What you are buying, in one firm’s own words
FTMO states it plainly in its own FAQ: "all accounts we provide to our clients are demo accounts with fictitious funds and any trading is in a simulated environment only". That is the product across the whole category, not one firm’s small print.
It is also why no regulator licenses any of this. A broker takes your deposit into the real market and is supervised for it; a prop firm sells you access to a simulation and a contract promising a share of what the simulation says you earned. Nothing wrong with that — but it changes completely what happens when something goes wrong.
If a licensed broker refuses your withdrawal, you have a regulator, an ombudsman and sometimes a compensation scheme. If a prop firm refuses your payout, you have a contract with a company, in whatever country that company is registered in. That is the whole list. Which is why the name and the country are not trivia, and why every firm in our prop firm ranking now opens with the companies behind it.
It is rarely one company
When we read all eight firms in this directory back against their own terms in September 2026, the single most common finding was that the arrangement is split across jurisdictions — and that the address in the marketing belongs to the least important of them.
FundedNext is the clearest example, and it publishes all of it honestly in its terms. Four companies, three live, in three countries:
| The terms you accept | GrowthNext – F.Z.E., reg. 28831, Ajman Free Zone, UAE |
|---|---|
| The company running your account | FundedNext Ltd, HY01023052, Mohéli, Comoros |
| The company charging your card | Incenteco Trading Ltd, HE 307114, Limassol, Cyprus |
| The company that used to exist | FundedNext Ltd, 14492007, England — dissolved 30 April 2024 |
Read from the firm’s own terms and from Companies House. The full working is on our FundedNext record.
How to check it yourself, in about ten minutes
You do not need us for this. Every step below is a free public source, and the whole point is that a firm dealing straight will survive it.
- Find the terms of service — not the FAQ, not the rules page. Look for a heading like "the parties" or "who we are". Every firm in this directory names its companies somewhere in there.
- Write down every company name, registration number and country you find. If there is more than one, note which does what: takes the money, runs the account, holds the contract.
- Search the register of the country named. Companies House (UK), ARES (Czechia) and most EU registers are free and instant. If a company is real, you will find it in under a minute.
- Check the classification the company filed under. It is one line and it tells you what the company says it is: Alpha Capital Group is filed as an IT services business, The5%ers as human resources provision.
- If a company is registered somewhere with no searchable public register — the Comoros, St Vincent, Mohéli — you have reached the end of what anyone can verify. That is not proof of anything bad. It is the limit of what you will ever be able to check.
The number in the headline is usually the ceiling
The other thing that research turned up: of eight firms, four published a profit split that was the top of a range rather than what a newly funded trader is paid. FTMO advertises 90% and pays 80 until you have traded four months, made 10% net and taken two payouts. The5%ers advertises 100% and starts at 80. FundedNext’s 95% is partly a paid upgrade — it costs a further 20% on the price of the challenge.
None of that is hidden. Every one of those firms publishes the real terms on its own site, in the scaling plan or the programme page. It is simply that the number on the homepage and the number in your contract are different numbers, and only one of them is the one you get.
The same habit runs through broker marketing, where the licence in the advertising is often held by a company that would not open an account for you — the subject of our guide on which entity you sign with, and visible on every broker record we publish.