How much does it cost to start a prop firm?
Quick answer
The total depends mostly on four lines: trading technology, payments and legal setup, marketing, and a reserve for trader payouts. Technology can range from a one-time payment of a few hundred dollars to thousands per month. Marketing and the payout reserve are usually the largest amounts.
Detailed answer
Break the budget into one-time and ongoing costs.
One-time: company formation, legal documents, website and checkout, platform setup fees if your provider charges them, and branding.
Ongoing: platform licence or per-account fees, payment processing, KYC checks, customer support, marketing and affiliate commission, accounting.
Capital you hold back: a payout reserve so you can pay funded traders even in a month with weak sales.
Technology pricing varies more than any other line. Some providers publish monthly white-label fees; for example, Match-Trader lists its basic white label at $2,500 a month (checked October 2026). Others charge a setup fee plus a revenue share. PropExecutor charges a one-time plan price: $129 for 50 accounts, $499 for 250 or $1,799 for 1,250, with no setup fee and nothing monthly. With technology fixed and small, the real decisions are how much to spend acquiring traders and how large a reserve to keep.
How to build your own estimate
List each line with a low and a high figure, then add a reserve sized for your first funded traders. The difference between the two totals shows where your risk sits; it is usually marketing and payouts, not software.
PropExecutor team · Updated