What are the costs in the Funded Account®?

Once you have passed the Trading Combine®, your monthly subscription goes away and unfortunately there are no more resets. As a funded trader with Topstep, you will be responsible for the cost associated with running a Professional Trading Business as outlined below:  

• CME Professional Data Subscription
• Round Turn Commissions and Fees
• Platform License or Subscription

CME Professional Data Subscription:

To trade live with us you need to subscribe to Professional Data from the Exchanges.  Topstep collects these data fees monthly via credit card as the exchanges debit us directly. Please note that Topstep does not profit from these fees, we are simply passing along the cost from the exchange. 

Below is the cost per exchange along with corresponding contract symbols within each exchange: 

• NYMEX ($105) - CL, QM, NG, QG
• COMEX ($105) - GC, SI, HG
• CBOT ($105) - ZC, ZW, ZS, ZM, ZL, YM, MYM, ZT, ZF, ZN, ZB, UB, TN
• CME ($105) - ES, MES, NQ, MNQ, RTY, M2K, NKD, 6A, 6B, 6C, 6E, 6J, 6S, E7, HE, LE, GE 

In the Trading Combine®, you can trade all of our Permitted Products.  In the Funded Account®, you would need to subscribe to CME, CBOT, NYMEX, & COMEX to trade all of the Permitted Products, which would cost $420 per month. 

How can I reduce the cost of Data Fees? 

1. Subscribe to one exchange to start: A lot of our traders decide to focus on specific products and start their Funded Account® subscribing to one exchange to reduce the monthly cost to $105.  You can always add more data subscriptions as you build up your account. 
   
   
2. Start your Funded Account® on the 1st of the Month: The exchange does not pro-rate data fees.  In other words, you cannot pay for a partial month.  With that, a lot of traders choose to start their account on the 1st.  If reducing cost isn't an issue for you, that is ok and feel free to start mid-month.  If you would like to start on the 1st of the month to reduce these fees, please still make your initial data subscription payment. Your data subscription will not start immediately after your payment.  During your Funded Account® onboarding, you will be asked when you would prefer to start your account. 
   
   
3. Leverage the Pro Account: Reducing fees was one of our main goals when building out the Pro Account. If you are not yet familiar with the Pro Account or wondering if your preferred platform is supported, please check out the Pro Account FAQ.

Why are the Data Subscriptions cost so high with Topstep?

Whenever you are trading live capital with us you are considered a Professional Trader in the eyes of the Exchange and their fee structure is different for Professionals and Non-Professionals.  You can likely subscribe to cheaper data through your personal brokerage account because that account is classified as a Non-Professional. You will be classified as a Professional Trader whenever trading with us in the Funded Account.®

Check out the video below for a better explanation: 

Round Turn Commissions and Fees

These are the round turn cost you will incur in the Funded Account®, which is deducted from your brokerage account balance.  This works similarly to the $3.70 round turn fee per lot calculated in the Trading Combine® to emulate this professional trading cost. 

Commissions & Fees: These go to the brokerages and range from $ 0.22 to $ 2.04 

Exchange Fees: Set by the exchange and differ by instrument ranging from $2.46 to $4.30 for our permitted products. 

Examples: 

• E-mini S&P 500 (ES) - $2.46
  
• E-mini NASDAQ 100 (NQ) - $ 2.46
  
• Crude Oil (CL) - $3.00
  
• Gold (GC) - $3.10

Platform License or Subscription

In the Trading Combine®, we are able to cover the Platform feed for many of our supported platforms through our partnerships.   Ninja Trader is an example of a platform that can be used for free in the Trading Combine® but the trader is responsible for covering the platform license cost in the Funded Account®.

How can I reduce the cost of Platform fees?

1. Choose one of the Free Platforms: The list below includes our supported platforms that are free in both the Trading Combine® and Funded Account®:
   • TSTrader™
   • TradeStation 
   • T4
   • R|Trader
     
     
2. Leverage our license discount with Ninja Trader: If you do not already have a Ninja Trader license, you can leverage our partnership to get discounts.  Check here for more information.