Complete Top Tier Trader Review – Our Top FTMO Alternative

Top Tier Trader

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Launched in October 2021 Top Tier Trader has grown rapidly to become a leading online prop firm. This firm offers the tried and tested two-phase challenge model to evaluate their potential funded traders.

They are currently included on our list of Verified Prop Firms.

In this review, we will take a deep look into this company and explore what they can offer prop traders as well as which traders they are best suited for. Here are some quick stats from their website:

$150 Million Funding Provided in 2022
Traders in over 108 countries
Over 5 million trades opened per month

The Founders – Quillan Black and Anthony Williams

One area which makes Top Tier stand out from the crowd is the incredible success of their founders. Not only does this give the firm a high level of credibility, but it also shows its traders what can be achieved by hard work and dedication in the industry.

Both founders are extremely active in the trading world with hundreds of thousands of followers each. Let’s take a look at

Quillan Black (A.K.A Cue Banks)

Instagram Page

Quillan has been a successful trader for around 8 years and has launched various training courses and other related businesses.

He has a large following on his Youtube channel (under Cue Banks) where he shares various aspects of his life including his trading journey, entrepreneurial ventures and his love of cars.

Quillan Black aka cur banks

Anthony Williams

Instagram Page

Anthony began his trading career back in 2014 and has been documenting his journey on Youtube and other channels under the brand Anthony’s World.

Alongside his trading, Anthony is a successful entrepreneur, successfully launching a number of businesses.

anthony williams

Earnings Study

At Prop Traders Club, we like to explore the earning potential of each firm. One way we do this is by doing a hypothetical case study of a typical trader. For this, we will use the following details:

  • The trader purchases a regular $100k challenge.
  • The trader makes an average of 5% returns each month.
  • The trader follows all the rules and doesn’t hit any drawdowns.

The following table documents the earnings of this trader taking into account profit splits and scaling.

MonthStart CapitalProfit/MonthTraders ShareTotal ProfitNotes
1Demo Phase1000
2Demo Phase 1000Phase 1 Passed
3Demo Phase 2000Phase 2 Passed, Refund
4$100,000$5,000$4,000$4,000Live Account
5$100,000$5,000$4,000$8,000
6$100,000$5,000$4,000$12,000
7$125,000$6,250$5,625$16,000Scale Up + 90% Profit
8$125,000$6,250$5,625$21,625
9$125,000$6,250$5,625$27,250
10$156,250$7,813$7,031$32,875Scale Up
11$156,250$7,813$7,031$39,906
12$156,250$7,813$7,031$46,938End of Year 1
24$381,469$19,073$17,166$188,826End of Year 2
36$931,320$46,566$41,909$535,232End of Year 3

Some takeaways from the data:

  • From month 4 the trader will receive an average of $4,000 a month. This should enable most people to become a full-time trader.
  • In year 2, the trader will be earning the equivalent of a six-figure salary.
  • If the trader can maintain consistency into year three, they will be taking in over $40k profit per month!

It’s important to note, these kinds of returns are not easy to obtain and will require a strong commitment to developing a profitable trading strategy and mindset.

The Top Tier Trader Evaluation Programs

This firm has two main options to choose from in terms of evaluations. The rules and restrictions of each vary slightly. See the chart below to see which challenge would be best for your style.

Which Challenge to Choose Flowchart

Top Tier Flow Chart

Top Tier Trader Challenge

  • Best for: Scalpers and day traders.

For most traders, the standard challenge will be the best choice. This account features a 10% static overall drawdown and a maximum daily loss of 5%. It’s important to note however, with this account all trades must be closed each Friday and no expert advisors are allowed.

Standard top tier challenge

Swing Trading Option

  • Best for: Swing traders

If you are a swing trader, or if you like to occasionally hold trades over the weekend, Top Tier offers a swing trading option.

The trader may opt to reduce their leverage to 30 and in return, they may keep trades open over the weekend.

Top Tier Trader Plus

  • Best for: traders using expert advisors

The Top TIer Plus challenge is for those who want the most relaxed rules. Both expert advisors and weekend holding are allowed.

Furthermore, this challenge has the option of the $300k account which you cannot get in the standard challenge.

However, to compensate for this, the maximum drawdown is reduced to 8%.

top tier plus challenge

How Much Do the Challenges Cost?

Prices for the challenges at Top Tier Trader begin at $250 for a $25k account and top out at $1399 for the $300k challenge. For a full breakdown of prices, see the table below.

Account SizeStandardPlus
$25k$255$250
$50k$350$375
$100k$560$599
$200k$999$999
$300kN/A$1399

Rules and Restrictions

News Trading

With the challenge plus accounts, you may trade on/around the news without restriction.

Additionally, news trading is allowed in Tier 1 and 2 accounts.

However, trading certain news events (red folder events) are restricted on standard funded accounts. Trades must not be opened or closed 2 minutes before or after such events, this includes stop-losses/take profits. Traders are given one warning prior to their account being disabled.

For a full list of these events see: https://www.forexfactory.com/calendar

Minimum Trading Days

As with many prop firms, Top Tier uses a minimum trading days rule on its challenge accounts. This is a simple rule where the trader must open at least one trade for a certain amount of days within the challenge.

The minimum trading days for all challenge accounts are set at 4.

Retries and Extensions

If you haven’t managed to hit the profit target within the time limits there are a couple of options available.

Retry

  • Available in tier 1/2 as long as the balance is above starting balance.
  • Willl restart from tier 1.
  • Must not have breached any drawdowns.
  • Must have trading a minimum of 4 days.

Extension

  • Will provide an additional 15 days to complete the challenge.
  • Must have time remaining to apply.
  • Must not have breached drawdowns.
  • Only available in tier 1.
  • Must pay a fee of around ~50% of the cost.

Scaling Plan

Consistent traders can request to have their account upgraded every three months. After scaling up for the first time, along with the bonus capital, the profit split will be increased to 90%.

In order to scale up, you must meet the following conditions:

  • Must be profitable at least 2 out of the 3 months
  • Must have achieved at least 6% profit.

Upon scaling up, the trader will receive an additional 25% capital allocated to their account.

What are the Trading Conditions Like?

One important aspect to think about when choosing a prop firm is the trading environment. Often this can be the difference between a winning strategy and a losing strategy. That said, let’s take a look at what Top Tier Trader offers.

The Broker/Platform Details

Top Tier chooses Vital Markets as its broker and MetaTrader 4 as its trading platform.

The available instruments are:

  • All the Forex Pairs.
  • All the Instruments that ends with “.TTF” (e.g.: “US30.TTF”; “ETHUSD.TTF”; …)

What Leverage Can I Use at Top Tier Trader?

The amount of leverage traders can use is dependent on the type of challenge they opt for.

For all standard (regular) and plus challenges the leverage is set at 1:100.

For the standard swing challenge, the leverage is set at 1:30.

How are the Commissions and Spreads?

You can view the live spreads of Vital Markets here: Vital Markets Spreads

Alternatively, you can check them out using MetaTrader 4 with the following details:

Login: 5000130
Password: K7lPtjK
Server: VitalMarkets-Real
MT4 Download: Download

As for commissions, the fee is $5 per lot.

Top Tier Trader – Getting Paid

So, you have passed the challenge and made some profits on your live account, now what? In this section, we look at how Top Tier pays out its profitable traders.

How to request payouts

The trader may request their first payout either 14 days or 30 days after the first trade. Subsequent payouts can be requested after 14 days after the first trade after receiving a payout.

Essentially, this means traders can withdraw their funds every two weeks.

Payouts can be requested from within the trader dashboard.

Payment Options

You may request payment in the following methods:

  • Deel
  • Bitcoin
  • LTC
  • ETH
  • USDC

Payout times

Top Tier Trader states payouts are processed between 24 and 48 hours after the request is made. That said, many payouts are much faster than this with the average coming in at 8 hours.

Payout Proofs

There are various payout proofs across a number of sources which give this firm a great reputation for ensuring that traders are paid out their profits fairly and efficiently. Here are a few examples of recent payouts taken from their discord channel.

top tier payout proof 1
top tier payout proof 2
top tier payout proof 3

The Top Tier Trader Community

Top Tier Community photo

The Top Tier team are active across many social channels. The optimal place to get in touch with them or find out more would be their discord channel. Additionally, their YouTube channel features some great content including trader interviews, challenge reviews and educational videos.

I’ll include some links to their socials below.

Here is one of their videos in which they review passed challenges. These videos are incredibly helpful as they explain what traders do right or wrong. It’s highly advised to check them out!

The Top Tier Trader Competition – Win a Free Prop Firm Challenge

Every month Top Tier holds a free trading competition. The competition is open to anyone and there are typically prizes for the top three winners. For example, here are the prizes for last month’s competition:

  1. $200k Challenge Plus Account
  2. $100k Challenge Plus Account
  3. $50k Challenge Plus Account

The rules for the competition are similar to the standard challenge but have minimum trading days of 7.

Top Tier Trader vs FTMO Comparison

Top Tier Trader
ftmo

Since both Top Tier and FTMO operate in similar styles, I thought it would be best to compare the two. Some important differences include:

  • News trading – Top Tier offers the plus challenges which allow news trading whereas, FTMO do not have such options.
  • FTMO offers “Aggressive” accounts which double drawdowns (and price). Top Tier does not currently offer this.
  • Top Tier’s scaling plan is slightly better than FTMO’s, increasing every 3 months instead of 4.
  • FTMO offers a few different currency options, whilst Top Tier only provides dollar accounts.
  • Top Tier’s prices come in slightly cheaper than FTMO’s.

I’ve provided a table below to outline the challenge specifications between the two firms.

FTMOTop Tier Trader
Profit Target (Phase 1)10.00%10.00%
Profit Target (Phase 2)5.00%5.00%
Daily Drawdown5.00%5.00%
Total Drawdown10.00%10.00%
Minimum Trading Days104
Time Limit (Phase 1)30 Days40 Days
Time Limit (Phase 2)60 Days60 Days
Price for $100k~$575$560

Conclusion

For anyone looking for a two-phase model of funding, Top Tier a certainly a great choice. They offer a few different challenges to cater for pretty much any trader from scalpers, swing traders and algo traders.

Furthermore, the team at Top Tier are actively engaged within the community and don’t hide in the shadows like some other prop firms.

Finally, the rules, targets and restrictions are fairly relaxed and give the trader every opportunity to succeed in their pursuit of a funded account.

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