Apex vs Topstep Calculator

• Price. Both firms discount constantly, so any figure here would be stale within a week. See current promo codes.
• Payout mechanics. Getting funded and getting paid are different problems; this only covers passing the evaluation.
• Platform and data fees, which differ by broker rather than by firm.

Neither is better in general - they fail different traders. Drawdown timing decides it more often than anything else: Apex's threshold tracks your intraday peak, so give-back within a session still raises your floor against you, while Topstep's only moves at the close. Neither firm has a mandatory daily loss limit on the standard evaluation - Apex has none at all, and Topstep's is only an optional setting you can choose to enable. If your strategy has wide intraday swings before closing profitably, Topstep's end-of-day trailing drawdown is the more forgiving of the two.

Apex's threshold follows your highest intraday balance, so profit you are up and then give back still moves your floor up against you. Topstep's only moves at the close. A strategy that runs $1,500 up mid-session and closes flat has moved its Apex floor up $1,500 and its Topstep floor not at all. That single difference matters more to most automated strategies than the headline drawdown numbers.

Not anymore. Apex's 50k drawdown dropped from $2,500 to $2,000, so at $50k both firms now allow $2,000 against a $3,000 target - 0.67 of the target in room, identical. At $100k both allow $3,000 against a $6,000 target, also 0.50 each. Raw drawdown room is now a wash at every size - the real difference is timing, since Apex's floor tracks your intraday peak and Topstep's only moves at the close.

Both firms allow automation on evaluations. The deciding factor is usually whether your strategy can meet Topstep's 50% Consistency Target - your best single day can't exceed 50% of the Profit Target, or the target increases. A bot that fires 2-3 fixed-target signals a session satisfies this by default; one that swings for a single outsized day can trip it. Apex has an equivalent cap (50% of accumulated profit), but only on the funded account, not during the evaluation.

The article is a full side-by-side of every rule, written to be read. This page asks how you actually trade and tells you which of those rules will decide it for you, so you do not have to work it out from the table yourself.