Earn2Trade Review · 2026

What is Earn2Trade?

Earn2Trade is a Sheridan, Wyoming-based proprietary trading firm (a business that funds traders on a simulated account after they pass a paid evaluation) founded in 2016 by Ryan Masten and David Lojko. The operator runs two parallel evaluation tracks, the Gauntlet Mini and the Trader Career Path, both targeting US futures markets on the CME, CBOT, NYMEX, and COMEX exchanges. The legal entity is Earn2Trade LLC, a Wyoming-registered company, with David Lojko leading the business since April 2019.

Account ladders span 25,000 USD to 200,000 USD on the evaluation side. The Trader Career Path scales a passed trader through tiered promotions toward a 400,000 USD funded simulated account. The 10-year operating period places this operator among the older active futures-focused firms in the sector.

Who sponsors Earn2Trade payouts?

The sponsor broker (the licensed entity that executes orders on the funded simulated account) is named explicitly. Funded accounts route to Helios Trading Partners, Appius, and Edge Clear, three proprietary partner firms registered in the United States under CFTC (US Commodity Futures Trading Commission) and NFA (US National Futures Association) oversight. Status: sponsor verified, with each partner named on the firm's official partners page.

Edge Clear joined as a partner in October 2021 and is operated by a public-figure futures trader who posts publicly as Futures Trader 71. Payout cadence is weekly: requests submitted by Friday clear the following Wednesday, with a 100 USD minimum withdrawal. The firm does not publish a per-trader payout proof page or an aggregate total-paid counter, but does disclose a funded-trader pass rate of 8.89 percent and reports that 18 percent of funded traders have taken at least one withdrawal.

Evaluation flow

Both programs use a single-phase 1-Step Challenge (one evaluation account, no Phase 2), not the 2-Step model common at forex-focused firms. The Gauntlet Mini funds a trader at a fixed account size after a single pass. The Trader Career Path uses a ladder: pass a smaller starter account, then advance through funded tiers as profit and payout milestones land.

Minimum trading time is 10 trading days before the first payout request. Daily trading must end by 3:50 PM CT (Central Time, the US Chicago time zone), and no position can stay open past that close. The funded simulated account inherits the same EOD trailing drawdown structure used in the paid evaluation, so passing does not bring a more generous risk band.

Challenge fees and account sizes

The challenge fee is a monthly subscription, not a one-time purchase. Both programs share a six-tier price ladder:

• 150 USD per month, 25,000 USD Trader Career Path starter
• 170 USD per month, 50,000 USD account
• 190 USD per month, 75,000 USD account
• 315 USD per month, 100,000 USD account
• 350 USD per month, 150,000 USD account
• 550 USD per month, 200,000 USD Gauntlet Mini account

The subscription continues until the trader passes and converts to a funded account, or cancels. There is no first-trade-window refund of the kind some forex-focused firms offer; months already paid are not refunded after cancellation.

Profit targets and minimum trading days

The published profit target is 6 percent of account size on both programs. On a 50,000 USD Gauntlet Mini, the trader must net 3,000 USD before passing. Minimum trading days is 10 to clear the evaluation, and a separate 5-winning-day requirement applies between successful payouts on the funded stage.

The firm publishes the actual pass rate at 8.89 percent of paid challenges, one of the few prop operators to expose this number publicly. A failed evaluation does not unlock a reduced reset fee on the standard packages; the trader subscribes again for the next month's attempt.

Drawdown rules

The risk model is EOD trailing (an end-of-day equity-based trail that locks at the close of each session and never moves down once locked). Numbers below reflect the 50,000 USD Gauntlet Mini; other tiers scale proportionally.

Daily drawdown

The daily drawdown limit is 1,100 USD (2.2 percent of initial size). A breach during the session ends the evaluation immediately, even if the closing balance recovers.

Overall drawdown

The overall drawdown cap is 2,000 USD (4 percent), anchored to the highest end-of-day balance. The trail moves up with each new closing high but never moves down. This sits between static drawdown (locked at initial balance forever, the gentlest model) and intraday equity trailing (the harshest, where unrealized profit drags the trail in real time).

News-spike exposure

News-spike exclusion is not separately documented on the rules page; positions held into scheduled events (CPI, FOMC, NFP) carry full drawdown exposure on volatile prints.

Profit split and payout schedule

The base profit split is 80 percent to the trader and 20 percent to the firm, with no addon to lift the split (in contrast to FTMO's base 80 percent / boosted 90 percent with the Refundable Fee addon). Payouts process weekly: requests submitted by Friday clear the following Wednesday.

Minimum withdrawal is 100 USD. Before the first payout, the trader must complete 10 trading days in total and 5 winning days specifically. Each subsequent payout requires 5 more winning days. Successful payouts inside the Trader Career Path can trigger an account-size promotion to the next tier, though the base 80 percent split stays fixed at every level.

Consistency rule and other constraints

The consistency rule states that no single trading day's net profit or loss may exceed 30 percent of total net profit at the moment of a payout request. A 1,000 USD profit day on a 2,500 USD running total at request time would violate (1,000 divided by 2,500 equals 40 percent). The 30 percent threshold sits in the lenient band relative to active futures prop operators.

Contract limits scale with account size: smaller tiers cap micro and full-size contract counts to block oversizing. Session close at 3:50 PM CT is strict; no position holds past the bell. News trading is not separately restricted at the program-rule level, although the absence of news-spike drawdown protection makes event trading its own risk concern.

Trading platforms

The firm supports six trading platforms: NinjaTrader, Tradovate, R|Trader Pro (the Rithmic order entry client), TradingView, Finamark, and Quantower. MetaTrader 4 and MetaTrader 5 are not offered, since the program is futures-only and the listed platforms are the standard tooling for CME-routed contracts.

The February 2024 MetaQuotes mass purge that revoked MT4 and MT5 licenses from several forex-focused prop operators does not apply here; this operator never carried a MetaTrader license. Mobile access runs through the platform vendors' own apps (NinjaTrader Mobile, Tradovate mobile web), not through a branded firm application.

EA and copy-trading policy

Automated trading is allowed inside the supported platforms. EAs (Expert Advisors, automated trading scripts) such as NinjaScript on NinjaTrader, and the equivalent automation hooks on Tradovate, Quantower, and Finamark, can run on the funded simulated account. Copy trading (mirroring orders across multiple accounts, including a trader's own external account or a paid signal vendor) is explicitly banned. The ban tracks the sector-wide reset that followed the February 2024 MetaQuotes purge.

Scaling plan and account growth

The Trader Career Path is the dedicated scaling plan. A passed 25,000 USD starter advances through successive funded tiers as the trader hits consistent profit milestones and clean rule compliance, with target progression toward a 400,000 USD live tradeable simulated account. The Gauntlet Mini does not scale automatically; it provides a static funded account at the size the trader originally paid for. Promotion conditions on the Trader Career Path tie to profit produced, completed payouts, and minimum trading days at each tier; the program does not publish a fixed "N months to level up" calendar.

Should you challenge with Earn2Trade?

The fit is a US futures trader who wants CME-routed execution, a single-phase evaluation, and a sponsor chain that sits inside CFTC and NFA oversight. The trade-off is the EOD trailing drawdown and the 80 percent profit split: both are stricter than the static drawdown and 90 percent split available at some forex-focused operators.

The 10-year operating history and the published 8.89 percent pass-rate transparency are stronger trust signals than the marketing copy at newer competitors. The absence of a per-trader payout proof page is a documentation gap, not a refusal pattern, since user-aggregate sentiment runs at 4.7/5 from over 4,600 reviews. The program suits disciplined intraday futures traders more than swing or news-event traders, given the hard 3:50 PM CT session close.

Prop firm challenges carry a non-refundable fee in most programs; passing the evaluation is not guaranteed and the funded stage is a simulated account whose payouts depend on the firm's continued solvency and policy. This content is for information only, not investment advice. Verify the firm's current rules, sponsor broker disclosure, and any open regulator actions on its official site and on the relevant authority's official register before paying any challenge fee.