SFX Funded

Payout Frequency

SFX Funded runs a Payout on Demand model on its Ignite, Ascend and Rapid funded accounts. The first request can be made 3 trading days after your first trade, provided you have made at least 3% profit on the account size and your SFX Stability Index is inside your program's threshold. That first withdrawal is processed at a reduced 40% split; the standard 80%+ split applies from the second payout onward.

After the first payout, requests are accepted every 14 business days (bi-weekly) as standard. A 5 Day Payouts add-on is available on Ascend and Rapid, and a separate 7-day option is offered on the on-demand model.

Per-program minimum trading days per payout cycle: Rapid funded and Instant Funding require 10; 1-Step Pro requires 7; Ascend and Pass First Pay Later require 5. Remember that only days on which you make 0.5%+ count.

Caveat on the published cycle length. SFX's own documentation is inconsistent here: the Payout on Demand article says bi-weekly (14 business days), the 5 Day Payouts add-on describes itself as replacing a 21-day cycle, the Pass First Pay Later terms impose a 21 calendar day wait before the first payout, and some third-party listings quote a 10-day cycle. Confirm the exact cycle attached to your specific program in the dashboard before you buy an add-on to shorten it.

New-trader cap: your first two payouts are limited to $10,000 each; the cap is removed permanently after that.

SFX Funded runs five distinct routes to a funded account, plus a deferred-payment variant. The rules differ materially between them — most importantly the drawdown model — so choose on the rulebook, not the price.

Rapid 1-Step

• Profit target: 3% (Phase 1 only)
• Daily loss: 3%, measured from the higher of balance or equity at 00:00 UTC
• Max loss: 4% trailing — always 4% below your highest recorded account value
• Minimum trading days: none in evaluation; 10 per payout once funded
• Time limit: none
• Stability Index cap: ≤15%; first payout available from 3 trading days; account review up to 48 business hours after passing
• Indicative pricing: $7.5k = $48, $15k = $60, $30k = $114, $60k = $174, $120k = $294

1-Step Pro

• Profit target: 9%
• Daily loss: none during the evaluation phase
• Max loss: 6% trailing
• Max floating loss: −1% of balance. First breach cuts your split by 40%; second breach closes the account permanently
• Minimum trading days: 4 qualifying days (non-consecutive)
• Funded payouts: after 7 trading days, no calendar-day wait; Stability Index ≤20%

Ascend 2-Step

• Phase 1: 8% target · Phase 2: 5% target
• Daily loss: 4%, calculated at 21:00 UTC off the higher of balance or equity
• Max loss: 8% static, measured from the initial account size — the only major SFX model that is not trailing
• Minimum trading days: 5 per phase · Time limit: none
• Funded: first payout after 5 trading days; Stability Index ≤25% (the most forgiving consistency gate at the firm)
• Indicative pricing: $7.5k = $79, $15k = $99, $30k = $189, $60k = $289, $120k = $489

Ignite 2-Step

• A second two-phase, no-time-limit evaluation route referenced throughout SFX's payout, Stability Index (≤20%) and 20% challenge profit-share documentation. At the time of writing SFX's public help centre no longer carries a standalone Ignite rules article, so confirm the live parameters in the dashboard before purchasing.

Instant Funding

• No evaluation, no profit target — funded from day one
• Daily loss: 3%, reset at 00:00 UTC · Max loss: 6% trailing
• Max floating loss: 2% (tightened to 1% on $300k and $400k accounts) — breaching it closes the account
• Minimum trading days: 10 per payout cycle
• Indicative pricing: $5k = $109, $10k = $149, $20k = $275, $40k = $413, $80k = $689, $150k = $949, $200k = $1,230, $250k = $1,520

Pass First, Pay Later (1-Step)

• $7 up front. The activation fee is only charged after you pass: $10k = $109, $25k = $229, $50k = $349, $100k = $579
• Evaluation: 3% target, 7% trailing max drawdown, no minimum trading days
• Funded: 3% daily, 6% trailing max, 2% max loss per trade, 5 trading days per payout
• First payout gate: KYC approved + 21 calendar days since first trade + 5 trading days + 2% minimum profit + Stability Index ≤20%
• Split starts at 80% and scales to 100%

Pricing note: SFX runs frequent discount campaigns and promo tiers (for example $5k Instant for $9, $80k Instant for $88), so the figures above are indicative of the standard grid rather than a locked price list. Confirm at checkout.

Trustpilot rating status

At the time of writing, Trustpilot has removed SFX Funded's star rating and placed a public warning on the profile after detecting fake reviews. The 145 individual reviews remain readable, but there is no aggregate score — so we publish a rating of 0 here rather than a number we cannot verify. We apply the same treatment to every firm whose rating is currently suppressed, and it is a statement about the missing score, not a scored judgement of the firm. Read the underlying reviews yourself before committing capital.

Who SFX Funded suits

Good fit: disciplined manual traders who spread profit across many sessions, want cheap entry and very fast payout cycles, and are chasing the path to a 100% split. The Ascend 2-Step in particular is the one program here with a static drawdown and the most forgiving consistency gate.

Poor fit: EA-driven traders (no third-party bots, source code must be handed over), copy traders, hedgers, news scalpers, and anyone who makes their target in one or two big sessions — the Stability Index and the trailing drawdown are specifically designed to fail that profile.

Weekend crypto trading is allowed on all account types. SFX Funded is unambiguous on this: "you can trade crypto during the weekend with SFX Funded. This applies to all account types." Positions may be held open over the weekend and new positions may be opened.

This is a genuine advantage over firms such as FTMO, which require Normal-account positions to be closed before the weekend break. Note two practical caveats: crypto leverage at SFX is only 1:2, and there are no swap-free accounts, so weekend and overnight financing costs apply and count against your loss limits.

Copy trading is not allowed at SFX Funded, in any form. The rule is one of the strictest in the industry: "the use of Copy Trading Software is not permitted."

The ban covers automatic or manual copying of trades or strategies from other traders or signal providers, and applies to every account combination — evaluation to evaluation, funded to funded, funded to evaluation. Running identical trades simultaneously across your own multiple accounts is also caught by the rule, as is using an EA to mirror another trader's positions.

Related prohibitions make this a genuinely hard boundary rather than a formality: group hedging (two traders taking opposite sides of the same instrument), multi-account reverse trading (mirroring your own trades in reverse across accounts), and hedge arbitrage across correlated assets on multiple accounts are all separately listed as prohibited strategies.

Practical implication: if you hold several SFX accounts you must trade each one independently. Traders who scale by replicating one signal across many accounts should not buy here.

EAs are allowed only under unusually restrictive conditions — this is one of the strictest EA policies among mainstream prop firms.

Permitted:

• EAs you developed yourself and own the source code to
• Trade managers and risk managers
• Calculators and utility tools

Prohibited:

• Any third-party EA. "Using any other third-party Expert Advisor is not allowed."
• Any EA where you do not own the source code — and SFX requires you to hand over a copy of the source code for verification on request
• Market rollover scalping EAs (exploiting the rollover price feed)
• News scalping EAs
• Emulators, particularly in combination with EAs

The penalty is unusually severe: using a prohibited EA results in denial of progression, a permanent account breach, and a permanent ban from the platform — not a reset or a profit deduction.

Read this as a hard no for bought or downloaded bots. Marketplace EAs, prop-firm "passing" bots and any commercial algorithm you licensed rather than wrote will fail the source-code ownership test. If algorithmic trading is your edge, this is the wrong firm.

SFX Funded publishes one of the longest prohibited-strategy lists in the industry. In addition to hedging, copy trading and third-party EAs (covered separately), the following are all explicitly banned:

• Gamble to pass — outsized risk or maxed leverage inconsistent with your trading history
• Opposite direction recovery — reopening in the opposite direction within 10 minutes of closing a loss
• Churning of accounts — buying many max-size accounts and trading each at high risk on the assumption failures are replaceable
• Poor money management — repeated margin calls
• Overtrading — frequent entries and exits without a clear rationale
• One-sided bets — unmanaged directional positions left to run to target
• Group hedging and multi-account reverse trading
• Behavioural inconsistency — frequently switching strategies, trading illiquid hours, emotional decisions
• Exploiting system glitches, price-display errors or feed delays
• Latency arbitrage, reverse arbitrage and hedge arbitrage
• HFT and ultra-fast scalping, and tick-scalping
• News bracketing and news straddles
• Martingale and grid systems
• Order layering — generally more than four layered orders on one trade idea
• Use of emulators

Consequences are graduated and discretionary: profit deduction, forced account reset, soft or hard breach, withdrawal rejection, a cut of your profit split to 20–25%, or a leverage reduction to 1:10 — decided by the risk team.

Our honest read: several of these — "overtrading", "behavioural and inconsistent trading patterns", "one-sided bets" — are subjective by construction and are enforced at the risk team's discretion, typically at the point of withdrawal. That is not unique to SFX, but the sheer length of the list widens the surface area for a discretionary call. Combine that with a suppressed Trustpilot rating and the sensible approach is to take small, frequent payouts early rather than building a large balance you then have to defend.

Payments & Refund Policy

Accepted payment methods: Visa and Mastercard credit/debit cards (3D Secure must be enabled), cryptocurrency (BTC, ETH, LTC, TRON, MATIC, USDC), bank transfer on request via support, and — unusually for a prop firm — a set of African mobile-money rails including M-PESA (Kenya), MTN and Airtel (Rwanda) and MoMo (Ghana). Alternative arrangements such as bank wire can be requested from [email protected], who issue an invoice. Payment must come from your own card — third-party cards are not accepted.

Refund of the evaluation fee. The fee is a one-time payment and is refundable, but on a much longer horizon than most competitors: SFX refunds it on your 5th payout, not on your first. Promotional campaigns occasionally shorten this — SFX has run offers refunding 100% of the fee with the first payout — so whichever terms were live at purchase are the ones that apply to you.

Pass First, Pay Later works differently and is the better deal on cost risk: you pay only $7 up front and the activation fee ($109 on $10k rising to $579 on $100k) is charged only after you pass. Fail, and you are out $7.

General refund terms sit in a separate SFX refund policy document rather than in the help centre. Read a fee refunded at the 5th payout for what it is — a loyalty rebate, not a money-back guarantee. Budget the fee as a sunk cost.

3 Percent Rule

SFX Funded does not publish a "3% per trade" risk rule in the way some firms do. The number 3% appears at SFX in three different places, and conflating them is a common and expensive mistake:

• 3% daily loss limit — on Rapid, Instant Funding and Pass First Pay Later accounts (Ascend uses 4%).
• 3% profit target — the pass requirement on Rapid and on Pass First Pay Later.
• 3% minimum profit — the threshold that must be reached before a first Payout-on-Demand request is accepted.

Per-trade exposure is instead controlled by the maximum floating loss cap (2%, or 1% on the largest accounts and on 1-Step Pro) and by the over-leveraging rule, which treats any position that drives your margin level to 150% or below as a violation.

Consistency Rules — the SFX Stability Index (SSI)

SFX enforces consistency through a published, formula-based gate rather than a vague discretionary rule. The SFX Stability Index is calculated as:

SSI = (your largest single-day profit ÷ your total profit) × 100

A lower number means your profit is spread evenly across many days. You cannot withdraw until your SSI sits at or below your program's threshold:

• Rapid 1-Step: ≤15%
• Instant Funding: ≤15%
• 1-Step Pro: ≤20%
• Ignite 2-Step: ≤20%
• Ascend 2-Step: ≤25%

What this means in practice. A 15% cap is strict. To pass it your best day can be no more than one-seventh of everything you have made — so a single outsized winner does not get you paid, it delays you. If you exceed the threshold the payout is not refused permanently: SFX requires you to keep trading until the distribution flattens out. That is survivable but it means a trader who makes their entire target in one session is locked in until they add roughly six equivalent days of profit.

Minimum trading days stack on top, and SFX defines a trading day unusually: only a day on which you generate at least 0.5% profit on the starting balance counts. Losing days and break-even days do not count towards the requirement, though you may keep trading on them. Requirements run from 4 qualifying days (1-Step Pro) and 5 (Ascend, Pass First Pay Later) to 10 per payout (Rapid funded, Instant Funding).

A separate consistency-style requirement applies to location: the region of your IP address must stay consistent. Travel is allowed but must be reported to support in advance, or the risk team may demand proof of travel before releasing an account or a payout.

Payout Processing

SFX Funded states that withdrawal requests submitted through the dashboard are processed within 2 business days, and markets an average payout time of under 8 hours.

It backs this with a Payout Guarantee: paid within 48 hours of risk-team approval, or SFX pays you $1,000. The 48-hour clock runs on business days only (Mon–Fri, Dubai time, 09:00–17:00, excluding UAE public holidays) and pauses over weekends, and it starts at approval rather than at submission — so the risk review sits outside the guarantee. Arrival of funds also depends on your chosen method: crypto lands quickly, bank transfers depend on intermediary banks.

Note: SFX's help centre has published this guarantee at two different compensation figures ($1,000 on the current payout-guarantee article, $300 in older material). Verify the live figure in your dashboard terms.

SFX Funded places no limit on the number of evaluation accounts you may purchase, but caps total capital: a maximum of $500,000 in funded capital per trader across all funded accounts.

Account merging is permitted, subject to conditions:

• Combined capital after merging must not exceed $500,000
• Both accounts must be the same evaluation type
• Instant Funding accounts cannot be merged
• You must already be a funded SFX trader
• Both accounts must be at their initial balance — any profit must be paid out first, and accounts in drawdown are ineligible
• No open trades on either account
• Requests go through [email protected]

One identity, one account holder. Accounts may not be opened in anyone else's name, KYC documents must match the signup details, and multiple email addresses per trader are not allowed. Note the interaction with the copy-trading ban: you can hold many accounts, but each must be traded independently — replicating the same trades across them is a breach.

KYC is mandatory and is handled by Veriff, a third-party verification provider. SFX states that "all traders must submit and pass to gain full access to their funded account or become eligible to receive payouts."

When it is triggered:

• On passing an evaluation — Rapid, 1-Step Pro, Ascend and Ignite traders complete KYC after the risk-team review and before the funded account is released.
• Before the first payout — Instant Funding traders, who skip the evaluation, verify before their first withdrawal.

You receive an email with a Veriff link. Standard documents are a government-issued photo ID and proof of address. The details must match your signup details exactly — accounts in another person's name are not permitted, and payouts are only sent to a bank account in the same name used to register.

Plan for this early. Because verification sits between passing and getting paid, a name mismatch or an address document that will not verify becomes a payout blocker at exactly the wrong moment. Note also the separate IP-region consistency check the risk team runs alongside KYC — if you have been trading from a different country to the one on your documents, expect to be asked for travel evidence.

Other Risk Rules

• SFX Protect (automatic position closer): on funded accounts only, SFX monitors combined floating loss and automatically closes all open positions when it hits the maximum floating drawdown — 2% of starting balance as standard (1% on $300k/$400k and on 1-Step Pro). On a $100k account, −$2,000 of unrealised loss across your book triggers it. This is a soft breach on Ascend 2-Step (1st breach free, 2nd cuts your split to 50%, 3rd disqualifies) but on Rapid and Instant Funding a single breach disqualifies you. On 1-Step Pro the first breach costs 40% of your split, the second closes the account.
• Over-leveraging: defined as any exposure that pushes your margin level to 150% or lower. Penalties range from profit deduction to an account reset or a hard breach, at the risk team's discretion.
• Inactivity: accounts with no trading activity for 30 days are automatically suspended, across all account types.
• IP consistency: the region of your login IP must stay stable. Notify support before travelling; otherwise the risk team can request travel documents or a video verification.
• VPN/VPS: permitted, but subject to the same IP-region consistency checks.
• No account sharing: credentials may not be shared with any third party. Accounts must be in your own name and the KYC documents must match the signup details; multiple emails per trader are not allowed.
• No swap-free accounts. SFX explicitly does not offer Islamic/swap-free accounts, so swap charges apply to overnight positions on all instruments that carry them.
• Withdrawal caps for new traders: the first two payout requests are capped at $10,000 each; anything above that is deducted from the account balance. The cap is lifted permanently after two successful payouts.
• Escalating penalty ladder: rather than a single pass/fail, SFX's risk team can apply profit deduction, forced account reset, a cut of your profit split to 20–25%, or a leverage reduction to 1:10 before it resorts to a breach.
• Minimum lot size: 0.01 on FX, indices and commodities; 0.1 on crypto.

SFX Funded advertises raw spreads from 0.0 pips across all asset classes, sourced from what it describes as its own in-house liquidity provider, with the per-lot commission carrying the cost instead of a spread markup.

Because pricing is provided in-house rather than by a named external broker, spreads cannot be benchmarked against a public retail feed. Live spreads will vary with instrument, session liquidity and volatility — verify them inside the platform during the sessions you actually trade before committing to a strategy that depends on tight pricing, particularly on indices and crypto.

SFX Funded executes in simulated live-market conditions where slippage can be positive or negative, and is most likely around high-impact news, rollover and market gaps. Traders carry the execution risk and are expected to leave buffer against the daily and trailing loss limits.

Strategies built on exploiting execution or pricing behaviour are explicitly prohibited and treated as breaches rather than as bad luck — this includes latency arbitrage, market rollover scalping EAs that target the rollover price feed, news-scalping EAs, and any strategy that profits from a platform glitch, a price-display error or a feed delay. SFX asks that such errors be reported rather than traded.

Order layering — splitting one trade idea into many small orders to work around slippage or risk controls — is also treated as abusive; SFX indicates that more than four layered orders on the same idea generally crosses the line.

No — martingale is explicitly prohibited at SFX Funded, and it is named directly rather than being caught by a general risk clause.

SFX defines it as "opening additional positions as prices move against initial trades to recover losses when price returns," and rejects it on the grounds that it only works in ranging markets and leads to margin calls. Grid-style trading — multiple buy and sell orders at predetermined levels without a clear risk plan or exit strategy — is banned in the same section.

Two related rules close the obvious workarounds: the opposite direction recovery rule catches reopening in the opposite direction within 10 minutes of closing a loser, and order layering beyond roughly four orders on the same idea is treated as abusive.

Martingale use also disqualifies you from the 20% challenge profit-share bonus separately from any account penalty.

Minimum lot size: 0.01 on FX pairs, indices and commodities; 0.1 on crypto.

Maximum lot size: SFX does not publish a fixed per-instrument lot cap. Instead it caps exposure through an over-leveraging rule: any position that reduces your margin level to 150% or lower is a violation. In practice the binding constraints are the leverage limits (1:30 FX, 1:10 indices and commodities, 1:2 crypto) and the maximum floating loss ceiling of 2% — or 1% on $300k/$400k accounts and on 1-Step Pro — which SFX Protect enforces automatically by closing every open position.

Order layering is separately restricted: splitting one trade idea into more than roughly four smaller orders to work around slippage or risk controls is treated as prohibited activity, so you cannot build a large position in slices.

SFX publishes a maximum-lot-size calculation guide in its help centre; run your intended size through it before your first trade, because an over-leveraging finding can cost you profits or the account outright.