Prop Firm News This Week: The5ers Goes On-Demand, Tradeify Hikes Instant Prices, and Goat Funded Crashes to 2.8 on TrustPilot
If you blinked this week, you missed a lot. Between April 13 and April 19, 2026, our firm-event tracker logged 40+ verified changes across 13 prop firms — the busiest week we've seen since the early-April price-war wave. Payout policies are flipping, TrustPilot ratings are swinging hard, two firms have re-emerged from TrustPilot suspension, and one A+ rated futures firm just raised its flagship Instant pricing by 45%.
Here's everything that actually mattered this week, ranked by impact.
- The5ers kills monthly payouts — switches to bi-weekly + on-demand after first 14 days
- Tradeify $150K Instant jumps from $549 → $796 (+45%); PFM score also climbs 3.0 → 3.8
- Goat Funded Trader TrustPilot crashes 3.4 → 2.8 across 3,846 reviews — biggest reputation drop of the week
- BrightFunded + WeMasterTrade exit TrustPilot suspension — both back at 4.2/5
- FundedNext raises 2-Step prices: $25K (+5%), $50K (+11%), $100K (+4%), $200K (+5%)
- Funded Futures Network + Bulenox drop 1-Step prices by 10–28% — discount war continues
- Topstep slips to 3.4/5 (13,842 reviews); TickTick Trader drops to 3.5/5
1. The5ers Just Killed Monthly Payouts (And You Should Care)
As of April 19, The5ers — one of the longest-running and most-reviewed prop firms in the industry — has officially flipped its payout cadence. The old policy was a clean monthly cycle with a 16-hour average payout time. The new policy is much more aggressive:
This is a massive shift for a 10-year-old firm. The5ers built its reputation on "boring reliability" — slow, predictable monthly payouts to the same accounts for years. Going on-demand puts them in direct competition with E8 Markets (which made the same switch on April 16) and pressures FTMO and FundedNext to follow.
Verdict: Bullish for traders. The5ers is one of only two firms in our database with 10,000+ TrustPilot reviews AND a 4.8 rating (the other being Bulenox at 4.8/1,557 reviews). Pairing that level of trust with on-demand payouts puts The5ers near the top of any "where should I actually put $500?" shortlist.
→ Read the full The5ers profile
2. Tradeify Just Hiked Its $150K Instant by 45%
In a week where most futures firms are racing to the bottom on price (see Funded Futures Network and Bulenox below), Tradeify went the other direction — hard. Here's the damage on the Instant program:
The 1-Step prices barely moved (most went up $6–$20), so this is a targeted repricing of the Instant funding tier. Tradeify's PFM score also jumped from 3.0 → 3.8 this week, suggesting our model now ranks them firmly in the top quartile — which arguably justifies a price hike, but not one this aggressive in a single day.
→ See all Tradeify challenges and pricing
3. Goat Funded Trader's TrustPilot Crashes (Again)
GFT was at 4.8 a month ago. It's now at 2.8. That's a 2-point TrustPilot collapse in 30 days — extremely rare for a firm with nearly 4,000 reviews (large review counts usually act as ballast against rapid swings).
This week's data showed the rating dipping back from 3.4 → 2.8 after a brief recovery attempt. Combined with their C safety grade, GFT is officially in the danger zone. We're keeping the active EASTER50, BOGO35, and FIRSTGFT codes listed for transparency, but if you're shopping for a new firm this week, this is not the one.
4. Two Firms Just Exited TrustPilot Suspension
As of this week, the suspended-firms list shrunk from 11 to 9. Two notable returns:
Both firms emerge with healthy 4.2/5 ratings, but it's worth knowing why a firm was suspended in the first place — TrustPilot suspensions typically follow review manipulation investigations. We're keeping the historical "previously suspended" flag visible on the firm pages for now, even though the warning banner has been removed.
5. FundedNext Raises 2-Step Prices Across the Board
On April 17, FundedNext bumped pricing on every tier of its 2-Step program:
- $25K 2 Steps: $189.99 → $199.99 (+5%)
- $50K 2 Steps: $269.99 → $299.99 (+11%)
- $100K 2 Steps: $529.99 → $549.99 (+4%)
- $200K 2 Steps: $1,049.99 → $1,099.99 (+5%)
The active FNF30 and VIBES codes (both 30% off first challenge) still apply — meaning your effective entry on the $50K is around $210, vs. $189 last week. Not catastrophic, but worth knowing if you were holding off.
6. The Futures Discount War Continues
While Tradeify hiked, two of its closest competitors went the opposite direction. Both Funded Futures Network and Bulenox dropped 1-Step prices on April 16:
Bulenox's $50K 1-Step at $125 with their A+ safety grade and 4.8/5 TrustPilot is arguably the cheapest A+ futures account on the market right now.
7. TrustPilot Movements (Other Firms)
Six other firms saw rating shifts this week — five down, one up:
Topstep is now firmly in the "bottom half of futures firms" on TrustPilot — a notable slide for one of the most established names in the industry. ThinkCapital, which only joined our database on April 16, has already lost 0.2 points in three days. Worth watching.
8. Nordic Funder Restructured Its Rules
Smaller story but worth flagging for anyone evaluating Nordic Funder. On April 17 they rewrote their drawdown rules and bumped their profit split from 75% (up to 90%) → 80% (up to 90%). New drawdown structure:
- One-Stage: 5% daily / 6% trailing
- Two-Stage: 5% daily / 8% static
- Three-Stage: 5% daily / 5% static
The shift from trailing to static drawdown on the 2-Step is trader-friendly — static drawdown locks at the initial balance, removing the "trailing kill" risk many traders dislike. Combined with the higher base profit split, this is a meaningful upgrade for a B-grade firm.
What to Watch Next Week
- The5ers' on-demand rollout — does the actual implementation match the marketing? Watch the TrustPilot review feed.
- Tradeify customer reaction to the price hike — will the discount-war competitors poach upset traders?
- Goat Funded Trader's bottom — is 2.8 the floor or are we headed toward 2.5?
- FTMO's response — with The5ers and E8 both on-demand now, FTMO is the last major A+ forex firm still on monthly. Pressure builds.
- Will more firms exit suspension? — 9 firms are still flagged. Atlas Funded, Goat Funded, and Funding Traders are the names to watch.
How We Track This
Every change in this roundup comes from PropFirmMap's automated firm-event tracking system. Price changes are detected daily by scraping each firm's challenge page; TrustPilot ratings are pulled from the official TrustPilot business profiles; rule changes (drawdown, profit split, payout frequency) are verified manually before being persisted. You can browse the full event feed at /pulse or see this week's complete report at /reports.
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