Topstep: Activation Fee Explained

Topstep charges a one-time $149 activation fee to begin trading on their funded accounts after passing the evaluation. This fee is required before you can access your funded account and start earning payouts from your trading profits.

Key Facts

The activation fee at Topstep works as a one-time payment of $149 that traders must pay after successfully completing their evaluation phase. Once you've demonstrated consistent profitability and met the minimum 5 trading days requirement during evaluation, you'll need to pay this fee to unlock your funded account and begin live trading with the firm's capital. The activation fee is the same regardless of which account size you choose - whether it's the $50,000, $100,000, or $150,000 funded account.

For example, if you pass evaluation on a $50,000 account, you pay $149 to activate and can then trade with the full $50,000 in buying power. Similarly, passing a $100,000 or $150,000 evaluation requires the same $149 activation fee. This creates excellent value for larger accounts, as the activation cost remains fixed while your trading capital and potential profits scale up significantly.

The activation fee directly impacts short-term trading styles and scalpers who aim for quick, small profits. Since you need to recover this $149 cost before seeing net profits, traders focusing on tiny gains per trade may need several successful sessions before breaking even on their activation investment. Day traders and swing traders with larger profit targets per trade typically recover this cost more quickly.

Once activated, you'll earn 80% of your profits on unlimited earnings, then 90% on subsequent profits, with payouts occurring twice monthly. This means if you make $200 in your first week, you'd receive $160 (80% of $200 minus the $149 activation fee you already paid), resulting in a net gain of $11 after recovering the activation cost.

The most common mistake traders make is rushing to recover the activation fee immediately after going live. This leads to overtrading, taking excessive risks, or abandoning their proven evaluation strategy in favor of more aggressive tactics. The pressure to quickly recoup the $149 often causes traders to violate the same risk management principles that helped them pass evaluation in the first place. Instead, successful funded traders treat the activation fee as a business expense and continue executing their systematic approach, understanding that consistent profitability will naturally recover this cost while building long-term trading success.