The LSE Directory / Prop firms
Topstep is a Chicago based proprietary trading firm for retail futures traders. Its core product is the Trading Combine, a paid monthly simulated-market evaluation in which a trader must hit a profit target while respecting a maximum loss limit and a trailing drawdown; traders who pass are advanced to an Express Funded Account, a still-simulated account that pays out real cash on winning performance, and top performers there are called up to a Live Funded Account trading Topstep proprietary capital, with balances scaling up to 150,000 dollars in buying power. Funded traders keep 90 percent of the profits they generate. Trading is restricted to exchange-listed futures contracts on CME, COMEX, NYMEX and CBOT, accessed through Topstep's own TopstepX platform. Within the funded-account (prop firm) category, Topstep specialises exclusively in futures rather than the forex or CFD combines many competitors also offer, and it markets no minimum time requirement to pass a Combine, meaning a trader can qualify in as few as two days if targets are met. Its customer base is retail futures traders who want to trade with a firm capital allocation rather than risking their own money past the initial evaluation fee, which runs from roughly 49 to 199 dollars a month depending on account size and tier. In 2026 the company extended beyond evaluations into brokerage: Topstep Brokerage LLC operates as an introducing broker registered with the CFTC and holding NFA membership, letting funded traders move payouts earned on the prop side into a personal live futures account, a transfer mechanism the company describes as a first for the industry. The company was founded in Chicago in July 2012 as TopstepTrader by Michael Patak, a former floor trader at the Chicago Board of Trade, and rebranded to Topstep in 2020. It has since become one of the larger firms in the funded-futures-trader category, citing more than 1.4 billion dollars paid out to traders over its history and operations reaching traders in over 140 countries. In October 2025, London-listed Plus500 entered an exclusive partnership to supply clearing, order routing and risk infrastructure for Topstep Brokerage, giving Topstep traders access to live CME Group markets through Plus500 rails while Topstep itself remains the introducing broker of record. Topstep faced platform reliability criticism in late 2025, when outages on its TopstepX trading platform caused order execution failures and stop-loss malfunctions for some users, drawing negative reviews and complaints about compensation communication. The company has continued expanding its offering in 2026 alongside the brokerage launch, including a national advertising push during Super Bowl LX.
