluation bills as a subscription every 30 days until you pass. There is no time limit on the standard plans, and profit and drawdown carry over between renewals. Direct to Funded is the exception: a one-time fee with no subscription, and up to two resets per account.

Passing triggers a second charge, the Elite Sim-Funded activation fee, at $87 a month or a one-time lifetime activation of $177 to $307 depending on plan and size. Fast Track is ineligible for one-time activation and instead gets its first month free, then $87 a month. The Double Down Deal add-on can cut activation to as little as $47.

Resets work differently from how we previously described them. With an active subscription, a failed evaluation is reset automatically at no extra charge when the renewal payment processes. Resets outside that window are available at any time for a fee, and Fast Track cannot be reset at all. The billing point still stands: if you fail an account and do not want to continue, cancel the subscription or it keeps charging.

One newer cost to budget for: accounts selecting a Rithmic data feed pay a separate monthly connection cost, introduced on 28 January 2026, on top of any platform subscription. Platform costs are the trader’s responsibility.

Add-ons at checkout

Payouts

An important wrinkle on cycles: the full cycle maximum must be withdrawn before Active Trade Days start counting toward the next cycle. Anything left un-withdrawn stays in the balance under current rules. Legacy accounts are treated differently, and worse: End of Day type accounts bought before 17 September 2025, and Direct to Funded accounts bought before 26 January 2026, auto-advance once the next cycle’s days are met, and any un-withdrawn balance from the previous cycle is forfeited.

ETF publishes a payout log at elitetraderfunding.app/payouts. It did not supply monthly payout totals or counts for this review, so there are no verified figures to print here.

On refunds, the terms are clear: “all sales are final and, to the maximum extent permitted by law, are non-refundable.” A separate marketing page offers a “100% satisfaction guarantee”, a 7-day, first-purchase-only, fewer-than-5-trades window that is “voidable at our sole discretion”. Both are live; the terms are the binding document.

Trading Rules

• Instruments: US futures only, on CME, CBOT, COMEX and NYMEX. No forex, no equities, no options. Commissions are charged per side and vary by instrument, with the full table in the help centre.
• News trading: explicitly allowed. ETF “does not impose any restrictions or limitations on traders during major economic news events”, with no blackout windows. Genuinely unusual, and a real advantage for futures traders.
• Minimum trade duration: none. There is no minimum hold time. What does exist is a review process: accounts dominated by scratch or non-productive sessions over an extended period can be reviewed and closed.
• Consistency: the standard plans carry no evaluation consistency rule, but each Active Trade Day must clear a percentage of your best day, 23% on standard Elite accounts, and at withdrawal the balance must not be “inordinately derived” from a single day. Fast Track is stricter: best day under 40% of total profit to pass, and 30% consistency before each payout.
• Automation, EAs, AI and trade copiers: prohibited unless authorised in writing. ETF publishes an approved list in its trade-copier disclaimer; anything outside it is a breach.
• Trading for others: prohibited outright, whether remotely or in the same household. Same-household participation by two traders is not allowed at all, and one registered user account per person is the limit.
• Overnight and weekend holding: permitted only on Diamond Hands and Direct to Funded. Every other plan must be flat one minute before the close, in both the evaluation and funded stages, and failing to flatten terminates the account and forfeits profits. Futures carry no swap or rollover charge, but LIVE ELITE traders holding overnight are responsible for overnight margin.
• Inactivity: log in at least once every 30 days, and place at least one trade every 7 calendar days on any active account. A self-serve trading-break form at etf.fund/trading-break pauses both.
• Prohibited strategies: hedging against yourself in the same or correlated instruments, on one account or across several; arbitrage-based strategies; Martingale, DCA and other loss-chasing or exposure-escalating approaches; gambling-style trading; exceeding position limits; IP masking; and paid “pass or payout” services.
• Platforms: thirteen supported, covering Tradovate, TradingView, NinjaTrader, Rithmic (R|Trader), ATAS, Bookmap, EdgeProX, eSignal, Finamark, Investor/RT, MotiveWave, Quantower and Sierra Chart. Rithmic is the underlying feed for most of them, and platform subscriptions are the trader’s own cost.

Company Information

• Entity: Elite Trader Funding, LLC, 2810 N Church St, PMB 53832, Wilmington, Delaware 19802, USA. Trading since February 2022
• Regulation: none. The terms state ETF is not a broker-dealer, CTA, FCM or CPO, and is not regulated by CFTC or NFA rules. Live-market access under LIVE ELITE runs through ETF’s broker and FCM partners
• Account type: every purchasable account is simulated. LIVE ELITE uses real capital, is denominated in US dollars, is owned by ETF, and cannot be bought
• Account limits: up to 5 active Elite Sim-Funded accounts per trader, or up to 20 for evaluations bought before 17 September 2025, with the largest sim account at $250K. Direct to Funded is capped at 5 accounts. LIVE ELITE allocations are set at ETF’s discretion
• Disputes: Delaware law, with mandatory AAA arbitration seated in King County, Washington, and a class-action waiver
• Trustpilot: 3.8 out of 5 from around 1,110 reviews, with no consumer alert on the listing. Note that ETF’s own blog cites “a 3.9 rating from over 59,000 registered users”, where the 59,000 figure is its customer count, not its review count

Who Elite Trader Funding Actually Suits

For an active futures trader, there is a lot here. Thirteen platforms is among the widest choice we have seen. News trading is allowed without restriction, which is rare and valuable. Payouts run twice a week, resets are cheap and unlimited, a static-drawdown plan is available for those who want one, and the safety-net rule removes the drawdown entirely once you are properly ahead.

The considerations are about the shape of the model rather than its fairness. Everything you buy is simulated, and the firm says so. Sim payouts stop at $25,000 for life, and converting to live capital means starting again on $1,250 to $2,500 without your simulated balance. Missing a single week of trading can forfeit accumulated profit. And the flagship 1-Step plan trails intraday, which is the least forgiving drawdown model in futures.

Consider it if you trade futures actively every week, you want the platform range and unrestricted news trading, and you are taking the Static plan or have consciously chosen the intraday trail.

Avoid it if you cannot trade every calendar week, you were expecting to buy live capital, or you are planning to build a large simulated balance before withdrawing - the $25,000 cap and the conversion rule make that the wrong strategy here.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Elite Trader Funding sim-funded or live?

Every account you can buy is simulated. ETF states this plainly on its own blog: “when you pass your evaluation… you’re placed into a sim-funded Elite account… the capital isn’t live market capital yet.” The payouts are real money paid from those simulated gains. Real capital exists only at the LIVE ELITE stage, which “is earned, not purchased” and has no checkout button.

What is the $25,000 cap at Elite Trader Funding?

Simulated payouts are capped at $25,000 in total per trader, for life. Reaching it - or 5 payouts, or 50 active trading days, whichever comes first - converts you to LIVE ELITE at an 80/20 split. Importantly, the terms state that on conversion your sim accounts are closed and “no payouts from those accounts will be owed”, so the simulated balance does not carry over.

What happens if I miss a week of trading?

The account is disabled and any accumulated profits are forfeited. ETF requires “at least one valid trade per account every calendar week“, and the consequence is stated as voluntary abandonment. A separate 30-day login rule also applies. Both can be paused in advance using the firm’s trading-break form.

Does Elite Trader Funding have a trailing drawdown?

It depends on the plan, and ETF offers all three models. The 1-Step trails intraday, following your highest unrealised profit. The End of Day and Diamond Hands plans trail on realised profit at the session close. The Static plan does not trail at all, and neither does the 100K Direct to Funded.

Can you trade news at Elite Trader Funding?

Yes, without restriction. ETF states it “does not impose any restrictions or limitations on traders during major economic news events”. That is unusual in this sector and is a genuine point in the firm’s favour.

How much does Elite Trader Funding cost?

Funded accounts are $87 a month by default, or a one-time fee of $177 to $307 if you select that option at checkout. Evaluations are billed monthly, and resets are $47 and unlimited. If you fail an account and do not reset it, remember to cancel the subscription - billing continues otherwise.