The entry fee is the most scrutinised number on any prop firm's site and the most frequently misread. It is not the price of a funded account and it is not a subscription. On the Prime plans it even comes back; on Edge it is the price of the attempt.
One-off, not recurring
A single payment buys a single attempt. There is no monthly charge for the account itself, no data fee on the CFD line, and no renewal when a calendar month turns — which follows from there being no time limit for a renewal to be measured against. On the futures line, market data is included for the first 30 days of each new account; after that it is $35 for 30 days, paid only while you keep trading.
That structure is worth checking wherever you shop. A cheap headline fee attached to a monthly charge is a materially different product from a larger one-off, and the difference compounds for exactly the traders who take their time.
When the fee comes back
On Prime 1 Step and Prime 2 Step the fee is refunded in full once the account is funded and in profit after 30 days. On Edge it is not refunded: a successful evaluation costs you the fee and your time, and an unsuccessful one costs you the fee, which is the risk you are actually taking when you buy.
Pricing an attempt honestly
The number to reason about is not the fee. It is the fee divided by your realistic probability of passing.
If a $200 evaluation is one you would clear one time in three, the expected cost of getting funded through it is nearer $600. That is not an argument against buying it; it is an argument for knowing which number you are comparing when you look at two firms, or at two sizes on the same board.
The number to compare is not the fee. It is the fee divided by your honest chance of passing.
Where the fee should not drive the decision
- Account size. Buying a larger account because the fee-per-dollar-of-capital looks better is optimising the wrong variable — the size that suits your trading is the one to buy.
- Step count. The cheaper multi-step plans are a different test, not a discount on the same one.
- Timing. There is no deadline, so there is no advantage to buying before you are ready to trade the account properly.
Every price on the board is published beside the list price, per size, before anything is bought. Compare the rules across the row first and let the fee break the tie, rather than the other way round.