Cheap Crypto Prop Firms in 2026: Nine Compared by Real Cost

If you want a funded crypto account for as little money as possible, the challenge fee is the easiest number to compare. A challenge is a paid test of your trading, much like an exam with a fee attached, and passing it gets you a funded account (an account on which the firm pays you a share of the profit you make).

What an attempt really costs depends on three things the price leaves out: whether the fee comes back, how many attempts you need, and what the fee lets you trade. We run HyroTrader, one of the nine prop firms compared here, and every rival figure comes from that firm's own pages.

Key takeaways

• Cheap crypto prop firms mostly charge $19 to $40 for a $5,000 challenge, and the lowest price is our Hyro Core, which also comes in a $2,500 size for $9.
• Whether the entry payment comes back matters as much as its size. Some firms keep it once you start, as we do on Hyro Core, and some return it with a later payout or for an extra charge. Our One-Step and Two-Step challenges (one or two test phases) take a deposit that comes back with your first payout.
• Between our own two routes at $5,000, the $19 Hyro Core fee costs less as soon as you need a second attempt, while the $59 Two-Step deposit costs less only if you pass the first time.
• If crypto is what you trade, compare leverage, which sets how large a position can be against the money it ties up. The forex-first firms here allow at most 1x or 2x on crypto, while the crypto-first firms allow more, from up to 5x at Bitfunded to up to 150x at HyroTrader. On a funded account, also check the cap on total position size, because ours is twice the starting balance whatever the leverage.

Cheapest funded accounts compared: 9 prop firms side by side

The table sorts nine prop firms that offer crypto by the price of a $5,000 challenge, a size all nine sell. Each price is the one the firm's page showed before any discount code, and several firms were running codes when we checked.

Leverage is written here as 2x, which some firms write as 1:2.

Terms as of November 2026. Check each firm's own page before you buy.

The price is the full cost only where the entry payment does not come back.

The cheap crypto prop firms, one by one

Most firms here sell several plans, and the cheapest plan usually carries the tightest rules, so each entry starts with what that plan asks of you.

HyroTrader: Hyro Core from $9, deposits back on One-Step and Two-Step

We run HyroTrader, a crypto prop firm. Our challenges trade USDT perpetual futures, which are futures contracts with no expiry date, settled in USDT (a stablecoin pegged to the US dollar). At setup you choose your own Bybit or BloFin demo account, our Hyro platform, or the Tealstreet or Tiger.com terminals.

Every account is a simulated (demo) account on live market data, and payouts are real. Leverage goes up to 150x on Bitcoin and Ether on Bybit and BloFin, and lower on other pairs.

Hyro Core is our cheapest entry, at $9 for a $2,500 account and $19 for $5,000. It is one phase with a 10% profit target (the gain you need to pass) and at least 4 trading days, and no single day may count for more than 40% of that target.

Its daily loss limit is 3% and its maximum loss 5% (the most you may lose in one day and in total). Both are static, which means they are fixed from the starting balance and never move up with your profit.

What the $9 does not buy is a refund. Hyro Core is paid with a Challenge Fee, which comes back only if you never activate the challenge (start it on the platform), whether you cancel it or let it expire. Once you activate it, the fee stays with us whether you pass, get funded or get paid.

Hyro Core's profit split is a fixed 80%, while our other challenges can rise to 90% at our discretion. On every challenge, each payout request counts profit up to 5% of the account and any profit above that is lost when the payout is made, so on $2,500 one request pays you at most $100.

Our One-Step and Two-Step challenges cost more, $69 and $59 for $5,000, and they work the other way round. They are paid with a Refundable Challenge Deposit, which comes back in full with your first payout on the funded account. Two-Step has two phases, a 10% target and then 5%, each with at least 4 trading days, and our widest limits, 5% a day and 10% in total.

Goat Funded Trader

Goat Funded Trader is a forex-first firm that runs forex, indices, metals and crypto as CFDs (the firm's own contracts on an asset's price). Its $5,000 2-Step costs $20, with two phases at 8% and 6% profit targets and a 10% static maximum loss, and crypto trades at 2x on every model.

The fee comes back with the fourth payout on an account, or in full if the firm closes the account over your trading style.

Breakout

Breakout is a crypto prop firm that Kraken bought in 2025, with one-step evaluations on its own trading terminal. Its $20 entry is the Turbo plan, which has a 9% target and 3% daily and maximum loss limits, the smallest buffer of its three plans.

Breakout returns the fee only if your identity check is rejected. Our HyroTrader and Breakout comparison shows where our limits and payment terms differ from Breakout's.

Kraken Prop

Kraken Prop, launched in May 2026, is the prop trading program inside Kraken Pro, and it sells its plans at the same prices as Breakout. Its $20 Advanced plan has a 9% target and 3% daily and maximum loss limits on a $5,000 account.

Its plan tables list leverage up to 5x, and Bitcoin has traded at up to 10x since August 2026. Our comparison of HyroTrader and Kraken Prop sets its fees and limits beside ours.

FundedNext

FundedNext is a forex-first firm whose crypto is nine coins traded as CFDs at 1x. Its cheapest challenge is the Stellar Lite, a lower-priced two-phase plan, at $32.99 for $5,000, with 8% and 4% targets and an 8% static maximum loss. Its main two-phase plan, the Stellar 2-Step, starts at $59.99 for $6,000 and returns its fee with the first payout.

Fintokei

Fintokei is a forex-first firm with crypto CFDs at 2x on Bitcoin and 1x on other coins. Its StartTrader costs $34 for $5,000. It is one phase with a 3% target and a 60-day time limit, and the first time you hit its 2% daily loss limit the account gets a second chance instead of closing.

Bitfunded

Bitfunded is a crypto-first firm with its own trading platform and more than 100 crypto pairs at 1x to 5x. Its 1-Step Express costs $39 for $5,000, with a 9% target and 3% daily and maximum loss limits.

Crypto Fund Trader

Crypto Fund Trader offers more than 715 crypto pairs alongside forex and stocks, on MetaTrader 5, Match-Trader or your own Bybit account. Its 1 Phase costs $40 for $5,000, with a 6% maximum loss that rises with your highest balance and stops rising once it reaches the starting balance.

BrightFunded

BrightFunded is a multi-asset CFD firm that trades crypto at 5x and prices its challenges in euros. Its cheapest is the 2-Step Bright at €47 for $5,000, with 8% and 5% targets and an 8% static maximum loss.

Its refund add-on returns the fee with the first funded payout. Our HyroTrader and BrightFunded comparison sets that add-on beside a deposit that comes back with the first payout at no extra charge.

What a cheap crypto prop firm challenge actually costs

A cheap crypto prop firm sells its challenge for a low fee, but that fee buys one attempt under one set of rules, so the rules decide most of what the challenge ends up costing you. Three of them are worth reading before the price.

Whether the payment comes back

Firms take payment in one of two ways. A fee the firm keeps is gone once the attempt starts. A refundable deposit comes back once you meet a condition in the terms, usually a payout on the funded account.

That condition is what to read. A refund promised at the third or fourth payout reaches you only if the funded account lasts that long, so until then it costs you the same as a kept fee.

How the loss limit moves

Every challenge closes when your losses reach a set limit, so the way that limit moves matters as much as its size. A static limit stays where it was set from the starting balance, so you always know how much room you have left.

A trailing limit rises with your highest balance and never comes back down. That means a winning trade that later gives back part of its gain can leave you with less room than you started with, and every account it closes is another fee.

How far the account can grow

The ceiling is the most capital one trader can hold at a firm, and a low ceiling is a cost that only shows if you do well. Breakout, Kraken Prop and HyroTrader each cap funded capital at $200,000 per trader. Past the starting size, growth comes either from a scaling plan with set conditions or from increases at the firm's discretion.

The refund test: which cheap challenges pay you back if you pass

Sorting the nine firms by what happens to the entry payment splits them into three groups. For a trader who passes on the first attempt and reaches a first payout, the group matters more than the price.

Kept once you start

Breakout keeps the fee once trading begins, unless your identity check is rejected. Kraken Prop keeps it once the evaluation account is created, and Fintokei and Crypto Fund Trader refund only a purchase you have not used yet.

Bitfunded keeps the fee on every plan except its 2-Step, and our Hyro Core keeps it once you activate the challenge.

Returned later, or at extra cost

Goat Funded Trader returns the fee with the fourth payout on an account, and FundedNext returns its Lite and 1-Step fees with the third. Bitfunded's 2-Step fee comes back with the third payout, and BrightFunded returns the fee of a used challenge only through a refund add-on you pay for at checkout.

The later refunds are worth less than they look, because they arrive only if the funded account lasts that many payouts. BrightFunded's comes with the first funded payout, but you pay for the add-on on top of the fee.

Returned with the first payout

Our One-Step and Two-Step deposits come back in full with your first payout, and so does FundedNext's 2-Step fee. You can request that first payout from us once the funded account is in profit, all positions are closed and at least $25 is due to you after the split.

The group decides who a cheap fee suits. A kept fee costs a trader who fails and a trader who passes the same amount, while a deposit returned with the first payout costs nothing to a trader who passes on the first attempt and reaches a first payout.

The cheapest crypto prop firm depends on how you define crypto

For a crypto trader, the cheapest prop firm is the one whose fee buys the markets you trade. The forex-first firms add crypto as CFDs, and some of them close crypto at weekends. FundedNext, for example, offers nine coins at 1x, Monday to Friday only.

The crypto-first firms are built around crypto, with markets open through the weekend and higher leverage. Our challenges, for example, trade more than 700 USDT perpetual pairs on your own Bybit demo account, almost every USDT contract Bybit lists. Smaller coins share a separate cap, because all positions in low-cap coins (those with a small market value or thin trading) together may be worth at most 5% of the starting balance, leverage included.

Leverage is what turns the fee into room to trade. With $5,000 at 1x you control $5,000 of Bitcoin, and at 10x up to $50,000, so a crypto-first challenge usually gives you more room to size positions.

That room is smaller on our funded accounts, because we cap position size there whatever the leverage. Open positions may tie up at most 25% of the starting balance as margin and be worth at most twice the starting balance, so $1,250 of margin and $10,000 of positions on a $5,000 account. Above 8x, more leverage no longer makes a position larger and only lowers the margin it ties up. A funded position of twice the starting balance is the same room that Goat Funded Trader's 2x gives on crypto.

What a $19 or $20 challenge buys therefore depends on the coins, the leverage and the caps that come with it.

A worked example: three ways to pay for a $5,000 challenge

The fee column hides the number of attempts, so it helps to price the same path three ways. Take a $5,000 challenge that you fail once and pass on the second attempt, followed by a first payout.

• On Breakout's Turbo plan, two fees of $20 make $40, and none of it comes back, so the route costs you $40.
• On our Hyro Core, two fees of $19 make $38, and none of it comes back, so the route costs you $38.
• On our Two-Step, two deposits of $59 make $118, and the second one comes back with your first payout, so the route costs you $59, the deposit of the failed attempt.

If you pass on the first attempt, the Two-Step moves from the most expensive route to the cheapest. You pay $20 at Breakout and $19 on Hyro Core, and nothing on the Two-Step once the first payout returns the deposit. With two failures before the pass, the three routes cost $60, $57 and $118.

So against a $19 or $20 kept fee, a returned deposit is the cheapest route only if you pass the first time. Against a kept fee of $32.99 or more, the deposit is also cheaper after one failed attempt, because two such fees cost more than one lost $59 deposit.

What the higher price buys is room, against a second phase to pass. The Two-Step's limits are 5% a day and 10% in total, against 3% and 5% on Hyro Core and 3% and 3% on Breakout's Turbo.

How to choose a cheap crypto prop firm without overpaying

Work through these checks in order before you pay for any challenge:

1. Count every attempt. Multiply a kept fee by the attempts you expect to need, and for a deposit count each failed attempt in full. Our own evaluation is a real test of risk management, and plenty of traders do not pass it the first time.
2. Check when the payment comes back. A deposit returned with the first payout comes back soonest, and sooner still where payouts are on demand. Count a refund due at the third or fourth payout as a kept fee until that payout arrives.
3. Read how the loss limit moves. A static limit keeps the room you start with, while a trailing one can take room away after a good day.
4. Check what the fee lets you trade. Count the coins and the leverage, and on a funded account the caps on margin and position size.
5. Check whether the terms have changed. Terms move at every firm, ours included. FundedNext moved its 1-Step refund from the first to the third withdrawal for accounts bought from 12 January 2026, and our One-Step needs fewer trading days and allows a wider maximum loss for challenges bought from 5 November 2026.

Which prop firm is the cheapest for you?

If you are testing a strategy and expect several attempts, the lowest fee per attempt is the cheapest way to get started. For a $5,000 challenge that is our Hyro Core at $19, and it also comes in a $2,500 size for $9, with tighter limits and a fee that stays with us once you start.

If you expect to pass the first time and reach a first payout, a deposit that comes back with that payout costs nothing in the end, and our Two-Step at $59 also has our widest limits. If you mainly trade forex and want some crypto on the side, the forex-first firms' $5,000 challenges at $20 to $34 cover that.

If Hyro Core's limits suit how you trade, start a HyroTrader challenge and choose Hyro Core, One-Step or Two-Step at the size that fits your budget.

Note: rival prices and terms above come from each firm's own pages as of November 2026, and firms change them often, so check the firm's page before you buy. Our prices and rule figures are our published values, and the trading rules page has the official, current version of every limit.