Apex Trader Funding account sizes & per-size rules

The full Apex Trader Funding size ladder

Prop pricing scales sub-linearly with account size — roughly the square root of the size ratio — so the biggest account is almost never the best value per dollar of usable buffer. Each line below shows the modelled list price, the first-phase profit target and the loss buffer expressed as a percentage of the account.

Read the buffer column first. On a trailing drawdown, the dollar buffer is the only number that limits your position size; the account label is marketing. A trader risking 1% per trade on the 150k account is taking the same dollar risk as one risking 6× that percentage on the smallest.

• 25k — $25 ($5 with the public code), 6% target = $1.5k, 4% buffer = $1k of loss room
• 50k — $35 ($7 with the public code), 6% target = $3k, 4% buffer = $2k of loss room
• 100k — $50 ($10 with the public code), 6% target = $6k, 4% buffer = $4k of loss room
• 150k — $65 ($13 with the public code), 6% target = $9k, 4% buffer = $6k of loss room

Which Apex Trader Funding size is actually the best value

Cost per dollar of loss buffer is the honest comparison. 25k costs 0.025 per dollar of buffer; 50k costs 0.018 per dollar of buffer; 100k costs 0.013 per dollar of buffer; 150k costs 0.011 per dollar of buffer. The cheapest ratio is where the firm is subsidising you the most, and it is usually a mid tier rather than the flagship.

The second filter is your own stop distance. Work out the worst-case dollar loss of a normal trade at your usual size, multiply by five consecutive losers, and buy the smallest account whose buffer absorbs that without breaching. Buying above that point is paying for headroom you will never trade into; buying below it guarantees a reset fee.

What the 25k and 50k tiers mean in practice

The small tiers are where most traders start and where most resets happen, because the dollar buffer is small enough that a single mis-sized position ends the account. On a futures account, one ES contract moves roughly $50 per point — on a 25k account with a few thousand dollars of buffer, a 20-point adverse move on two contracts is most of your room. Micros exist precisely for this tier.

The larger tiers change the psychology more than the maths. Same rules, same percentage targets, bigger dollar swings — which is why traders who pass consistently on a small account often breach the first week on a large one. Scale the account only after you have taken at least two payouts at the size below.

• Intraday trailing drawdown: The threshold trails your peak unrealised equity, not your closed balance, and it stops trailing only once it reaches your starting balance plus a small buffer. Scaling out of winners and letting runners breathe are both penalised here.
• 30% consistency rule on payouts: No single trading day may represent more than 30% of total profit in the payout window. One outsized session forces you to keep trading smaller days before you can withdraw — plan the withdrawal, don't just chase profit.
• Half-size and contract limits after payout: Apex restricts contract sizing on funded accounts until safety-net thresholds are met, and the rules differ between the Static and standard plans. Read the plan page for the specific account you bought.

Rules that stay the same at every size

Firms rarely vary the rulebook by account size — they vary the dollar limits. On Apex Trader Funding the constants are the intraday trailing drawdown, the 100% profit split, the twice per month payout window and the consistency position (30% consistency on payouts).

• News trading: allowed — No news restriction on evaluation or funded accounts.
• EAs: conditionally allowed — Automation is allowed within limits, but fully hands-off high-frequency systems and one-sided strategies breach the trading-style rules.
• Weekend holding: not permitted — Flat by Friday close on all account types.
• Time limit: none — No deadline; the evaluation runs on a monthly subscription.

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