Apex Funding – A Prop Firm Deep Dive

To Apex, Or Not To Apex? That is the question.

You might have heard of Apex Funding, it’s a prop firm that focuses on Futures trading and they’ve exploded into popularity since around Jan 2023. They regularly offer huge discounts – 80% or 90% off – on their initial evaluation fees, so I wanted to take a good look at the pricing and rules. Are these discounts as good as they seem? Let’s take a look.

I just missed their last 80% off deal, I took a look on their website and frankly found it awful. Maybe I’m stupid, but there didn’t seem to be much clarity around pricing and rules. So I shelved it because I was too busy to scroll through multiple pages just to find the basics that should be on the homepage. But I made a note that the next time a big offer came along, I would take the time to figure it out and see if it’s worth my time and money. Now they are offering a 90% off deal, so here we are.

Apex Funding Costs

Apex Funding offers many different packages. Probably too many, it clutters the homepage. So as an example I’ve made the following image based on the “Rithmic $50k Full” package, which offers $2.5k trailing drawdown and a $3k profit target during the Eval.

_{^{Use Coupon: VYSTPOEM for a HUGE 90% off Evaluations}}

You start with a monthly fee to take your 1-Step Evaluation. If you fail, you can reset for $80 (this is the same fee no matter which size account). These 2 numbers are the bit you get very cheap with the big discounts.

But when you pass, you then have to pay a fee to gain access to the Funded Account. This fee is either a monthly fee or you can pay a lifetime fee. The lifetime fee is less than double the monthly fee, so if you’re confident you’re not going to blow up in the first month, you should probably take the lifetime fee.

Which Package?

Why did I use the Rithmic $50k Full account in the image above? Firstly, the Rithmic options are cheaper than the Tradovate options, so I’ve chosen Rithmic. 

Second, the packages are a little bizarre, but the best profit target:drawdown ratio comes with either the $25k or $50k account and the $50k account appears better value for money on the drawdown side. Most prop firms have a set ratio for their profit target and drawdown, eg. 10% Drawdown and 10% Profit Target, which applies to all account sizes. With Apex, every package has a different ratio, and the ratio gets worse the bigger the account gets;

• $100k account, $3k Trailing Drawdown vs $6k Profit Target
• $250k account, $6.5k Trailing Drawdown vs $15k Profit Target!

That’s obscene, and frankly makes no sense. The higher the profit target relative to the max drawdown, the more difficult the challenge. Ignore the size of the account, that’s just a marketing trick, what matters is the profit target and drawdown. Add the fact that this is a max equity-based Trailing Drawdown? The biggest packages here are designed to be failed. The odds are stacked heavily against the trader, even by prop firm standards. 

If you end up choosing Apex, $50k is the one to choose, and you can have up to 20 accounts, so just use as many $50k accounts as you need instead of taking the bigger packages, your odds of passing will be much higher so it will be a much better Expected Value proposition.

How does Trailing Drawdown work with Apex?

This is probably catches some people out.

The Trailing Drawdown is calculated as:

Max Account Drawdown = Highest Equity Achieved – Trailing Drawdown

What’s so bad about that? Well imagine you have a $50k account with $2.5k trailing drawdown. You have a great trade, your equity mid-trade reaches $52k. Now your trailing drawdown moves up to $49.5k (52k – 2.5k). If the market pulls back and you exit the trade at $51k, you’ve made $1k profit but your trailing drawdown stays at $49.5k, just $1.5k away. Drop below that level and you lose the account.

The trailing drawdown chases you like the T1000 in Terminator. You make any progress and he makes equal progress. You take any drawdown at all from the tippy top of your mid-trade equity curve, he gets a little closer.

The good thing here is the trailing drawdown STOPS TRAILING after a certain point

The good thing here is the trailing drawdown STOPS TRAILING after a certain point once you’re funded. That point is the starting balance + $100. So with a funded $50k account, if your equity ever reaches $52.6k, the trailing drawdown will reach $50.1k, and any gain you make on top of that won’t increase the trailing drawdown

My biggest issue with Apex is that when you withdraw, your trailing drawdown DOES NOT RESET.

Read that again. When you withdraw, your trailing drawdown stays right where it is. So whatever you withdraw, you’re eating into your own drawdown.

Let’s say you manage to make $2.5k to be eligible for the minimum withdrawal. Your equity high reached $52.6k, bringing your trailing drawdown to the maximum point of $50.1k. You can now withdraw $2k max. If you choose to withdraw the maximum $2k, bringing your balance to $50.5k, your trailing drawdown stays at $50.1k, so you’re left with a measly $400 drawdown! 

I’ll talk about this more later.

Apex Payout Rules

If you become eligible for a payout, all payouts can be withdrawn via Deel, which is becoming the industry standard.

You will get 100% of your profits for the first $25k profit, and 90% thereafter.

You can receive payments twice per month, they must be requested within 2 specific time windows: 

10 active trading days are required between requests.

There is a minimum balance required to make a withdrawal, and a maximum withdrawal amount for the first 3 months:

Apex Challenge in Perspective

Now, the 80% or 90% deals make the initial fee tiny, so essentially you get a very cheap chance to pass. But what that very low fee and passing buys you is an option, to then pay for the funded account, for either $85/month or the lifetime fee which obviously scales with the account size.

Here’s the thing – this is being marketed as a 1 Stage Evaluation style account. I think you’re better off thinking about it as a 2 Stage Eval account, because

1. The minimum balance to withdraw. You need to gain the equivalent of 100% of the drawdown in order to reach the min withdrawal level – this is like passing a Stage 2.
2. Once you reach the withdrawal point, you have also reached the limit at which the trailing drawdown stops trailing. 
3. The trailing drawdown does NOT reset after withdrawing.

So once you’re past the minimum withdrawal point, this is where it turns into a “Normal” funded account, just with an added option to “sell” some of your drawdown away. Effectively, reaching the minimum withdrawal is the equivalent of a stage 2, and frankly you’re better off NOT withdrawing at this point, as tempting as it might be. Withdrawing will eat into your available drawdown, whereas if you continue to trade the trailing drawdown stops. 

So if you accept the premise that the lead-up to the minimum withdrawal is the same as a Phase 2 Eval, we can actually compare this side by side with a regular funded account. I like MyForexFunds**, so I’ll use them as an example. Rather than posting both the Profit Target and Drawdown, I’ll post what’s important – the relative difference.

Account	Total Cost	Step 1 PT%	Step 2 PT%	Funded Drawdown
Apex
Rithmic $50k (90% Discount)	$307 ($144)	120%	100%	$2.5k
MyForexFunds
$20k Account	$139	66%	42%	$2.4k

Do you smell what I’m farting? If we treat Apex like a 2 stage Eval process, we end up with basically the same drawdown as you would get from a $20k MyForexFunds challenge. But the requirements to reach that stage are more difficult when looking at profit targets relative to drawdown.

With a 90% discount off the initial price, the price is comparable to the MFF account with the closest drawdown.

BUT. And it’s a big “BUT”. With Apex the risk is front-loaded in the evaluation, which is the extremely cheap part if you get the 80%+ discount.

Is Apex Worth It?

At 90% discount, yes. At full price or the “regular” 50% off deal, no.

with the huge discount on the initial evaluation, and the right mindset … This is actually a really nice deal.

My statements above might be controversial. Not everyone will agree that the Stage 2 comparison is fair. There is certainly added value in being able to withdraw once you hit the minimum withdrawal level, or as I term it “selling your drawdown”. However, I stand by my assertion that the better decision is to not withdraw at the minimum level. By not withdrawing at the minimum you retain your full drawdown and eliminate the trailing drawdown, giving you normal funded trading conditions.

The biggest advantage to Apex, is the huge discount on the front-end evaluation. With a “regular” 2 Stage funded account, you pay the money up front and can lose that much if you fail at the first stage. Apex allows you to pass or fail the first stage VERY cheaply while the 80% or 90% discount is available.

This would be like MyForexFunds offering to give you the first stage super cheap, and charging the bulk of the cost for the 2nd stage. That would obviously make the deal much more attractive, as you get the most difficult stage out of the way cheaply.

I can confidently say that at regular prices the Apex challenge is expensive and the rules are too harsh on the trader for me to use them. But with the huge discount on the initial evaluation, and the right mindset to treat this as a 2 Stage Evaluation and not sell your drawdown? This is actually a really nice deal.

Check out Apex Funding while their offer is on. ** Use COUPON: VYSTPOEM for 90% off.

** Using this link will help support this blog