FTMO vs. The5ers vs. Fintokei vs. Hantec: Expected Value Compared | Cap Daily Loss at 2.5% and Run 7 Plans for a Year — FTMO 1-Step Comes Out on Top [September 2026]

📢 Advertising / Affiliate Disclosure: This article contains prop-memo.com affiliate links (🎁 Fintokei / The5ers). The simulation's assumptions and figures are calculated under the same conditions regardless of any affiliate relationship.

Note: Rules and prices were confirmed on each firm's official site and help center on September 27, 2026. FTMO is priced in euros (converted at €1 = $1.146); Fintokei is priced in yen. Differences in account size are normalized as a "% of account" and shown in $100K-equivalent amounts.

Conclusion

• If you cap daily loss at 2.5%, FTMO 1-Step comes out on top at every lot size. At 1% risk per trade and "medium" skill, it came to +$29,498 over a year.
• The second-place group is Fintokei and FTMO 2-Step, running nearly neck and neck (+$21,609 / +$20,306 under the same conditions). The5ers Classic follows right behind.
• FTMO 1-Step is strong because it's one-step, has a 90% profit split, no minimum trading days, and, on top of that, every payout resets it to a fresh account, restoring the max-loss allowance to 10%. Its weak point, the 3% daily loss, never gets triggered if you cap yourself at 2.5% a day.
• Hantec came in near the bottom at every lot size. On Enhanced, the max-loss line rises to the initial balance on the first payout, and Endurance has a 3-stage target plus a 4% daily loss.
• At zero edge (50% win rate), only a handful of plans — FTMO 1-Step and Fintokei at 1.5% risk per trade, among others — come out positive, and even then only barely. Choosing the right plan doesn't manufacture a winning edge.

Rules for the 7 Plans ($100K Equivalent)

The5ers' refund is split into three parts. Passing Step 1 gets you 10%, and passing Step 2 gets you 20%, both as credit that can only be used to buy the next challenge. Once you reach funded status, the remaining 70% is added to the account balance. In the simulation, the credit is applied toward the cost of buying again, and the 70% is added to the account balance.

Fintokei has a "Scaling Dojo" (launched June 3, 2026), and at its first rank, "white belt," satisfying 20 trading days and 2 payouts gets you a contract fee equal to your purchase price back (you have to apply to support). In the simulation, the fee is refunded when the account has traded 20+ days on the funded account and received its 2nd payout.

Simulation Assumptions

What was held fixed

• 1 year (250 trading days), up to 3 trades a day, take-profit and stop-loss at 1:1
• Daily loss is capped at 2.5% of the initial balance across every plan (if the next loss would push the day past 2.5%, no more trades go on that day)
• Risk per trade, floating loss, and daily loss never exceed 3% (assumed not to trip any firm's 3%-type rules)
• Lot size is fixed at r% of the initial balance, one position at a time
• Cost is 5% of risk per trade (a win is +0.95R, a loss is −1.05R). In USD/JPY terms, that matches a 1.5-pip round-trip cost against a 30-pip stop/target, or 2 pips against 40 pips
• On disqualification, buy the same plan again; no scaling; payouts every 14 days; profit left in the account at year-end isn't counted
• 20,000 runs per condition

What was varied

• Plan
• Skill: win rate 50% (zero) / 52% (small) / 55% (medium) / 58% (strong)
• Risk per trade r (0.5% / 1.0% / 1.5%)
• Amount of profit left in the account at payout (the best amount for each plan was chosen)

The Expected-Value Formula

Expected Value Per Trade

With take-profit and stop-loss at 1:1, and cost set at 5% of risk per trade (0.05R), a win is +0.95R and a loss is −1.05R. With win rate p,

Expected value per trade = p × 0.95R − (1 − p) × 1.05R = (2p − 1.05) × R

Even at "small," it's slightly negative on a per-trade basis. The reason some plans still come out positive is the prop-firm mechanics described next.

Expected Value Over a Year

EV over a year = average payouts received over the year + average fee refunded − average fees paid

• Payouts received = withdrawal amount × profit split (80%, or 90% for FTMO 1-Step). The5ers is capped at $4,000 per payout
• Fee refunded: FTMO 2-Step gives the full amount back on the first payout, Fintokei gives the same amount back at the Dojo's white belt (2nd payout), The5ers gives back a partial amount
• Fees paid = fee × number of times bought over the year (buying again on every disqualification)

Your losses are capped at "fee × number of times bought," while the payouts from a passing account have no ceiling (except The5ers). Because of this shape, some plans end up positive over a year even when the per-trade EV is slightly negative.

These three averages can't be derived by formula, so I ran a full year of trading 20,000 times under each firm's actual rules and took the average (Monte Carlo method).

I checked the calculations against a separately-written program. In a verification script written from scratch in Python (with independent random draws), I re-ran all 56 combinations of 1% and 1.5% risk per trade at 3,000 runs each, and every number matched within margin of error. I also confirmed that across every trade, daily loss never exceeds 2.5%, risk per trade never exceeds 3%, no account survives past its failure line, The5ers' payout cap is never exceeded, and the per-trade average matches the formula (2p − 1.05)R (verification script).

A Concrete USD/JPY Example (¥150.000 = $1)

The model in this article is "take-profit and stop-loss at equal distance, cost at 5% of risk (0.05R)." If USD/JPY spread and commission come to a round-trip of 1.5–2 pips, that carries the same weight as the following position sizes.

Here's the breakdown on a $100K account at 1% risk per trade. 1 lot = 100,000 units, 1 pip = ¥0.01.

Here's the lot size and effective leverage for day trading targeting 30–50 pips (1% risk per trade, $100K).

Even at 1.5% risk per trade, 30 pips only comes to 7.5x leverage — nothing extreme. The numbers in this article assume something like "day trading targeting 30–50 pips, risking around 1% per trade."

Here's how lot size and cost change with risk per trade (at a 30-pip stop and 1.5-pip cost).

Tighten the stop and the same cost gets heavier. At a 2-pip cost against a 20-pip stop/target, cost is 10% of risk (0.10R). Then the EV per trade becomes (2p − 1.10) × R, which lands right at break-even at a 55% win rate — meaning even this article's "medium" skill level would see prop-firm expected value drop sharply. The tighter the range, as with scalping-style methods, the more cost eats into it.

On Fintokei's yen-denominated account (¥20M), 1% is ¥200,000. Since 1 pip on USD/JPY is ¥1,000 per lot, a 30-pip stop works out to ¥200,000 ÷ (30 pips × ¥1,000) = about 6.7 lots.

A. Risk 0.5% Per Trade: Average Annual Take-Home Minus Fees

B. Risk 1.0% Per Trade

C. Risk 1.5% Per Trade

At 1.5% risk per trade, after one loss, a second loss would push past 2.5%, so trading stops there for the day.

Why the Results Differ

FTMO 1-Step's max loss rises to follow the highest end-of-day balance (with no ceiling). Even so, it's strong because every payout every 14 days resets the account to fresh, bringing the line back to 90% of the initial balance. Since the rules require you to withdraw the payout in full (you can't leave it in the account), you can't build up profit to widen the container — but in exchange, you get to restart every time with a fresh, full 10% of room.

For more detail on Hantec Enhanced's post-payout rules, see the FTMO vs. Hantec comparison article.

Which One Should You Buy

FTMO 1-Step requires "your best day to be no more than 50% of the sum of your profitable days" to pass or receive a payout. A method that takes large gains in a single day will get held up here. Because the simulation uses uniform 1:1 wins and losses, this effect shows up smaller than it would in reality.

Rather than putting everything into one firm, spreading across the top few firms reduces the impact if any single one changes its rules or makes a discretionary call against you.

👉 🎁 Fintokei affiliate link / 🎁 The5ers affiliate link (coupon JZWLR for 5% off)

FAQ

Q. Why did you assume capping daily loss at 2.5%?

Because the daily loss cap differs by plan (3%–5%), letting each plan trade all the way up to its own cap would turn the comparison into "the plan with the wider daily allowance gets to size up more." Capping every plan at a common 2.5% means even the strictest plan, FTMO 1-Step (3%), never triggers its daily limit, so all plans get compared under the same position sizing. In actual operation, it's also standard practice to build in a mechanism (like an EA's daily guard) that stops you before you hit the daily loss limit.

Q. Fintokei is priced in yen — how did you compare it?

I normalized the fee as a "% of account size." Sapphire's (¥20M) ¥109,800 fee is 0.549% of the account, so at $100K equivalent that's calculated as $549. Targets and loss caps are all percentages too, so they compare directly.

Q. Does Fintokei's fee really come back?

If you satisfy the Scaling Dojo's (launched June 3, 2026) white-belt requirement — 20 trading days and 2 payouts — you get a contract fee equal to your purchase price. You have to apply through support to receive it. The official page states that even traders under a restriction rule can still receive the white-belt contract fee.

Q. How did you handle The5ers' refund?

The 10% for passing Step 1 and the 20% for passing Step 2 are credit that can only be used to buy the next challenge. In the simulation, this is applied toward the cost of buying again after a disqualification. The 70% received on reaching funded status was added to the account balance. Amounts bought with credit aren't eligible for the next 70% refund, but that level of detail wasn't modeled.

Q. Why do some plans come out positive even at zero edge?

Because your loss is capped at the fee, while payouts from a passing account can keep growing. FTMO 1-Step resets its allowance to 10% on every payout, and FTMO 2-Step and Fintokei refund the fee once an account passes. That said, all of these are thin margins, and a slight increase in cost would flip them negative.

Q. I want to run this with my own conditions

The simulation script is available, along with a verification script that checks the results with an independent implementation. You can vary win rate, lot size, cost, and the daily loss cap (requires Python and numba).

Related

• 📊 FTMO vs. Hantec: Which Should You Buy?
• 📊 Comparing Hantec's 4 Plans
• 🏢 FTMO / The5ers / Fintokei / Hantec Trader

Sources: FTMO's "Trading Objectives" and "Comparison Table"; The5ers' "High Stakes" and "General rules for the High Stakes program"; Fintokei's "Challenge plans" and "Scaling Dojo"; Hantec Trader's help center (Challenge Types). All confirmed September 27, 2026.