The Only Two Futures Prop Firms I Actually Trust (And How to Get Up to 90% Off Both)
Apex’s 20-account scaling vs Lucid’s 15-minute payouts. The two prop firms I trade — and code VICI gets you up to 90% off.
The futures prop firm space has gotten loud. Every week, a new firm launches with another set of “industry-leading” rules, another flashy promo, another influencer pumping affiliate links. Most of them don’t last. Most of them don’t pay. And most of them don’t deserve a single dollar of your money.
So let me make this simple. Out of every prop firm I’ve evaluated over the years, there are exactly two I actively trade with, recommend to my community, and have personally been paid by: Apex Trader Funding and Lucid Trading. Both of them have audited VICI Trading Solutions through a brutal industry-wide affiliate purge that wiped out most of our competitors. We’re still standing as an approved vendor with both, and that tells you something about who they want to associate with — and who they don’t.
Each firm has its own use case. Each one fills a gap the other doesn’t. Below is what I trade with both, why, and exactly how to get in cheap.
Apex Trader Funding: The Industry Heavyweight
The basics. Apex was founded in 2021 by Darrell Martin in Austin, Texas. Since then, they’ve paid out over $700 million to traders, hold a 4.4/5 rating on Trustpilot from 18,000+ reviews, and operate in 100+ countries with a Discord community north of 59,000 members. By volume, they are the most-used futures prop firm in the world. There’s a reason for that.
The killer feature: 20 accounts. This is what separates Apex from everyone else. You can run up to 20 funded accounts simultaneously under one username, and when paired with copy trading, that gives you the kind of scale that simply isn’t available anywhere else in retail prop trading. If you’re consistent and you want to treat this like a real business — stacking payouts across multiple accounts, diversifying across products and sessions — Apex is the only game in town.
EOD drawdown is finally here. Historically, Apex was known for its intraday trailing drawdown, the rule that tracked your equity high in real-time and made evaluations notoriously challenging. As of the March 2026 overhaul, Apex now offers both intraday AND end-of-day trailing drawdown on the same account sizes. EOD drawdown is, in my opinion, a major upgrade for most traders. It means your trades can swing during the day without immediately threatening your account — only your end-of-day balance gets locked in against the trail. This single change opens Apex up to a far wider range of trading styles. Note: intraday-drawdown evaluations are priced lower than the EOD versions because they’re harder to pass.
Account sizes and platforms. New accounts come in $25K, $50K, $100K, and $150K sizes, with one-time fees and no recurring billing. Connections run through Rithmic, Tradovate, or WealthCharts — which means access to just about any serious charting platform you’d want, including TradingView, NinjaTrader, Sierra Chart, MotiveWave, and more. Whatever your workflow, Apex supports it.
The sales. This is where Apex separates itself again. They run 80–90% off promotions on a near-monthly basis, which means you can grab a $50K or $100K evaluation account for $30–$50. That’s not a typo. For newer traders looking to test a strategy with real risk and real reward — without putting up real capital — there’s no cheaper or more reputable on-ramp in the industry.
Payouts. This is the one area where Apex isn’t best-in-class. Payouts are reliable but not instant — once submitted, processing can take anywhere from 24 hours to up to five business days, depending on volume. They also operate on a payout cycle that requires meeting trading-day minimums between requests. The good news: when they pay, they pay. The track record speaks for itself.
How to get the discount. Use the link below and enter “VICI” at checkout. This stacks on top of whatever current sale Apex is running. As of this writing, that’s a 90% off promotion — about as deep as it gets in this industry.
→ Get Apex Trader Funding with code VICI
Lucid Trading: The Fast-Moving Challenger
The basics. Lucid Trading is a newer entrant — founded by AJ Campanella in early 2025 — that has scaled faster than any prop firm I’ve watched in this industry. They’ve already paid out over $60 million to traders, built a community of 50,000+ registered traders, and hold a 4.7/5 rating on Trustpilot from 3,200+ reviews. They’re not the biggest yet, but they’re growing aggressively, and they’ve earned every bit of that traction.
The headline feature: no recurring fees, ever. Lucid runs on a one-time fee model across the board. You pay once and that’s it. If you don’t hit your profit target in 30 days, you don’t get billed again to keep going. This is enormous for traders who need time to grind out a target without artificial pressure forcing them to oversize, force trades, or rush setups just to beat a billing cycle. Anyone who’s blown an account because they were trying to “beat the clock” knows exactly why this matters.
EOD trailing drawdown — across every program. While Apex gives you a choice between intraday and EOD, every single Lucid program runs end-of-day trailing drawdown by default. For traders whose strategies need room to breathe during the session, this is a meaningful structural advantage. You can take a normal intraday pullback without immediately compromising your account.
Direct-to-funded accounts. This is the feature that hits hardest for experienced traders. Lucid’s LucidDirect program offers direct-to-funded accounts in sizes from $25K to $150K that skip the evaluation entirely. You pay a higher upfront fee, but you start trading firm capital on day one. As long as you meet the consistency rules, every dollar you make is yours. For skilled traders who don’t want to spend two weeks proving themselves on an evaluation, this is a serious shortcut.
The killer feature: 15-minute payouts. This is where Lucid genuinely changed the game. Their average payout speed from request to receipt is 15 minutes. Not 24 hours. Not 5 business days. Fifteen minutes. They built out their payment infrastructure — Plaid for US instant transfers, alongside global bank, PayPal, and crypto rails — specifically to deliver this. Once you’ve experienced an instant payout, going back to multi-day processing feels like a step backward.
Account types in plain English. Lucid runs three main programs: LucidFlex (the flagship — zero daily loss limit and no funded consistency rule, one of the most flexible structures in the industry), LucidPro (lower evaluation hurdle, with consistency rules that kick in once funded), and LucidDirect (skip the eval entirely). All sizes run from $25K to $150K. A LucidMaxx tier exists by invite only for proven traders.
Platforms. Lucid supports a deep platform stack across CQG and Rithmic data feeds: NinjaTrader, Tradovate, TradingView, MotiveWave, Quantower, TradeSea, Bookmap, Jigsaw Daytradr, plus TradersPost for automation. Whatever you trade on, they connect to it.
How to get the discount. Use the link below and enter “VICI” at checkout. This unlocks 40% off every Lucid product — the maximum publicly available discount.
→ Get Lucid Trading with code VICI
Which One Is Right for You?
Honest answer: probably both, depending on what you’re trying to do.
Choose Apex if you want maximum scale (the 20-account ceiling is unmatched), you trade hard during the deep sales, and you have the discipline to handle their drawdown structure.
Choose Lucid if you value flexibility and speed — one-time fees, EOD drawdown across every program, instant payouts — or you’re a proven trader who wants to skip the evaluation entirely with LucidDirect.
I trade with both. They serve different roles in my own portfolio of funded accounts, and both have paid me reliably.
What I’m not going to tell you is that these are the only two prop firms in the industry — they aren’t. What I am telling you is that after years in this business, after watching firms come and go, and after being audited multiple times by every vendor we work with, these are the two I have on my desk every single day. That’s the highest endorsement I can give.
Do your own research. Read their rule books. Check their Trustpilot pages yourself. But when you’re ready to pull the trigger, use the links and code VICI to get the best possible deal.
Until next time—trade smart, stay prepared, and together we will conquer these markets!
Ryan Bailey, VICI Trading Solutions.