The short answer
- Free trial: a demo of the challenge with similar rules. You can't be paid from it. FTMO, FundedNext, E8 Markets and FundingPips offer one.
- Free competition: a leaderboard on a demo account, where the top traders win funded accounts or cash. FundedNext, FundingPips, The5ers, Blue Guardian and GFT run them.
- A free funded account that pays real money, with no fee and no competition: none found at any well-known firm. Treat that offer with suspicion.
FTMO and FundedNext are on RBI's Alert List; they're described here for information only. See prop firms in India.
Free trials compared
| Firm | What the free trial gives you | Limits |
|---|---|---|
| FTMO | A demo of the challenge with the profit target halved | No rewards; one trial at a time |
| FundedNext | 14 days from your first trade: a 5% target, 5% daily and 10% maximum loss, at least 3 trading days, on MT5 | New users only; reaching the target earns a 5% discount coupon, not an account |
| E8 Markets | Two trials every 28 days | Each closes after 30 days; no payouts |
| FundingPips | 14 days per phase on MT5 | No profit entitlement |
| FXIFY | No free trial: FXIFY says it doesn't offer demo accounts | — |
| Maven | No free trial; its $5 pay-later account is paid | — |
A free trial is worth doing. It shows you how the firm's dashboard counts the daily loss and the drawdown, which is where most traders fail, before any money is at stake. Treat it like the real thing: same lot sizes, same risk per trade, same rules.
Free trading competitions
| Firm | Entry | Prizes listed | Rules worth knowing |
|---|---|---|---|
| FundedNext | Free | Cash and Stellar Instant accounts for the top of the leaderboard, plus some drawn at random | At least 5 trades on 5 separate days, no EAs |
| FundingPips | Free, 50,000 places | $5,000 in cash and $675,000 in evaluation accounts | A $100,000 demo account; the prizes are challenges, not funded accounts |
| Blue Guardian | Free | Funded accounts for the top 50, up to $200,000 for first place | Monthly |
| Goat Funded Trader | Free | Instant funded accounts, up to $400,000 for first place | Monthly |
| The5ers | Free | Free trading accounts, cash, Hub credits and merchandise for the top 100 | Weekly demo contests |
| E8 Markets | Free, on Discord | Discount codes or a free challenge | Weekly events |
Is a competition prize a free funded account?
Partly. FundedNext says plainly that "the Competition Account is a demo account, so profits made in it cannot be withdrawn". Winners get a separate prize account, a Stellar Instant account, which has to be claimed within a month and follows the same rules as a paid one. That account is also simulated: FundedNext's own disclosure says "all trading occurs in a demo environment". What's real is the payout if you then trade the prize account profitably within the rules.
So a competition gives you a free shot at a funded account, not a free funded account. Only the top of the leaderboard wins, and a leaderboard rewards big risky swings, so most entrants win nothing. The traders who place usually take far more risk than they'd survive in a real challenge.
Other "free" and nearly free routes
- Very cheap accounts. GFT's $1 plan gives a $1,000 account with withdrawals capped at $100 in total, and Maven's pay-later account costs $5 up front, with the rest due only if you pass.
- Instant accounts skip the challenge for a fee, with tighter rules. See instant funding prop firms compared.
Free funded account scams: the warning signs
Offers of a "free funded forex account" on Telegram, WhatsApp and Instagram are a common route into scams. Regulators list the same signs again and again:
- US CFTC: "Promising outsized and often guaranteed returns in a short amount of time"; "Directing you to an unregistered dealer with no physical presence in the United States"; "Pushing you to move the conversation off-platform to a private messaging app".
- SEBI: promises of "assured/guaranteed/near-certain returns", "Unregistered Entities" and a "Pushy Salesperson".
- UK FCA: "Does the offer sound too good to be true?" and "Do you feel pressured to act quickly?"
- RBI: "promises of disproportionate/exorbitant returns".
And signs specific to prop firm offers, any one of which we'd treat as a no:
- Someone asks for your trading account password, or offers to trade "your" funded account for you.
- You're asked to pay a "tax", "unlock fee" or deposit before a payout is released.
- A "guaranteed pass" service, or someone selling already-passed accounts. Prop firms ban both, and they end accounts for them.
- The offer links to a site that isn't the firm's own domain, or an "account manager" contacts you first.
When prop firms close
A free or cheap account is only worth something if the firm is still there to pay. Several have shut down, as reported in the trade press:
- My Forex Funds: the US CFTC sued its parent, Traders Global Group, in 2023, alleging it took more than $310 million from over 135,000 customers. In May 2025 a US court dismissed the case with prejudice as a sanction for misconduct by the CFTC, without ruling on the allegations, and in April 2026, according to trade press reports, the firm began returning money to users with pending payouts.
- True Forex Funds closed in May 2024, and The Funded Trader paused all operations in March 2024.
- MyFundedFX closed in February 2026. It's a different firm from MyFundedFutures, which is still running.
- FundedSeat, a futures prop firm, announced its closure on 29 September 2026.
Before you rely on any firm, free or paid, read how prop firms make money: it explains why most of a firm's income comes from fees, and what that means for payouts.