Top One Trader Review

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Contributor, Benzinga
July 17, 2024
Top One Trader
Overall Rating:
securely through Top One Trader's website

Forex trading can be challenging; most retail traders suffer losses from inexperience, inadequate skills or insufficient funding. Proprietary trading firms can provide you with the capital, training and tools needed to excel in the market and boost profitability. However, not all prop firms are committed to your long-term trading success and growth.

Despite being relatively new, Top One Trader has emerged as one of the leading prop firms and a favorite for most talented forex retail traders due to its flexible trading conditions. You can choose either the 1 or 2-step funding challenge to unlock up to $200,000 worth of funding or up to $5 million via scaling. Unlike most prop firms, the evaluation rules are simple and realistic, meaning you are very likely to get funded. There are no minimum or maximum trading days, and the platform supports weekend and news trading and expert advisors (EA).

With tools like the Economic Calendar, you can track economic events and indicators that impact the financial markets, enabling you to make a more informed trading decision. Furthermore, Top One Trader offers a generous profit payout of up to 90% along with bi-weekly payouts, including a 100% refund of your challenge fee at the first payout. Top One Trader’s commitment to transparency and straightforward trading practices is complemented by its exceptional customer support, solidifying its position as an ideal platform to build your trading career. Read on for a comprehensive review of this prop firm and how it might help you access requisite capital and tools for trading.

Pros
  • Generous payout ratio of up to 90%
  • Fast and seamless bi-weekly payouts 
  • 100% refundable challenge fees at the first payout
  • Fast funding access of up to $200,000 ($5 million via scaling)
  • Competitive leverage of up to 50:1 for forex trading
  • Multiple tradable instruments or assets — forex, indices, commodities and cryptocurrencies 
  • Supports weekend and news trading as well as uses of EA
  • Responsive and highly efficient customer support
  • Excellent suites of MetaTrader trading platforms — MT4/MT5
  • Multiple-account sizes are available 
  • Fully regulated and award-winning broker for trading
Cons
  • Doesn’t support copy trading from multiple accounts not owned by you
  • Does not allow for HFT (high frequency trading), arbitrage, or martingale strategies.

Top One Trader Ratings at a Glance

Customer Service
Security
Minimum Investment and Pricing
User Experience
Overall

Top One Trader Product Offering

Like all prop firms, Top One Trader has one core mission — empowering retail traders to achieve financial freedom or independence. However, unlike most prop firms, Top One Trader's three fundamental pillars of success, blending transparency and exceptional support with a focus on culture and community, demonstrate dedication to fostering long-term relationships with traders, which enhances growth in the financial markets. You can trade multiple instruments, including cryptocurrencies, indices, precious metals, and forex, with the tightest spread and competitive leverage. 

To qualify for funding, Top One Trader lets traders prove their capabilities or trading expertise via its two challenge programs —the 1-Step “Flash” challenge and the 2-Step “Pro” challenge. These programs offer multiple account sizes with different pricing to accommodate the unique needs of investors or traders with varying experience levels and financial situations. The account sizes and pricing are consistent across all programs, ranging from $10,000, ideal for undercapitalized beginners, to $200,000, suitable for experts seeking more robust trading capital. Here's a breakdown of the two challenge programs. 

The 1-Step “Flash” Challenge

The 1-step “flash” challenge program is designed to identify and provide fast funding access to dedicated and skilled traders who demonstrate consistent profitability and risk management strategies via its single-phase evaluation period, rewarding them for their performance. To qualify for funding under this program, you must achieve 10% profit from your starting balance without exceeding the 4% daily loss limit and 7% maximum trailing drawdown. Violating these drawdown rules is considered a hard breach and will lead to your account closure. Let’s break this down for clarity. 

Suppose you purchased the $10,000 account size. In that case, your goal is to hit $1,000 in profit (10% of $10,000). However, while aiming for this profit target, you must stay within a daily loss limit of 4% of your starting balance or closing balance for the previous day. So you’ll violate this rule if your loss in a given trading day exceeds $400 (4% of $10,000) or your starting balance drops to $9,600. Keep in mind that the closing balance from the previous day is distinct from your starting or initial capital. This calculation assumes that you commenced trading today, where your starting balance for the current day aligns with your starting or initial capital of $10,000. 

You may earn profit or incur losses when the market closes, which is fine, guaranteed you don't exceed the daily loss limit. For instance, if you incurred a $200 loss, your closing balance would be $9,800, which will serve as your starting balance for the next trading day. Adhering to the 4% daily loss limit means you shouldn’t incur up to $392 (5% of $9,800) in losses or have your balance drop to $9,408. The 7% maximum trailing drawdown implies that you mustn’t exceed a loss of 7% of your starting capital at any point during the evaluation. 

This is like a safety net for your account. You'll violate this rule for the $10,000 account if you lose $700 (7% of $10,000) or your balance drops to $9,300. However, this drawdown is trailing and locks in once you achieve 8% profit. For instance, if you bring your account up to $10,500 (a $500 gain), your new safety net becomes $9,800 (instead of $9,300). At $10,800 (8% profit), it gets locked back at your starting amount of $10,000. So even if you grow your account to $20,000, you’d only violate the rules if it drops back to $10,000.

While Top One Trader permits using EAs to optimize your trading strategies, leveraging arbitrage pricing, High-frequency trading (HFT), Martingale, or latency falls outside of acceptable practices and is considered a hard breach. Additionally, not placing a trade at least once every 30 days is also considered a hard breach, which can trigger your account closure. In contrast, not setting up a stop-loss is regarded as a soft breach and will lead to the closing out of the specific trade but not your account. These rules are applicable across both challenge programs. 

The 2-Step “Pro” Challenge

As the name implies, this program involves two simple evaluation phases. To pass the phase one evaluation for this challenge type, you must achieve an 8% profit target from your starting balance while adhering to a 5% max daily loss limit and 10% max total drawdown. Unlike the 1-Step “Flash” Challenge, this drawdown is static, not trailing. However, all hard breach rules are applicable here, and their violation means you won’t proceed to the 2nd evaluation phase. The same drawdown rules of 5% daily loss limit and 10% max total drawdown apply for the phase two evaluation. 

However, the profit target is now set at 5%, which is significantly lower. Besides its static drawdown, the 2-Step “Pro” Challenge offers a better standard payout ratio of 80% (up to 90% with add-on purchases) compared to 75% standard for the 1-Step “Flash” Challenge. It also offers competitive leverage of up to 10:1 for FX and Metals. Aside from these distinctions, both challenges offer similar account sizes and pricing and are subject to the same hard and soft breaches with attendant penalties.

Scaling Plan

Top One Trader offers a generous scaling plan for all funded accounts in line with its commitment to fostering a long-term relationship that helps talented traders achieve financial independence. The scaling plan lets you gradually increase your account size through consistent performance while enhancing your potential earnings. You can access up to a maximum of $5 million via scaling to help you turbocharge your trading career and significantly boost profitability. To qualify for scaling every three months, you  must achieve 12% total profitability with at least 3% minimum profitability in each of the 3 months. If you meet these criteria, you can apply for scaling. 

Upon verification, Top One Trader will add 25% of your initial account balance in additional capital. Suppose you're trading with the funded $200,000 account size and qualify for scaling. In that case, Top One Trader will add $50,000 (25% of $50,000) to your account, bringing your total account size to $250,000 ($50,000 + $200,000). The scaling can go on every 3 months, guaranteeing you meet the 12% profit criteria until you hit the $5 million maximum scaling. You needn’t hold your profits to qualify for scaling. While that may streamline the scaling process, you can withdraw your monthly profit and remain eligible for scaling, guaranteed you’ve achieved the 12%  profit over the 3 months.

How Top One Trader Works

Top One Trader provides a risk-free opportunity for traders to showcase their capabilities and secure essential funding for their trading career through three straightforward pathways: Choose, Accept, and Get Funded. The first stage involves signing up and selecting your ideal account sizes from either the 1-Step "Flash" Challenge or the 2-Step "Pro" Challenge. Your choice will depend on your trading preferences and financial situation. Typically, the $10,000 or $25,000 plans are more suitable for undercapitalized beginner traders, and the $100,000 or $200,000 plans are perfect if you're an expert seeking additional funding. Top One Trader has a maximum initial capital allocation of $400,000 so many traders begin with two $200,000 accounts.

Upon selecting an account and paying the challenge fee, you will receive an email from the support team guiding you directly to the trading dashboard. The Email will also contain the download links for TradeLocker, MatchTrader and cTrader along with all the necessary login details. With these details, you can log in and accept the trading challenge. Top One Trader's flexible trading conditions fast-track your realization of the profit target while adhering to the drawdown rules. 

You can hold trades over the weekend and utilize EAs to optimize your strategy. In addition, the platform offers the tightest spread and competitive leverage across its tradable instruments. No time limit or minimum and maximum days are required to complete the evaluation. After completing the assessment, you'll submit your identity verification (KYC) documents. Upon approval, your funded account will be activated, and you're ready for live trading. 

Affiliate Programs (Brand Ambassadors)

You can become a brand ambassador via Top One Trader's affiliate program for an opportunity to earn 15-20% commissions based on how many people you refer, plus cash bonuses per referral milestone. They also have monthly trading competitions where you can earn an additional $2,500. Top One Trader's affiliate program presents an excellent means of extra income for accounts and non-account holders. Affiliate commissions are paid out via Tipalti. 

Like the challenge account, getting started with the affiliate program is hassle-free: once you complete the registration form, the team will review your application and, upon approval, email your login details to access your Brand Ambassador dashboard. The dashboard grants you access to your unique Brand Ambassador link, coupon codes, real-time sales tracking, commissions, and payouts. Furthermore, you'll have access to more than 50 professionally designed marketing tools, along with copy and paste social media text and email copy, making sharing Top One Trader with your network easy. 

Top One Trader Customer Service

Top One Trader provides highly responsive customer support 24/7 via LiveChat,  Discord Channel and Email. You can ask questions or drop a complaint via this medium and have it addressed or resolved clearly and professionally. The median response time via live chat is under 90 seconds and median response times via email are under 5 minutes. The Discord channel also provides an interactive environment for you to connect, chat, and share your trading experience with Top One Trader's global trading community and, in turn, receive valuable trading tips, ideas, and insights from other traders. This fosters a culture of community engagement that encourages learning among traders.

An even better means of directly accessing concise information on general questions without customer support is via the FAQ page or Help Center. These questions encompass the platform's core services, including account setup, evaluation rules for the various challenge programs, spreads and commissions, payment and withdrawal options, and more. 

Besides Discord, you can also connect with the support team and potentially interact with other members of the Top One Trader community via Facebook, Instagram and YouTube. Top One Trader has an excellent Trustpilot rating of 4.6 from 436 reviewers. While the number of reviewers seems insignificant compared to its competitors, the excellent ratings and overwhelmingly positive comments reflect the professionalism and efficiency of the customer service and the quality of the platform's overall offering.

Top One Trader Security

Top One Trader strongly emphasizes user privacy protection, implementing advanced encryption protocols to safeguard clients' data. Like most online services, the platform might utilize personal information collected during signup or registration for more efficient and tailored service delivery and marketing purposes. However, Top One Trader will never share or sell user data or personally identifiable information (PIS) to any third party without the user's consent except when mandated via legal precedents. 

The platform employs standard encryption protocols to safeguard sensitive data during information transfers via its website. Top One Trader partners with MatchTrader and TradeLocker with their own LP and cTrader tied in with Purple.

Top One Trader Minimum Investment and Pricing

Top One Traders offers transparent and affordable pricing for each account size across its challenge programs. The account sizes and the pricing are essentially the same for both challenge programs, as shown in the table below. Additionally, Top One Trader has added 25% Bonus Capital for your convenience.

Account Size 1-Step “Flash” Challenge Pricing2-Step “Pro” Challenge Pricing
$10,000$125$125
$25,000$235$235
$50,000$325$325
$100,000$535$535
$200,000$995$995

With Top One Trader, you get direct access to institutional pricing of tradable instruments without any added mark-up by the broker. The only charge involved is a significantly low commission of $2 per side ($7 per lot) on forex and metals. There's no commission on cryptocurrencies or indices. 

Additionally, the platform offers a competitive leverage that differs for both challenge accounts. The standard leverage for the 1-Step "Flash" Challenge is 2:1 for cryptocurrencies and 10:1 for forex, metals and indices. The 2-Step "Pro" Challenge leverages include 50:1 for forex and 10:1 on metals, 10:1 for Oils and indices, and 2:1 for cryptocurrencies. Remember, there is a 20% open lot restriction up to a max of 20 lots. The platform provides a Position Size Calculator, which can help you determine the optimal size of a trade.

The payout ratios also differ between the 1-Step "Flash" Challenge (75%) and the 2-Step "Pro" Challenge (80%). Again, you can earn up to 90% payout in both programs via add-on purchases. Your first payout is processed 30 days after securing your funded account, during which you'll receive a complete refund of your challenge fee. Subsequently, you can request withdrawal every two weeks (with add-on). Top One Trader seamlessly processes (via Rise) withdrawals with crypto, bank transfer, and PayPal. 

Top One Trader User Experience

Top One Trader provides a versatile user experience, offering multiple account sizes and different pricing structures within its challenge programs to cater to traders with varying experience levels and financial situations. The transparent and straightforward evaluation rules enable traders to showcase their skills and gain fast access to funding. Furthermore, Top One Trader's scaling plan rewards consistent trading performance via increased account size or capitalization, which means more significant payouts. Traders can choose between the most reputable trading platforms —TradeLocker, MatchTrader and cTrader. 

Getting started is easy: simply scroll down the homepage to "Choose Your Account Size," toggle the button to select your preferred challenge programs and scroll down again for the various account sizes and pricing. Click "Start Trading" on your preferred account size, and you'll be taken to a page where you'll fill in your details, create an order and make payment. Subsequently, you'll receive the requisite login credentials to access the dashboard and start your challenge. 

The same rules are applicable for all account sizes. In fact, besides its low pricing, competitive leverage and raw-tight spread, Top One Trader's simple evaluation rules and exceptional customer support further enhance its user appeal. Additionally, all challenge buyers receive a coaching program called Top One Trader Blueprint. The platform is genuinely committed to helping out undercapitalized traders and is building a solid trading community to nurture traders by providing them near-daily training via Email, weekly outlook videos, and market recap videos. Benzinga considers Top One Trader highly recommendable. 

Top One Trader vs. Competitors

Top One Trader has many competitors like FTMO, SabioTrade and FXIFY. These prop firms streamline fund accessibility for undercapitalized beginner and seasoned traders seeking to boost their trading capital and potentially earn more profits. Besides Top One Trader's affordable challenge pricing, competitive leverage, and raw-tight spread, its exceptional customer support, as reflected in the Trustpilot review, is another of the platform's core strengths. Furthermore, Top One Trader allows traders to implement their strategies and styles without restriction or regulation. For instance, you can copy trade, hold weekend positions, and utilize EAs.

Top One Trader Overall

Top One Trader is undisputedly one of the top prop firms to consider if you're a forex retail trader seeking fast funding access. The platform's commitment to transparency, a robust customer support system, and a sense of community distinguishes it from many other prop trading firms. The evaluation rules are straightforward, and you can implement your strategies and styles without restrictions. Payout is competitive, and the platform refunds 100% of the challenge fees. 

Furthermore, Top One Trader rewards consistency for profitable traders via scaling plans. With reasonable pricing, risk-free opportunities and a focus on nurturing beginners and experienced traders, Top One Trader presents a compelling option in the prop trading landscape. Overall, its dedication to helping traders grow sets it apart in an industry often characterized by uncertainties, making it one of the best choices for all retail traders looking to advance their trading careers.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q

What is the best prop firm?

A

The best prop trading firm depends on individual preferences, experiences levels and trading objectives. Generally, some of what is considered the best prop firms are those with excellent payout ratios (up to 90%), flexible and straightforward evaluation rules, exceptional customer support, low challenge fees and multiple tradable instruments. Regardless, it is essential that you thoroughly research and evaluate firms based on your unique needs.

Q

How do you become a top 1% trader?

A

There are no hard and fast rules to becoming a top 1% trader. However, you can become an expert trader through continuous learning, disciplined risk management, strategic planning, emotional control and adapting to market conditions with a focus on long-term consistency rather than short-term goals.

Q

Can you make money with prop trading?

A

Yes, it is possible to make money with prop trading, but success requires a solid understanding of the markets, disciplined trading strategies, risk management skills and continuous learning.

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Chika Uchendu

About Chika Uchendu

Chika Uchendu is an investing writer and investment platform analyst passionate about helping people learn more about managing their finances, making informed investment decisions, and navigating the complex landscape of investment platforms to find the best options for their financial goals and needs. He has over 8 years of experience writing compelling articles for various reputable publishers across diverse topics. When he’s not writing content, he’s wrangling and analyzing data to help businesses make informed decisions.