Topstep vs ROMER

How Topstep’s program works

Topstep is a futures prop firm that describes itself as having “15+ years in the industry”. It puts its all-time payouts to traders at “$1.5B+” on its prop firm page and at “$1.4B+” on its home page. It also runs its own trading platform, TopstepX, and reports a 99.26% payout approval rate.

Everyone starts in the Trading Combine, a simulated evaluation billed monthly until you pass or cancel. For a $50K account, Topstep’s pricing page offers two paths: $49 a month with a $149 activation fee once you pass, or $95 a month with no activation fee. The profit target is $3,000, and the $2,000 maximum loss limit trails your end-of-day balance. A single day can count for at most 55% of the target before the target rises, so the Trading Combine rules say you can pass “in as few as two days”. You trade only CME Group futures, and every position must be closed by 3:10 PM CT.

Passing gets you an Express Funded Account (XFA). Topstep calls it “the simulated funded-level account you earn after passing your Trading Combine” in its XFA rules, and it pays real money on the simulated results. You keep 90%. On a $50K XFA each payout request is capped at $2,000 or $3,000, depending on the payout path you pick, and the payout policy doubles those caps for traders who added a daily loss limit when they bought the Combine.

Above the XFA sits the Live Funded Account, where you trade “Topstep’s prop firm capital”, in the words of its live account rules. Moving there “isn’t automatic”, and the Risk Team reviews each trader case by case (call-up process). The statistics on Topstep’s home page show that 0.71% of traders in an XFA were called up to live in 2025. Live payouts have no cap.

Bots, HFT and servers at Topstep

Automation is allowed “with conditions” in the Combine and the XFA, through TopstepX API Access at $29 a month (API access). A bot must follow “standard platform rules” and Topstep’s ban on high-frequency trading, and you carry the risk if it breaks: Topstep “won’t help set up or troubleshoot automated strategies, and no exceptions are made for errant trades or malfunctions.”

The ban on fast trading is written out in detail. Topstep’s list of prohibited strategies includes “Running scalping algorithms designed to exploit unrealistic SIM fills” and “Making hundreds of rapid trades to take advantage of preferential queue position in SIM”. The pattern it looks for is “usually hundreds or thousands of trades per day, with average durations measured in seconds, not minutes.” Its rules on prohibited conduct also exclude “ultra-high speed systems” used to gain an unfair advantage. None of the 12 prop firms we checked allows HFT, so Topstep is typical here.

Topstep also decides where your code runs. The API page puts it plainly: “All trading activity must originate from your personal device. The use of VPS, VPNs, and remote servers is prohibited by Topstep’s Terms of Use.” A private server may store data, run backtests and keep logs, and Topstep draws the line at sending orders: “your server can watch and record, but it cannot trade.” The Terms of Use warn that using a VPN or VPS “may result in account termination and forfeiture of profits.”

Automation ends at the live stage. The API FAQ answers that “Live funded accounts are not allowed to trade through the ProjectX API”, and the live account rules confirm that “automated strategies are not possible at this time in the Live Funded Account.”

How ROMER differs

ROMER is our funded-trader program for algorithmic and high-frequency traders. Every ROMER term on this page is planned.

Bots, algos and HFT are allowed at every stage, including once an algo trades real capital. Spoofing and other manipulative trading aren’t allowed, we monitor every order, and the exchange’s message limits apply.

Your algo runs on our hardware inside the exchange’s data centre, an arrangement called colocation, so you don’t need a VPS or servers of your own. Our latency design target is under 1 microsecond, against roughly 30 milliseconds for a home internet connection to a simulator, and both figures are illustrative.

Two stages come before real capital. Stage 1, the Evaluation, runs in simulation for at least 3 trading days. Stage 2, Verification, gives your algo at least 10 new trading days in which it has to pass again. Fills are still simulated, so no orders reach the exchange yet. We use the second pass to show the Stage 1 result wasn’t luck. After that, the best algos trade our capital on the real exchange. Traders are independent contractors who keep 80% of real profits. Funding isn’t guaranteed.

Planned pricing, which may change, is $249 a month for the $50K Pro plan, with no activation fee, a 6% profit target, a 4% trailing maximum loss and a 2% daily loss limit. ROMER is built for futures and digital-asset derivatives. The monthly fee covers running your algo on our hardware at the exchange. Our 80% share is lower than Topstep’s 90%.

Which one to pick

If you trade CME futures by hand, Topstep has a long record, and a $50K Combine starts at $49 a month. Topstep can also suit a slower bot, if you are content to run it from your own computer and to trade by hand if you are called up to live.

ROMER is aimed at the strategies Topstep’s rules exclude: high-frequency and latency-sensitive algos, and automated strategies that need to keep running once real capital is involved.