What "cheapest" actually means.
Most people searching for the cheapest prop firm challenge mean the lowest number you have to type into a checkout field before you find out if you can trade. That number is $5 on MixFunded's Pay After Passing (PAPP) program, tied to the $50,000 account. There's no smaller entry fee on the site, and we're not aware of one that's genuinely lower elsewhere without a coupon gimmick attached.
But entry fee isn't the whole cost. PAPP charges a $150 activation fee after you pass — the trade-off for the $5 door. If you fail the evaluation, that $150 is never billed. Compare that against a standard evaluation, where the entry fee is the entire cost and there's no second charge waiting on the other side of a pass.
Full cost table.
Pricing pulled from the live program configurator at /programs. Figures are entry fee only unless noted — always confirm current pricing there before you buy.
| Program | Size | Entry | Extra fee | Split | Daily / Max DD |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pay After Passing | $50,000 | $5 | $150 on pass | 80 / 20 | 3% / 8% |
| 1-Step Evaluation | $10,000 | $45 | None | 80 / 20 | 5% / 10% |
| 1-Step Evaluation | $25,000 | $95 | None | 80 / 20 | 5% / 10% |
| 1-Step Evaluation | $50,000 | $175 | None | 80 / 20 | 5% / 10% |
| 2-Step Evaluation | $100,000 | $299 | None | 80 / 20 | 5% / 10% |
| Instant Funded | $10,000 | $339 | None | 60/40 → 80/20 | 3% / 6% |
| Instant Funded | $100,000 | $2,999 | None | 60/40 → 80/20 | 3% / 6% |
Why a cheap entry doesn't mean weaker rules.
Some firms make a low entry fee sustainable by loosening nothing except the price tag, then quietly tightening rules you don't notice until you're near a payout. On MixFunded, PAPP runs the same 80/20 profit split as the standard evaluation, no consistency rule, news trading allowed, EAs allowed, and no time limit — only a 3 trading-day minimum. The one place PAPP is stricter is drawdown: 3% daily and 8% max, tighter than the standard evaluation's 5%/10%. That's the actual mechanism that keeps a $5 entry viable — not fine print on the split or the payout schedule.
How to pick between cheap-to-start and cheap-overall.
If your goal is to test a strategy at minimum cash risk, PAPP's $5 entry is the obvious pick — you only owe money after you've proven you can pass. If you already know you'll pass and want to skip a second charge, a standard 1-Step or 2-Step evaluation on a smaller size (like the $10,000 program at $45) can end up cheaper in total if you're confident and want a wider drawdown band (5%/10%) to work with.
Run the numbers against your own risk plan with the drawdown simulator and position sizer before committing either way.
What happens after you pay.
Every program funnels to the same place: a funded account with drawdown rules that don't loosen, a profit split that scales from 80/20 to 90/10 after three consistent payouts, and a payout cycle that settles every Monday in USDT (TRC-20), published on-chain with a TXID on /ledger. £36,857 has been paid to traders since December 2024 across 286 funded accounts and 374 evaluations — the entry fee is a door, not the product.