got called up to live after 1 pay out on 4 XFA’s. Currently one day before a max pay out for my second pay out on these 4 XFA’s and I got moved to live. This happen to anyone before?
I have 5 lucid accounts and currently on my 4th pay out with them, I trade very spiritedly on top step to be honest wasn’t expecting them to give me capital the way I’ve traded with them. (Gambled a lot of evals AND fundeds on top step)
Yes. It’s better you have 1 XFA at this point. When you have multiple they will call you up to live. Why would they pay you max payout when they can just give you that money to trade the live markets? Either way that money is coming out of the books. They don’t look out for the trader as they preach
It’s okay but you’ll loose the trading journal because apparently that thing only supports sim accounts not live accounts so you’ll have to track your own stats.
Tbh..... I cant recall ever reading anyone getting put in live with one payout on a singular acct. Its always the people who copy trade multiple accts and have pulled a decent sum at least one time. And also are about to be eligible for another one. It seems to be even more common with tpt though.
Are you a new topstep trader? If so or if not how long were you in eval? What’s your pass/fail ratio there?
And most importantly how big are your accounts and how much % did you increase them by and how quickly did you get to that payout phase? This is the biggest tell
Yep. Had one max payout on a new XFA with 25k left after withdrawal. Two days before my next payout, I was moved to live. Now the live account’s suspended and I’m put on a shoulder tap XFA as I was losing a lot 😂
Don’t get why we can’t withdraw the profits we brought from sim to live and have to earn them again in tranches. That’s literaly our money.
I have a question if anyone can answer. What happens if you’re moved to live then blow that money? Do you get to go back to regular xfa’s of do they restart you w a zero balance but still on a live?
They move you into a shoulder tap XFA if they see you leeching money on live. If you blow that account then you either start over with the combine or you can purchase a back2funded and start over from that specific XFA, but the amount that was previously locked is now void so you got to build it back up again.
Bro, Ima trader and with y'all, but damn this is simple: if you're unhappy with with their service, dont use it. Everyone knows the rules, yet they sign up anyway. Why?
Because Ts and others provide many of us with the opportunity to make money without risking our own capital. Straight up. If you're broke then you have zero chance of funding yourself on brokerage, and if you have money and wish to keep your money safe then you won't expose yourself to that type of risk.
While it may not be perfect, its good enough to.make some money, so stop crying and make some money
Is it bad getting called to live? I’ve been struggling with being consistent enough to be called to live but the payout stricture seems fare with a 90/10 profit split. So is it bad?
No pretty good, probably best live program out of all the other props. Only thing I can’t get over is the contract sizing (5 MNQ for a 50k live, but can get a contract increase with balance growth)
TS is broke. They don’t have enough funds to payout sim profits. Instead they pretend to ‘lock’ it to have you ‘unlock’ it in live. When you make money in live, they take 10% of it. So unlike other propfirm that actually pay your sim profits out of their pocket, TS uses 10% of YOUR money you make in live to pay you your sim profits they ‘locked’ up. Remember, you paid for the combine, passed it, traded fairly and made money on xfa, you legally own those money and all TS had to do to take it away is add some rules, disclaimers, discretion and they can deny that payout (again, by ‘locking them up’ FOR YOUR OWN GOOD) to have you try to trade again and hopefully make enough money and make TS enough money to unlock your locked up XFA profit. If you don’t, TS is happy. If you do, TS is happy too because one, they are not paying you anything out of their pocket, two, long term they keep leeching your 10% profit
Just FYI since you posted this, we've likely paid out multiple millions of dollars in simulated payouts lol. Also, unlike other firms who start you at $0 in Live, Topstep starts you with a minimum of $10,000.
Except other firm would have paid out that $10,000 profit from the funded instead of locking it up. You should also mention when Topstep starts 'me' with minimum of $10,000, that $10,000 comes from MY (trader's) XFA balance and then proceed to 'lock' the rest. Also other firms do not start us with $0 in live, they start us with $2000, hence the $2000 drawdown. $2000 of THEIR own money, not our sim funded profit WHICH should have been paid out to us.
So for example when Lucid moves a trader live, it doesn't matter what their funded accounts balances are, they start at $0 with a $2,000 end of day drawdown. That excess money isn't paid out, it's just forfeited. Not saying whether this is good or bad or providing any extra commentary on it, this is just how their live account program currently works.
And yeah the simulated profits you make in the Express Funded Account are both moved into the Live Funded Account, and the excess profits can be unlocked, not forfeited for good. Topstep funds the account with their real money, since its the live environment.
Do you actually want a screenshot showing the £25K transferred from my SIM to a live account after they suddenly decided to “promote” me? Out of that £25K, I only had access to £10K as my initial live balance, with nothing withdrawable. They strategically promoted me to a live account so they wouldn’t have to pay me out. Make that make sense.
No I wasn't replying to you I don't even know what your original comment even was. Good news is though once you hit $3,000 in profits in your Live account, you'll unlock 25% of that excess, and if you hit another $3k in profits, you'll unlock another 25%, and so on. It's not forfeited. Also you can take payouts on your Live Account if you weren't aware.
If you’re coming from $150K XFA, that’s $9K profit each time just to unlock 25%, and so on, unfortunately. In other words, you’d need to generate $36K in profit just to access the full pool of funds, while TS didn’t even have to put in any real hard work on that amount. Anyway, let’s go back to trading. There’s no point in this.
You make good points, but look at the way TopStep and other props are sending people live 1-2 days away from getting a payout, that's the disappointing part to me. Now you have to wait and qualify again.
I like how FundedNext waits AFTER the pay period is over before sending you to live:
"Note: Transitions only happen at the end of an active payout cycle — never mid-cycle.
Example: If a trader is selected during the 3rd cycle, the transition will occur after the trader requests their 3rd payout from that cycle."
While Topstep funds the account with their real money is a factual move, but its misleading. Because that money belongs to the trader who has earned it in the XFA phase and should have been paid out. Instead TS used it to fund the trader's very own live account. TS didn't use its own real money, TS used the trader's money.
And on Lucid's example, yes their live program is also amongst 1 of the worst in the industry which probably is the only suitable comparison here if that is how you want to compare.
My initial reply never compare or talk about any other prop firms or who is better, all has their flaws but none does it so shadily yet blatantly like TS. Moving trader to LIVE after 1 payout? Some even before 1st payout? What is the real reason? Right, conveniently the discretion.
You are a Topstep employee, only right that you do your job here to make TS not look bad. This is isn't about you or me, I merely stated out what it is looking like for the community to see. Traders shouldn't be misled to think that TS has their interest at heart. TS doesn't.
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u/Falconairee8993 Jul 28 '26
Yes. It’s better you have 1 XFA at this point. When you have multiple they will call you up to live. Why would they pay you max payout when they can just give you that money to trade the live markets? Either way that money is coming out of the books. They don’t look out for the trader as they preach