Verdict. Maverick Trading is one of the few firms in this cluster that puts traders on real firm capital, through an interview and training rather than a paid pass/fail challenge, and it has run from Salt Lake City since 1997. It does not suit anyone who needs the total cost before committing. The biggest caveat: the trader must post a bond, the firm never publishes what that bond is, and the site carries no terms of service to define it.

Key terms at a glance

• Desk fee: “a $199 desk fee”, no billing period stated — the firm’s published FAQ, accessed 30 August 2026
• Trading bond / performance bond / risk deposit: required before live trading. Amount not published anywhere on the site
• Starting capital: $25,000 at Level 1, per the firm’s Firm Capital Access page
• Capital ladder: Level 1 $25,000, Level 2 $50,000, Level 3 $100,000, Level 4 $150,000, Levels 5 and 6 “Negotiated”
• Profit split: advertised as “65-90%”, with “90% Max Split” on the homepage
• Payout timing: credited the Saturday after options expiration, paid by ACH on the 1st of the next month
• Tax treatment: independent contractor, 1099-MISC, no salary
• Entity: traders contract with “one of our trading LLCs” — never named on the site

The one number the site will not give you

Maverick’s FAQ opens by saying the firm aims “to ensure complete transparency”. Fourteen thousand characters later, asked “Is there a cost associated with the qualification program?”, it answers: “Yes. Each Maverick Trader pays a $199 desk fee and will need to post a trading bond before live trading.” Then: “Full details on these costs will be in the application videos.”

The bond is the trader’s own money and the largest sum a Maverick trader parts with, and its amount is disclosed only after an introductory video, a formal application, a second full-length video and a scheduled interview. There is no pricing page — /pricing returns a 404.

The firm uses three names for the same money: the FAQ calls it a “trading bond” in one sentence and a “performance bond” in the next; the Firm Capital Access page calls it a “risk deposit”. None is defined, and no document says whether it is refundable, what happens to it in a drawdown, or when it is returned.

There is no contract published anywhere

Every page on mavericktrading.com carries a footer with three legal links: Privacy Policy, Terms of Service and Insider Trading Policy. All three are coded as href="#" — placeholder anchors that go nowhere. The conventional paths do not help either: /terms-of-service, /privacy-policy and /insider-trading-policy all return the site’s 404 page.

The trader is asked to wire a four-figure bond into an unnamed LLC, become its contractor and trade its brokerage sub-account, with no published agreement governing any of it. We saw the pattern in OneFunded, whose contract contained no payout clause at all; here there is no contract to read at all.

What traders actually pay, according to everyone except Maverick

The third-party ecosystem has filled the gap, and disagrees with itself. PropFirm201, updated 2 April 2026, lists “$5,000 risk capital deposit (Stock/Options Division) or $2,000 refundable deposit (FX Division)” plus a “$199/month desk fee”, and flags “Not transparent about all fees and rules on public site” as a con. TradingFinder describes “an initial at-risk deposit of $5,000”. Other write-ups cite $4,000.

The desk fee is the sharper problem. Maverick’s own wording — “a $199 desk fee” — carries no billing period. Independent trackers describe it as monthly, running through training as well as live trading. One-time, it is $199; monthly across a year, $2,388. The firm’s own sentence does not let a reader tell which, and that sits in the answer to a question explicitly about cost.

The advertised split has the same problem. No independent source reviewed for this piece found a 90% tier: PropFirm201 records “Up to 75%”, and it and TradingFinder both put the working range at 70-80%. The 90% figure may exist at a negotiated Level 5 or 6; we could not verify it, and neither can an applicant.

Payouts: monthly, mechanical, and entirely unaudited

Maverick’s payout mechanics are unusually specific for this sector: profits are calculated per options expiration cycle, credited the Saturday after expiration — between the 15th and 22nd — and disbursed by ACH on the 1st of the following month. The FAQ’s worked example: $5,000 of profit at an 80% split pays $4,000 on 1 April for March. No payout cap, no minimum trading-day gate, no approval window.

What is missing is evidence. Maverick publishes no payout totals, no number of funded traders, no pass rate and no acceptance rate. Its 98 Trustpilot reviews carry a genuine 4.6 TrustScore — we verified this directly on 30 August 2026, so the firm’s on-site claim of “Trustpilot ★ 4.6” is accurate, worth saying plainly in a cluster where such widgets are routinely inflated. But Trustpilot attaches a notice: “No recent history of asking for reviews. This company hasn’t invited customers recently, so reviews may not be representative.”

Topstep, by contrast, publishes figures for January to December 2025: 16.8% of Trading Combines completed, 33.3% of Funded Level participants paid out, 0.71% called up from Express Funded to Live Funded. Maverick publishes no equivalent number for any stage of its funnel.

How Maverick compares with FTMO and Topstep

	Maverick Trading	FTMO	Topstep
Upfront cost	$199 desk fee + undisclosed bond (3rd parties: $2,000-$5,000)	Challenge fee, published per account size	Monthly Trading Combine subscription, published
Is the money returned?	Not stated anywhere on the site	“100% refund of your initial fee with your first reward withdrawal”	Subscription, not refundable
Capital status	Firm’s own brokerage sub-account, via Interactive Brokers	“90% of your simulated profits”	Simulated until call-up to Live Funded
Max split advertised	90% (independents find 75-80%)	90%	Up to 90%
Outcome statistics published	None	None	16.8% / 33.3% / 0.71% for 2025
Terms of service on site	No — footer links are href="#"	Yes	Yes

The row that favours Maverick is the third: its traders are permissioned onto the firm’s own brokerage account, where FTMO pays a share of “simulated profits” and BluSky keeps everything before brokerage simulated. That structure genuinely delivers live capital, which makes the missing bond figure the more frustrating.

The rules that will cost you

The risks here are gating risks, not the trailing-drawdown traps common to futures firms. Advancement up the capital ladder is granted on “performance, profits retained in their account and size of risk deposit”, so a trader who withdraws profits, or posts a smaller bond, scales more slowly — and neither threshold is published. It also “will be made by additional education requirements and management approval”, so progression is discretionary.

The qualification programme is mandatory, runs to over 1,000 hours of video, and must be completed before any live capital is touched — the arrangement this desk examined in Peak Capital Trading, where a $2,995 bootcamp sat where the prop firm should have been. Maverick’s is better, since the training leads to real capital rather than being the product, but price the months as well as the dollars.

Regulatory posture and what the homepage claims

Maverick is not regulated and does not claim to be. Its FAQ: “Maverick Trading is a private equity trading firm which trains and allows a team of professional traders to manage and trade its own brokerage account.” A FINRA BrokerCheck search returns no firm record; the only near match, Great Point Capital LLC, formerly Maverick Brokerage LLC, is an unrelated Chicago entity. An SEC EDGAR search for “Maverick Trading” returns “No matching companies”. Traders are 1099-MISC contractors of an unnamed LLC, not registered representatives.

Because traders deal in equity options on the firm’s own account, not customer funds, this is lawful and unremarkable — the standard structure examined in our analysis of where the prop firm regulatory perimeter actually bites. The consequence is that the bond is unprotected: no segregation requirement, no compensation scheme and no published contract.

A PR Newswire release dated 5 September 2018 records founder Robb Reinhold handing the chief executive role to Darren Fischer, and quotes Reinhold directly: “I couldn’t be more pleased with what the Maverick team built over the past 21 years.” That dates the firm to 1997 and corroborates the homepage’s “20+ Years Active” claim, now closer to 29.

The homepage option chain is decorative, not a quote

The homepage renders what looks like a live SPY and QQQ option chain with bids, asks, implied vols and greeks. It is not a feed: the values are hard-coded, duplicated for a scrolling effect, tagged aria-hidden="true" and data-nosnippet, and NVDA at a 900 call predates the 2024 split. Because the firm has flagged the block as decorative rather than passing it off as a quote, this is a presentation criticism, not a misrepresentation.

FAQ

What does it cost to join Maverick Trading?
A $199 desk fee plus a bond posted before live trading. The firm does not publish the bond amount, deferring it to its application videos. Independent trackers put it between $2,000 and $5,000 depending on division, and call the desk fee monthly. Treat all of those figures as unverified until the firm confirms them in writing.

Is Maverick Trading real capital or a simulator?
Real, on the firm’s own account. The FAQ describes traders permissioned to trade the LLC’s brokerage sub-account through Interactive Brokers, with earnings reported on a 1099-MISC. That distinguishes it from most of the sector, where “funded” accounts stay simulated and payouts are contractual rewards rather than trading profits.

Do I need a Series 57 or SIE licence?
Nothing on Maverick’s site describes a licensing requirement, and the firm is not a registered broker-dealer, so traders are not registered representatives. They are independent contractors trading the firm’s proprietary capital, which sits outside the registration perimeter.

How and when do traders get paid?
Monthly. Profits are calculated per options expiration cycle, credited the Saturday after expiration between the 15th and 22nd, and paid by ACH on the 1st of the following month. There is no published payout cap, no minimum trading-day requirement and no approval step between calculation and disbursement.

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.