18th Street Trading review: paid phases and a $6,000 live account

Verdict: 18th Street Trading has replaced the single $50,000 assessment we first reviewed with a four-phase futures plan, sold at $25,000 to $150,000. Each phase pays a fixed sum when you complete it, and the plan ends in a small account trading real capital. It suits patient intraday futures traders who want paid milestones, no activation fee and no daily loss limit. It does not suit traders who expect a profit split during evaluation. On the $50,000 plan, $18,000 of simulated target profit earns $7,000, and the live account holds $6,000, not $50,000.

Updated 9 October 2026: 18th Street Trading has retired the one-step $50,000 assessment, the $149 activation fee and the invitation-only $100,000 and $150,000 stages this review covered on 19 September. We have rewritten the review against the firm's current published terms, which we checked on its Qualification, Progression, FAQ and Risk Disclosure pages. The firm asked for a re-review. It did not pay for one, and it did not see this text before publication.

Key terms, as the firm publishes them

• Plan fee, paid once: $265, $525, $1,000 or $1,595 for the $25,000, $50,000, $100,000 and $150,000 plans. The fee is the same on every platform. There are no activation or phase fees and no subscription. See the Qualification specification.
• Structure: four simulated phases (Trader Candidate, Qualified Trader, Professional Trader, Institutional Trader), then a Live account.
• Profit target: 9% in every phase, which is $4,500 on the $50,000 plan.
• Maximum trailing loss: 5% of the end-of-day balance. It locks at the starting balance once the account closes 5% up. Daily loss limit: none.
• Consistency requirement: your best day can be no more than 25% of the phase's profit, so no phase can be finished in fewer than four trading days.
• Time limit: 60 calendar days per phase, counted from the first trade. Inactivity: 14 days in the phases and 7 days on the Live account. Resets: none.
• Phase payouts: fixed amounts that total $3,500, $7,000, $14,000 and $21,000 across the four phases, by plan size.
• Live account: $3,000, $6,000, $12,000 or $18,000 of real capital. The maximum loss is fixed at 50%, the trader keeps 90% of profits, and withdrawals are on demand and then every 30 days. See the firm's FAQ.

What changed since our first review

When 18th Street launched publicly in August 2026 it sold a single product: a $50,000 one-step assessment costing $149 to $201 depending on the platform, plus a $149 activation fee after passing. Funded traders took 80% of gains above a 3% buffer. The $100,000 and $150,000 stages above that were offered by invitation only, and our original review found that they still carried qualification fees of $297 and $446, even though the firm said they could not be bought.

Related:Mubite review: no profit target, until you request a payout

All of that has been withdrawn. You now choose a plan size at checkout and pay one fee, and nothing after that is for sale. "You choose the plan size you start at; nothing after that can be purchased," the FAQ says. The fee schedule backs this up: the firm lists no activation fee, no phase fee and no reset. The criticism in our first review was that the firm claimed stages could not be bought while its own FAQ priced them. That criticism no longer applies.

Two other changes matter more to a trader's economics. The evaluation no longer pays a percentage of profits; it pays a fixed sum per phase. And the end of the ladder is no longer simulated: the firm says the Live account is real capital executed on the exchange. Its risk disclosure, which in September said every account was simulated, now says: "The Live account is not simulated."

Payouts: fixed sums, not a split

The payout schedule is published in full and is easy to follow. On the $50,000 plan, Phase 1 pays $1,000, Phases 2 and 3 pay $1,500 each, and Phase 4 pays $3,000, for $7,000 in total. The firm points out that the Phase 1 payout is larger than the plan fee at every size. On the $50,000 plan, $525 buys the chance at a first $1,000.

The trade-off is the conversion rate. Each phase requires $4,500 of simulated profit, which is $18,000 across the four. Paying $7,000 for that means the trader receives about 39% of target profit. A trader on an 80% or 90% split elsewhere would receive more for the same result. Phase 1 is the least generous phase, paying $1,000 against a $4,500 target, or 22%. Profit beyond the target counts for nothing: "Profit beyond the target does not increase the phase payout." The payout also has to be requested and completed before the next phase starts, and each phase starts from a fresh balance.

The fixed schedule also removes the September model's restrictions on withdrawals. There is no non-withdrawable buffer, no cap of 50% of gains and no 30-day wait between phase payouts. Once the target and the 25% ratio are met, the sum is set. Before the first request, the trader must pass KYC and sign a Trader Agreement, and an account that fails KYC is closed.

On the Live account the model becomes a conventional split. The trader keeps 90% of profits. The first withdrawal can be requested on demand, and later ones once every 30 calendar days. The FAQ adds a term that favours the trader: if a Live account is breached while it holds gains, "you still receive your 90% share of them."

The Live account is smaller than the plan

This is the term most likely to surprise buyers. The Live account is sized separately from the plan, at roughly 12% of the plan's notional value: $3,000 on the $25,000 plan, $6,000 on $50,000, $12,000 on $100,000 and $18,000 on $150,000. The firm says so on the Qualification page under the heading "Before you apply", and we credit it for that. But a trader who buys a "$150,000 plan" and completes all four phases ends up trading $18,000.

The Live account also carries costs that the phases do not. The plan fee covers platform and market-data fees through Phase 4. Once the account is live, those fees "are deducted from the account balance monthly", and the risk disclosure warns that they reduce the balance "whether or not the account is profitable." The firm does not publish the monthly amount. On a $3,000 account, a platform and CME data bill could be a large share of the balance. Commissions apply throughout at retail exchange-pass-through rates: the FAQ quotes $2.18 per side on the E-mini S&P 500 and $0.71 on the Micro.

The rules that end accounts

Four rules decide most outcomes. The first is the clock. Each phase must be finished within 60 calendar days of its first trade, and an expired phase "deactivates the account regardless of progress." The timer cannot be paused or extended. In the phases, 14 days without an executed trade also ends the account, and on the Live account the limit is 7 days, with no pause for travel.

The second is no resets. A breached or expired account is replaced by buying a new plan and starting again at Phase 1, and earlier phases do not carry forward. A trader who fails in Phase 3 starts over at Phase 1 and pays the full fee again.

The third is the trailing loss. It is measured at the end of the day rather than intraday, which is kinder than the intraday versions common in futures. On the $50,000 plan, the threshold starts at $47,500 and rises with each higher close until it locks at $50,000. There is no daily loss limit, so one bad session can reach it.

The fourth is consistency, at 25% of total profit. That is tighter than the 33.33% the firm used in September. It is not a breach rule: a trader whose best day is too large keeps trading until the ratio falls. With a 60-day clock, that extra trading has a cost.

The conduct rules are unchanged. Positions auto-flatten at 1555 CST, and holding overnight or over a weekend is not allowed. Traders can hold a position through news, but cannot open a new one within three minutes either side of a red-folder release. Automated strategies are permitted, but off-the-shelf "pass" bots are not, and only front-month contracts may be traded.

How the terms compare

Sources: the 18th Street specification, Take Profit Trader's account table and Topstep's Express Funded Account rules, all read on 9 October 2026. The models differ in kind. 18th Street pays during the evaluation but caps what you can earn there, while the other two pay nothing until you are funded and then pay a percentage. For prices across the sector, see our comparison of $100,000 accounts at 23 firms.

Who you are actually contracting with

The new structure has not changed the counterparty. The disclaimer at the foot of every page still reads: "18th Street Trading is an affiliate of Prop Account, LLC. All funding assessments are provided by Prop Account, LLC and all assessment fees are paid to Prop Account, LLC." Before a payout, the trader signs a Trader Agreement with Prop Account LC. The Risk Disclosure says the full terms and the privacy, refund and cookie policies "are published by Prop Account, LLC and apply to every account." Card charges still appear as "dashboardanalytix.com", which the FAQ discloses.

The client terms, last updated September 2026 and re-checked on 9 October, name the counterparty group as "Prop Account, d/b/a Dashboard Analytix, Forest Park FX LTD, Prop Account LLC, Prop Account Cayman, LC". The notice addresses are in Boca Raton, Florida and Camana Bay, Grand Cayman. 18th Street Trading, LLC is registered at 732 S 6th St, Las Vegas. Prop Account sells exactly this arrangement as a white-label service, which we reviewed separately as a prop firm in a box. Much of the futures sector runs this way, but it means the live capital, the payouts and the contract come from the vendor, not from the brand.

Founder Jay R. Pocius frames the model around earned progression. "No one advances by paying more, and no one is held back by anything other than the standard itself," his letter on the homepage says. Under the new structure, the published rules support that claim.

The firm claims no CFTC, NFA or other registration. Phases 1 to 4 are simulated with notional capital. The firm says the Live account trades real capital on the exchange, and that losses there "are real losses of the account's capital". The capital belongs to the firm, not the trader.

What we could not verify

The new model is weeks old, and nobody has yet tested it with a payout. The firm publishes no pass rate, no phase-completion figures, no payout totals and no count of traders who have reached the Live account. We could not confirm who provides the live capital or through which clearing firm the Live account executes. The firm offered account access for testing, and we have not yet used it. The monthly platform and data fees charged on the Live account are also unpublished, and they decide whether a $3,000 account is workable.

For contrast, Take Profit Trader publishes that 36.22% of its trading tests were passed during 2025. The refund policy says that once login details are emailed "no refund will be given". It also says traders who dispute charges "will be permanently banned from the Platform." Missing evidence cuts both ways, as in our FundedHive review, and fixed-payout arithmetic is worth checking against Legacy Funded Futures.

FAQ

How much does an 18th Street plan cost?
$265 for $25,000, $525 for $50,000, $1,000 for $100,000 and $1,595 for $150,000. You pay once, the price is the same on every platform, and it covers all four phases, including platform and market-data fees. There is no activation fee, phase fee or subscription. A breached or expired account has to be bought again from Phase 1.

How much can I earn before the Live account?
The phase payouts are fixed: $3,500 in total on the $25,000 plan, $7,000 on $50,000, $14,000 on $100,000 and $21,000 on $150,000. Each is paid when you complete its phase. Profit above the 9% target does not increase the payout, so on the $50,000 plan the four payouts equal about 39% of the target profit.

Is the Live account real money, and how big is it?
The firm says it is real capital executed on the exchange. It is much smaller than the plan: $3,000, $6,000, $12,000 or $18,000. The maximum loss is fixed at 50%, the trader keeps 90% of profits, and platform and data fees are deducted from the balance every month.

What happens if I stop trading for a while?
In Phases 1 to 4, 14 days without a trade ends the account, and so does running past the 60-day limit on a phase, whatever your progress. On the Live account the inactivity limit is 7 days. Neither timer can be paused, including for travel. Comparable timing traps appear in our Mubite review.

This review is independent editorial analysis and is not financial, investment, or trading advice, and is not an endorsement or solicitation. The Industry Spread has no affiliate or referral relationship with the firms covered. Proprietary trading challenges carry a fee that is generally non-refundable, most participants do not reach a funded account, and funded capital is the firm's capital, not the trader's. Terms change frequently — always verify current rules directly with the firm before paying any fee.