Prop Firm Spreads and Commissions: What Firms Publish

Adrian Caldwell Founder & Head Trader, ITAfx

Do evaluation and funded accounts cost the same? The firms disagree, in writing

This is the hidden rule most traders find out about after they buy, one of several margin and cost details covered in margin requirements for prop firm accounts. There is no single answer, so the only reliable answer is the one on the fee page of the firm you are actually paying.

Topstep: a simulated $3.70/lot fee in the Combine, real exchange fees plus $133/exchange/month data once live-funded

Topstep's Help Center separates the two phases explicitly. In the Trading Combine, the evaluation, a flat simulated fee of $3.70 per lot is charged to emulate real-world costs. In the Live Funded Account, the trader is instead billed the actual exchange fees and commissions, plus a professional market-data fee of $133 per exchange per month, and is responsible for their own platform license cost (Topstep Help Center, retrieved 2026-07-30).

So for Topstep, the two phases are structurally different, not the same number carried forward. Worth noting alongside it: Topstep's separate per-contract fee schedule states that its round-turn commissions and fees apply identically across the Trading Combine, the Express Funded Account, and the Live Funded Account (Topstep Help Center, retrieved 2026-07-30). Both pages are the firm's own. If you are budgeting a Topstep evaluation, read both, and read the one that covers the phase and product you bought, alongside the general mechanics in what is a prop firm and how does it work.

FundedNext: one unified commission structure across Stellar Challenges and funded accounts, effective 12/01/2026

FundedNext takes the mirror-image position. Effective 12/01/2026, the firm states that its latest commission structure applies to all FundedNext models, including all Stellar Challenges and FundedNext Accounts (FundedNext Help Center, retrieved 2026-07-30). One structure, both phases. If that holds, the per-lot cost you model during the challenge is the cost you carry after it. For a broader side-by-side of how FundedNext stacks up against another firm's terms, see FundedNext vs ITAfx: detailed comparison.

FTMO: a dated rate change applied across all account types, with no phase carve-out

FTMO's trading update for 25 September 2025 announced that from the market open on Monday, 29 September 2025, it would adjust spreads and commission rates across all accounts, moving forex from $1.50 per lot per side to $2.50 per lot per side, including exotics, with no distinction drawn between Challenge, Verification, or funded status (FTMO.com, retrieved 2026-07-30).

Note what that announcement also proves: rates move, and they move on a dated line. A comparison table published before 29 September 2025 was wrong the next morning.

How to find your own firm's answer instead of trusting a comparison table

Search the firm's help center, not its landing page, for the words "commission" and "fees." Then check three things: which product the page names, which phase it names, and whether it carries an effective date. If the page names a product you did not buy, it is not your page. If it names no phase at all, treat that as the firm saying "both," and keep the page as your record.

Raw spread plus commission vs an all-in marked-up spread: what you are actually paying

Two ways a firm can price the same trade

A firm can charge you in two places. It can pass through a raw spread, the narrow gap between bid and ask before any markup, and then charge a separate commission per lot traded. Or it can widen the spread itself and advertise no commission, an all-in spread. Same trade, same firm, two different-looking invoices.

Neither structure is inherently cheaper. Your total cost is spread plus commission, and a firm that removes one line has to be judged on what happened to the other.

Why a "zero commission" line is not the same as a lower total cost

A commission is visible: it is a number on a page you can read before you buy. A widened spread is not; it is embedded in the fill price you get. That asymmetry is the whole reason "zero commission" reads as generous. Compare structures only when you can see both halves, and treat the commission column as the half you can actually verify.

The other cost that sits in the fill price rather than on the fee page is slippage on entry and exit, which is worth understanding separately from commission.

Where indices break the pattern: commission-free at both FTMO and FundedNext

On indices, the commission line genuinely goes to zero at two of the three firms here. FTMO states that trading simulated indices on its platform is completely commission-free, and that the zero-commission treatment applies to all index symbols on the platform, not one promotional instrument (FTMO.com, retrieved 2026-07-30). FundedNext's Stellar Instant Account likewise carries no commission on indices (FundedNext Help Center, retrieved 2026-07-30).

That does not make index trading free. It moves the entire cost into the spread, where you cannot audit it from a help page.

The published per-lot and per-contract numbers, in one table

Units differ between rows and are not interchangeable. Per lot per side is charged twice on a round trip. Per lot is charged as published. Per contract round turn already includes both sides. Reading a per-side number as round-turn understates your cost by half. Getting position sizing right against these costs is the subject of a prop firm lot size calculator.

Read across the unit column before comparing any two rows — a per-side rate and a round-turn rate are not directly comparable.

How per-lot cost changes your odds of passing an evaluation

Cost as a fixed add-on to the profit target, not a rounding error

A profit target is a gross number you must reach net of costs. Every lot you trade adds a known amount to the distance. Take FTMO's published forex rate: at $2.50 per lot per side, a one-lot round trip costs $5.00 in commission alone before the market has moved at all (FTMO.com, retrieved 2026-07-30). That arithmetic is a worked example from the published rate, not a measured pass rate, and it says nothing about whether any particular trader passes. For the broader mechanics of clearing a challenge, see how to pass a prop firm challenge on first try.

Run the same arithmetic against FundedNext's published $7 per lot for forex on the funded Stellar Instant Account, where the firm states commission is charged only when the trade is opened and not when it is closed, and a one-lot round trip costs $7.00 rather than double it (FundedNext Help Center, retrieved 2026-07-30). The point is not which firm wins. The point is that this is a number you can calculate before you buy, from a page the firm publishes, and most traders do not.

Why the effect scales with trade frequency, not account size

Commission is charged per lot or per contract, so it scales with how much you trade, not with the size of the simulated account you were granted. A scalper taking forty round trips a week pays roughly forty times the commission of someone taking one, on identical account sizes and identical published rates. The profit target, meanwhile, scales with account size. Those two things scaling on different axes is why high-frequency approaches carry a cost burden that a headline rate hides, a pattern also explored in terms of risk in overtrading in funded accounts: how many trades per day is too many.

Sizing is the lever that keeps this manageable, and it is covered properly elsewhere rather than re-taught here.

Small per trade, cumulative over an evaluation

The per-trade figure is the least interesting part of it. At Topstep's published ES round turn of $3.78, forty round turns cost $151.20 in commission and fees before the market has moved, computed from the firm's own fee schedule (Topstep Help Center, retrieved 2026-07-30). That is the line that lands on your profit target.

Questions to ask before you buy, and where the answers live

The five things a firm's own fee page must state

1. The instrument class, because forex, indices, commodities and futures are priced separately at every firm above.
2. The unit, spelled out: per lot per side, per lot, or per contract round turn.
3. The phase, named as a product: challenge, evaluation, express funded, live funded.
4. An effective date.
5. Whether data, platform and exchange fees are included or billed separately.

If a page is missing any of the five, you do not have a price. You have a headline.

Data, platform and exchange fees are separate from commission

Topstep's Live Funded Account is the clearest published example of why point five exists: alongside actual exchange fees and commissions, the trader pays a $133 per exchange, per month professional market-data fee and their own platform license cost, whereas in the Trading Combine Topstep covers platform fees for many supported platforms (Topstep Help Center, retrieved 2026-07-30). A commission-only comparison would have missed all of that.

Why a dated effective-date line matters more than a headline rate

FTMO's forex rate moved from $1.50 to $2.50 per lot per side on a single dated Monday (FTMO.com, retrieved 2026-07-30). FundedNext's unified structure carries its own effective date of 12/01/2026 (FundedNext Help Center, retrieved 2026-07-30). A rate without a date is not verifiable, and a table that quotes a rate without its date is telling you what was true on an unknown day.

ITAfx runs on simulated capital throughout the evaluation and funded stages, and we publish our own cost terms on itafx.com rather than restating a pricing table here that a dated update could make wrong.

Adrian Caldwell

Adrian Caldwell is the founder and head trader at ITAfx (Institutional Trading Academy). He writes on prop-firm trading, funded-account strategy, technical analysis and trading psychology.