TradeDay review 2026

TradeDay sells simulated evaluations for futures traders on a monthly subscription. Its Terms and Conditions name the operator as TradeDay LLC, “an Illinois limited liability company”. There are two evaluation types, Quick Pay and Fast Pass, in sizes from $25K to $150K. Quick Pay comes with an intraday or an end-of-day (EOD) trailing drawdown; Fast Pass drawdowns are calculated at the end of the day. Traders who pass move to a Funded Sim account.

The website says traders can “keep up to 90% of the profit”. On Quick Pay Funded Sim accounts the split is 50/50 or 80/20 depending on the profit in the account; 90/10 applies in Funded Live. TradeDay says it was established in 2020, and its site discloses a pass rate of 36% for its evaluation between January and June 2026.

This review uses only TradeDay’s own website, help centre and terms. The pricing section we saved showed only the Quick Pay Intraday plans on Tradovate, so we do not list End of Day or Fast Pass subscription prices.

Everything in this review comes from TradeDay's own web pages, saved on 7–8 October 2026. Rules and prices change, so check the firm's site before you buy.

The evaluation is a monthly subscription: the first payment is taken when you sign up and then “it will recur every 30 days until you pass the evaluation or choose to cancel your subscription”. There is no deadline to pass: “you can take as long as you like to pass.” Monthly billing stops once you pass.

The prices below are from the Quick Pay Intraday plan cards on the home page, which were shown as discounted prices (each card showed a higher figure before the monthly price, and a discount label). We could not see the undiscounted terms or how long the offer runs. The pricing section also says ‘For best pricing’ to use a code, so check the final price at checkout.

Every card says “No activation fee”. The position limits are as printed on the cards; the 100K and 150K cards both show 50 micros. For Fast Pass, the rules article says “Profit targets, position limits, and drawdown limits are the same as those of Quick Pay accounts.”

Resets

If you fail, you can buy a reset to restart immediately. The help centre lists these reset fees:

The home page cards show different reset fees for the 100K and 150K Quick Pay Intraday accounts ($108 and $162). We list the help-centre figures because that article sets out reset fees for all three plan types; check the price at checkout.

You can also wait for the monthly renewal: the firm resets the account for free at renewal if your dashboard status at that moment is “NOT BEING EVALUATED”. A reset does not change your billing date. The membership cannot be paused. You can cancel at any time, but you are not evaluated after you cancel.

TradeDay also sells CoPilot, access to its members area “from only $24/month”, which does not include the trading platform.

The help centre says “TradeDay has just one rule - Don't break the Maximum Drawdown Limit!” Around that rule sit objectives (profit target, minimum days, consistency) and three guidelines: permitted times, permitted products and position limits.

The profit target is net: “Gross profit - simulated commissions”. The firm says this simulated commission matches what you would be charged in its Funded Live option.

How the drawdown works

Both drawdown types trail: an intraday limit follows unrealised balances during the day, and an EOD limit moves only with the closing balance. The limit keeps trailing until it reaches the starting balance. In the firm’s $100K example the limit starts at $97,000 and freezes at $100,000 once the balance reaches $103,000. Both types are enforced in real time: with EOD you still must not let equity fall below the active level during the day.

Guidelines

The Terms say trading is “Day-trading only and all positions must be closed at least 10 minutes prior to the end of any session”. Permitted products are “CME Exchange Group futures products only”, and open positions must stay within the limit for the evaluation tier. The help centre says accidental breaches of these three guidelines do not fail you, but traders found to be abusing them lose the account.

Where the pages disagree

The rules article gives Fast Pass a 3-day minimum, while the How It Works page says “No minimum on Fast Pass” and the home page says there is “no minimum trading day requirement”. The Terms also mention reaching profit targets “over a minimum 7-day period”. We show the help-centre rules article figures in the table because it is the page that sets out each programme’s objectives; check the dashboard before relying on a minimum.

When you pass, you get an email at 17:30 CT and a set-up tracker on your dashboard; your monthly subscription is cancelled. To set up the funded account you onboard with Riseworks (the payment processor), complete a Rules and Regulations course and then select Funded Sim, within 30 days. The same article lists “Pay The Activation Fee” as step 1, marked as done automatically, while the pricing cards say there is no activation fee.

Funded rules

• Do not hit the maximum drawdown, and do not trade within 2% of a price limit; this applies to Quick Pay and Fast Pass, Funded Sim and Funded Live.
• Quick Pay Funded Sim accounts always use an intraday drawdown, whatever drawdown you had in the evaluation.
• Fast Pass Funded Sim accounts use an EOD drawdown.
• On Quick Pay Funded Sim, the balance and drawdown are based on gross profits (current profit plus payouts), so the drawdown keeps trailing after you take payouts.

Quick Pay Funded Sim profit split

Splits are worked out per account, not on lifetime withdrawals.

• 80/20 if the account has more than $4,000 profit and the payout leaves more than $4,000.
• 50/50 if the account has less than $4,000 profit.
• A mix of the two if the payout takes profit from above to below $4,000; in the firm’s example a $3,000 payout from $6,000 profit pays $2,100.
• 90/10 applies in Funded Live.

The plan cards list, for Quick Pay Funded Sim: no payout buffer, a minimum of 1 day to payout and a minimum payout request of $250. An older help article on requesting payouts still says traders “must have cleared the Buffer Zone”; we follow the home page. The home page describes Fast Pass payouts as “a structured payout system that rewards consistent trading” and says they “process just as quickly”; we did not see the Fast Pass payout policy, so we do not describe its terms.

Requesting a payout

Funded Sim traders request payouts from the dashboard; Funded Live traders request them by email. The payout policy says: “We aim to process payout requests submitted before 5:30 pm ET by the next business day.” The page also says requests received before 5:30 pm CT are processed within 24 hours on business days. All first payout requests are checked against the firm’s prohibited trade practices.

Payouts go through Riseworks by bank wire or crypto. Listed fees: US bank wire free, international bank wire $15, L1 crypto $2.5 plus estimated gas fees, L2 crypto free. Rise may add further fees depending on the country and bank.

The home page says you can “Trade up to 10 accounts”. If you lose a funded account with a positive balance, the firm says profits are returned after the profit share, except for: profits from trading tier 1 data releases or outside permitted times; traders in breach of its prohibited trade practices or continually abusing its guidelines; and profits earned in a simulated account (so this does not cover Funded Sim profits).

TradeDay says it funds scalpers but bans some scalping practices. Its prohibited trade practices page, scalping article and Terms list, among others:

• Trading bots or automated trading systems bought from a third party, or several users running the same bot.
• High-frequency scalping systems; strategies with more than 200 trades in a day.
• Strategies that trade in a few seconds for a couple of ticks, or that game queue position in the simulated matching engine.
• Order splitting (multiple orders at the same price at the same time).
• Trading gapped, illiquid markets for stray fills, and exploiting the lack of slippage in the simulator, “such as bracketing data releases”.
• Spoofing, layering and other conduct prohibited by CME Group rules.
• Using a VPN or VPS to mask where you trade from.
• Hedging, defined as being long in one account and short in another account in the same product.
• For funded traders, trading within 2% of a price limit.
• Signing up with different usernames and email addresses.

Profits from prohibited practices are confiscated, and passed evaluations are reviewed; traders found in breach are not funded and do not get refunds. The Terms also reserve TradeDay’s right to decide “at its own discretion” what counts as prohibited conduct.

TradeDay lists two platform groups.

• CQG: Tradovate, NinjaTrader, and TradingView and Jigsaw (you need your own licence for each of the last two).
• Rithmic: R|Trader Pro, Quantower, ATAS, Motivewave, Bookmap, Jigsaw, Sierra Chart, EdgeProX, Finamark, Volfix, WealthCharts, Multicharts and Overcharts.

TradeDay members can use a free version of NinjaTrader 8, provided by NinjaTrader, on the CQG feed; TradeDay does not support NinjaTrader Desktop with Rithmic accounts. Tradovate runs on Mac OS, Windows, iOS and Android.

TradeDay offers futures only: its traders trade CME Group products, covering equity indexes, FX, metals, oil and agricultural products.

• Operator: the Terms name TradeDay LLC, an Illinois limited liability company; the site footer gives an address at 412 S. Wells, Chicago.
• TradeDay says it was established in 2020, is registered in Illinois and “also has a presence in the UK”, and that it is owned and managed by co-founders James Thorpe and Steve Miley.
• Regulation: the help centre says “As a trader evaluation service, we are not required to be regulated.” The site footer says TradeDay LLC is not registered with the SEC or CFTC as a broker-dealer, investment advisor, futures commission merchant or commodity trading advisor.
• Simulated accounts: the Terms say Funded SIM trades “are not made in live markets and do not incur actual profits or losses”. A Funded LIVE Account is described as an account “funded by TradeDay”.
• The firm says it will never ask you for capital to trade or to cover losses.
• The firm says it has processed over $10 million in payouts to funded traders since launch.

Who can join

You must be at least 18 and not a citizen or resident of a country on TradeDay’s prohibited list. The firm says the list is set by its US clearing firm and broker. The list is long and includes, for example, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines, Russia, South Africa, Turkey and Vietnam. New users from Ukraine cannot currently be onboarded. German citizens, and Canadian citizens or residents outside Ontario, can trade Funded Sim only, not Funded Live. Funded traders go through KYC and AML checks.

Refunds and disputes

The site says subscription fees are non-refundable except where required by law. If you pass but fail the KYC checks, two help articles say the firm refunds set-up and activation fees and the fee for the passed evaluation, but not failed evaluations or earlier subscriptions. The prohibited countries article says the opposite: “you will not be eligible for any refunds”. Check with TradeDay before relying on either. The Terms are governed by Illinois law and include a mandatory arbitration section.

TradeDay is built for futures day traders on CME products: positions must be closed before the session ends. It may fit traders who want a monthly evaluation with no deadline and who use Tradovate, NinjaTrader or one of the Rithmic platforms listed above. It fits less well if you trade at high frequency (more than 200 trades a day), use bought-in trading bots, or want 80% or more from the first dollar on Quick Pay Funded Sim, where the split is 50/50 below $4,000 of account profit. The firm itself says the evaluation “is not suggested for individuals with minimal trading experience”.

MyPropGenius Rating: 3.2/5 — its Transparency Index score of 65/100 ÷ 20, rounded down

The rating measures how openly TradeDay discloses its rules, pricing, payouts and ownership (our Transparency Index methodology). It does not measure how likely you are to pass or be paid.