FTMO Review: What Are You Really Paying For?

Is FTMO worth the fee? It can be worth evaluating if you already have evidence that your strategy fits its rules and can afford the entire attempt budget. Buying a Challenge does not give you the advertised balance to withdraw. Our assessment: compare the loss limits, refund conditions and your cash costs before comparing account sizes.

Scope and disclosure: Public-document and pricing review, checked September 27, 2026; no purchased Challenge, execution test or payout test. We cover the Global CFD offering on ftmo.com, not FTMO Futures or regional storefronts. RoboXpert develops and offers trading software and has a commercial interest in this market. This article contains no affiliate links; our software needs the same checks.

What is FTMO's business model?

You pay for a trading evaluation and associated services. FTMO says its fee covers the simulated environment, infrastructure and tools. Qualifying traders can subsequently earn contractual, performance-based cash rewards.

For this CFD offering, the Free Trial, evaluation and FTMO Account all use simulated capital. FTMO separately says it may use account data to trade its own live accounts. That does not turn your displayed balance into your bankable money. See its explanation of simulated trading.

How does FTMO make money? Challenge fees are a visible revenue source; its own separate trading is another activity it describes. These public product pages do not establish the group's revenue mix or where each reward payment is funded. We therefore do not claim that all revenue comes from failed traders, or that simulated trading by itself establishes wrongdoing.

The useful distinction is between what you buy, what you can lose in fees, and what must happen before you receive cash. A large nominal balance answers none of those questions on its own.

FTMO 1-Step vs 2-Step: the differences that matter

The shorter evaluation has a different rule set. This is a selective comparison, not the full contract. FTMO's comparison table is the primary reference.

The reward FAQ supplies the starting shares; “up to 90%” should not be read as the default 2-Step share. The refund FAQ distinguishes the products explicitly. Passing alone is not the same as receiving a refund.

Current advertised fees

We checked the Global homepage's pricing selector with USD simulated account sizes and EUR fees. These are different units. The two discounted prices below were displayed on September 27, 2026; availability and final checkout terms can change. Official pricing.

Use the amount you would actually pay in the calculator. A lower advertised fee is not evidence of a better chance of receiving a reward.

Calculate your FTMO Challenge cost

Count the cash, not the account size

Model a fixed number of paid attempts. These are hypothetical outcomes, not a prediction of passing or receiving a reward.

Enable JavaScript to edit the scenario. The worked example below shows the same calculation: three €89 attempts plus €60 expenses cost €327 before any reward or refund.

Worked hypothetical example: three paid 2-Step attempts at €89 each, plus €60 total software or hosting expenses, cost €327. If no reward arrives, the cash result is −€327. If the third attempt leads to a €200 reward and the qualifying €89 fee is refunded, the cash result is €200 + €89 − €327 = −€38, before tax.

The two earlier fees still count. In that second scenario, the reward required to cover costs is €238 after the profit split, converted to the fee currency. It is not a forecast of how much simulated trading profit you will produce.

Our formula is cash result = reward received + qualifying refund − all paid attempts − other expenses. The calculator assumes identical fees across attempts and one qualifying account. For mixed prices, promotions or multiple successful accounts, use an itemized cash ledger instead. No pass rate is assumed, and choosing three attempts is an illustration, not a spending recommendation.

A $100,000 account is not a $100,000 loss budget

Our hypothetical illustration: at the start of a $100,000 2-Step account, the overall floor is $90,000 and the daily floor is $95,000. Neither figure describes cash that belongs to you. Your personal expenditure is the fee and associated costs; the account limits govern simulated trading.

Daily limits use equity, including floating P/L and trading costs, and reset from balance at 00:00 CE(S)T. For 1-Step, the overall floor trails the highest qualifying midnight balance: at a $104,000 high, the floor is $94,000. It does not fall when balance later drops. A reward withdrawal with a new account resets that floor. Calculation rules.

This is why an EA's closed-trade profit curve is insufficient. Test its intraday equity and positions carried across midnight. Our equity-versus-balance guide illustrates the missing information.

For 1-Step, the Best Day must contribute no more than half of the sum of profitable days' closed results. Losing days do not form that denominator. Exceeding this ratio requires more qualifying profit; FTMO says it is not itself a breach. Best Day definition.

Can you use an EA or AI trading bot on FTMO?

EAs are permitted in principle, not approved indiscriminately. FTMO's strategy FAQ requires legitimate trading, appropriate risk management and compliance with its rules. It also warns that a widely shared third-party EA can create maximum-capital-allocation problems when other traders run the same strategy.

The forbidden-practices policy includes abusive or manipulative software use and EA hyperactivity exceeding 2,000 server requests per day. Requests include order modifications, not just completed trades. An “AI” label neither grants an exception nor proves an EA is unsuitable.

Use this pre-purchase checklist with your developer:

A phase change matters: FTMO's selected-news restriction applies to Standard FTMO Accounts after evaluation, with an exception for Swing. It includes triggered stop-loss and take-profit orders on affected instruments within the restricted window. Passing the Challenge does not demonstrate that the same unattended configuration fits the later account. Check the news rules and overnight/weekend rules separately.

The worksheet above records questions and evidence; it does not certify compliance. For an unfamiliar EA, start with our trading-results verification checklist, then test the exact configuration against the chosen rules.

What has to happen before FTMO pays a reward?

An eligible simulated profit must meet the objectives and Account Agreement. FTMO states that a reward can be requested from day 14 after the first trade on the specific account, with positions and pending orders closed. A request is then reviewed; day 14 is not a guaranteed payment date. Reward process.

A payout screenshot can support one person's experience if authentic. It cannot tell you the proportion of all purchasers who reach a reward, their prior attempt costs, or whether the experience will repeat. This review has no verified purchaser-cohort dataset from which to calculate your probability of success or expected net income.

Our verdict: assess the fit before paying

The documented strengths are a clearly described evaluation, published rule comparisons and a conditional route to real rewards. The trade-offs are equally concrete: upfront fees, different rules across products and phases, and no evidence here of your personal likelihood of recovering all costs.

Investigate further if you already have a documented strategy, can reproduce the loss calculations and have a budget independent of hoped-for rewards. Keep testing without paying if your main evidence is a bot seller's pass certificate, you cannot explain the daily equity rule, or another attempt would mean chasing previous fees.

A Free Trial can help you examine the environment; it cannot establish a future payout. We would prioritize understanding the rules and validating the strategy before purchasing either a Challenge or additional software.

Our role at RoboXpert is to make those checks understandable. Start with the free EA evidence guide. Any software we offer should be judged by the same evidence, risk and operating requirements—not by an implied ability to pass FTMO.

Review method and limits

We compared FTMO's current public CFD pricing, refund wording, trading objectives and EA policies, then built the cash-flow examples and calculator above. We did not buy an evaluation, verify FTMO's finances, test support or independently confirm a payout. This is an educational review of a service and its conditions, not an earnings forecast or personalized investment recommendation. Recheck the terms on the storefront available in your country before making a purchase.