What a prop trading platform does
The platform is the terminal your traders use and the server behind it. In an evaluation model the accounts are usually simulated: the platform takes real prices, executes the trades in a demo environment, and reports every position and balance to your challenge engine, which decides who passes and who breaches.
Two things matter, and they are not the same. Traders care about the terminal: charts, order types, mobile, speed. You care about what happens behind it: whether risk rules run on the server, what data you can export, and what you pay as you grow.
Platforms prop firms run on
Forex and CFD platforms first, then futures. We list what each vendor or the trade press publishes for prop firms, with the source and the date we checked it. This is not a ranking and no vendor has paid to appear here.
| Platform | Market | What is published |
|---|---|---|
| Match-Trader | Forex and CFDs | Prop packages from $2,500 a month, with challenge configuration, tournaments, an affiliate module and hosting included. 6 Checked 29 Oct 2026In our experience as a prop firm operator, Match-Trader also charges a setup fee and asks for two months paid in advance. 6 Checked 29 Oct 2026 |
| cTrader (Spotware) | Forex and CFDs | Offered to prop firms through partners such as B2Broker's cTrader white-label prop solution; for firms using their own or third-party solutions, cTrader's prop server is charged per account rather than by trading volume, per Spotware in January 2025. 7 Checked 29 Oct 2026In our experience as a prop firm operator, cTrader starts at $5,000 a month and rises with the number of users, plus a setup fee. 8 Checked 29 Oct 2026 |
| DXtrade (Devexperts) | Forex, CFDs and futures | Devexperts onboarded 40 prop firms to DXtrade in a year and now also targets futures, per Finance Magnates in August 2024. 9 Checked 29 Oct 2026 |
| TradeLocker | Forex and CFDs | Markets a dedicated prop firm offering. Its published Starter plan is $3,000 a month for up to 500 active accounts; larger custom plans are priced on request. 10 Checked 29 Oct 2026 |
| MetaTrader 5 (MetaQuotes) | Forex and CFDs | In our experience as a prop firm operator, MT5 costs about $10,000 to $15,000 a month and needs a broker backing you or a dedicated licence of your own; a Saint Lucia licence is accepted. 11 Checked 29 Oct 2026 |
| Volumetrica | Futures | Futures prop platform and CRM that says it is used by over 20 futures prop firms, with dxFeed data. 12 Checked 29 Oct 2026 |
| Rithmic | Futures | Server-side risk system for futures prop firms: 10+ auto-liquidation criteria, including trailing and end-of-day drawdown, applied across every connected platform, plus R|Manager for account templates and bulk account setup. Pricing on request. 13 Checked 29 Oct 2026Its ecosystem page lists more than 80 prop firms that trade on Rithmic. 14 Checked 29 Oct 2026 |
| NinjaTrader Prop / Tradovate Prop | Futures | NinjaTrader Group launched NinjaTrader Prop and Tradovate Prop in October 2025; Take Profit Trader, Apex Trader Funding and MyFunded Futures were among the first prop firms on them. No pricing published. 15 Checked 29 Oct 2026 |
| TraderEvolution | Forex, CFDs, futures and crypto | Multi-asset trading platform with a prop-firm offering: risk settings per account, group or evaluation phase, a BackOffice REST API for the trader lifecycle, and flat licensing with no per-account fees. No pricing published. 16 Checked 31 Oct 2026 |
A platform can also stop serving prop firms. In November 2025 Finance Magnates reported that ProjectX, a futures platform used by several prop firms, would wind down its third-party service 1, and in 2024 Match-Trade ended SurgeTrader's licence, after which the firm closed 2. Ask how long a vendor has served firms like yours, and plan an exit.
Forex and CFD versus futures
The platform you can use depends on what your traders trade.
- Forex and CFDs. Simulated accounts on a licensed platform with a price feed. The vendor usually bundles the feed and demo execution, and charges per active account or by tier.
- Futures. A futures platform plus exchange market data, usually through a data and connectivity provider. Exchange data is licensed and billed per user, so the cost grows with your trader count in a way forex data does not.
Some firms offer both. That doubles the integrations, the rules to configure and the support load, so most start with one market.
What to compare before you sign
Every platform vendor will demo well. These are the questions that separate them for a prop firm.
- Prop features. Does it support your rules out of the box: daily and maximum drawdown, trailing or end-of-day, consistency rules, and payouts? Are risk rules enforced on the server, or only in the terminal?
- Price at scale. What will you pay at 2,000, 10,000 and 50,000 active accounts, and what counts as active?
- Trader familiarity. Traders choose firms partly by platform. A terminal they already know lowers the barrier to the first purchase.
- Data and API. Can you get every trade, balance and account event in real time through an API, and export all of it if you leave?
- Web and mobile. Is there a full web terminal and a mobile app under your brand, or only a desktop client?
- Restrictions. Which countries, instruments or client types will the vendor not let you serve?
Where MetaTrader stands
MetaTrader 5 is still the platform many traders know best. In February 2024 Finance Magnates reported that brokers stopped providing MetaTrader to several prop firms, with MetaQuotes not confirming its role 3, and most new firms have launched on other platforms since.
Some firms have returned with their own direct licence. In March 2025 Funding Pips did so, and an industry source told Finance Magnates that MetaQuotes accepts prop firms that license directly and do not serve US clients 4. One prop firm CEO put the cost of an MT5 licence at around $10,000 a month 5.
The MT5 white label questionWhat an MT5 white label is, who can offer one, and why it is harder for prop firms than for brokers.Read the white-label guideWhat a platform costs
Platforms are a monthly bill that rises with your active accounts, not a one-off fee. As one data point, our own Match-Trader white-label cost about $4,000 a month for up to 2,000 active accounts in 2026. The vendors that publish prices are in the table above; the rest quote on request.
Run your own numbersThe cost estimator puts the platform fee next to payments, KYC and your payout reserve.Open the cost estimator