I've bought evaluations from most of the big futures prop firms — Apex, TopStep, Take Profit Trader, MyFundedFutures — and the two that get pitted against each other in my DMs lately are Apex Trader Funding and Bulenox. Both market themselves on being cheap to start. But they're cheap in very different ways: Apex is the established, discount-heavy heavyweight with a tight drawdown, while Bulenox is the newer, bargain-basement challenger you have to verify more carefully. This is the honest, trader-to-trader breakdown. Everything here is a June 2026 snapshot — prices, coupons and rules shift constantly, so confirm the live numbers before you pay a cent.
Affiliate disclosure: Some links below are affiliate links. If you start an evaluation through one, I may earn a commission at no extra cost to you, and it never changes my opinion. This is education, not financial advice. Bulenox in particular is a newer firm that updates its terms often, so I deliberately avoid quoting exact prices, percentages or codes — confirm everything on the live link.
The 30-second answer
If you want a proven firm to cheaply stack multiple funded accounts and you genuinely understand how intraday trailing drawdown works, Apex is the safer pick — it has the track record and the near-constant coupons to back the price. If your single priority is the lowest possible cost to open an eval this week and you're comfortable using a newer firm with a shorter public history, Bulenox is a legitimate answer. Most traders should default to Apex; Bulenox shines specifically when cost is the only thing on your mind.
Cost and discounts: cheap, but cheap differently
Apex
Apex almost always has a heavy coupon running — I'm talking 50–80%+ off on a near-constant basis, so the effective entry price is low even though the sticker isn't rock-bottom. The bigger 2026 change is structural: Apex rebuilt toward a one-time eval fee with roughly 30-day access instead of a monthly subscription, which removes the slow-bleed of paying every month while you grind toward a pass. Combine cheap-after-coupon pricing with a one-time fee and you get Apex's signature move: stacking several accounts at once and keeping whichever ones perform.
Bulenox
Bulenox competes purely on low headline price with a discount code that seems to run almost continuously. Credit where it's due — if your only question is "what's the cheapest way to start a futures eval this week?", Bulenox is a real answer, often undercutting Apex's pre-coupon sticker. The catch is that a cheap eval fee can exclude an activation or funded-account fee you only pay after you pass, plus any resets you buy if you blow the eval. Add those up before you call it cheaper than Apex's one-time-fee model.
The number that matters isn't the coupon — it's the all-in cost. For each firm, add: eval fee (after code) + any activation/funded-account fee + the resets you realistically expect to buy. A firm with a slightly higher one-time fee can easily beat a "cheaper" firm once activation and resets are counted. Run that math for both before you decide.
Drawdown: the rule that actually decides this
With any prop firm, the eval price tells you almost nothing about your odds — the drawdown type does. This is the most important section, so read it twice.
The concept that decides everything: an intraday trailing drawdown uses your peak unrealized equity to ratchet your loss limit up in real time, so a winner you give back can breach you. An end-of-day (EOD) trailing drawdown only recalculates at session close, so intraday swings don't move your floor. A static/fixed drawdown never moves at all — the most forgiving of the three.
- Apex: intraday trailing drawdown — tight, ratchets on unrealized gains, and frankly the reason most Apex evals fail. It is survivable, but only if you never give back meaningful open profit. This is the single biggest thing to internalize before you buy Apex.
- Bulenox: has historically leaned toward a trailing drawdown too — the same mechanic that fails most traders. Because Bulenox changes its programs more often than the established firms, I won't swear to a fixed percentage or to intraday vs EOD. Verify the current drawdown type before you pay.
Before you fund either firm, get clear answers to these — for Bulenox especially, since the terms move:
- Is the drawdown trailing or static? Static is far more forgiving; trailing is unforgiving of giving back open profit.
- If trailing, is it intraday or end-of-day? Intraday (Apex's style, and likely Bulenox's) is the strict, account-killing version; EOD is more humane.
- Does the drawdown stop trailing once you bank a buffer above your starting balance? Many firms freeze it at breakeven-plus once you're up a set amount — know that threshold.
- Is there a daily loss limit on top of the trailing drawdown? A second ceiling changes how you size every trade.
Risk reminder: Trading futures is high risk and most people who pay for evaluations never reach a payout. Eval and activation fees are non-refundable, funded accounts are typically simulated/firm-funded, and a single intraday trailing-drawdown breach can end an account in seconds. Only spend money you're fully prepared to lose, and never size an account on the assumption you'll pass.
Payout rules and profit split
Both firms pay a profit split on funded withdrawals, but the confidence you can have in those payouts is very different. Apex offers a high profit split and has years of public payout proof — but it gates your first withdrawal with a consistency rule and a minimum-winning-days requirement, so the best economics arrive after you've put in some banked, well-distributed green days rather than one lucky session. Bulenox runs a rev-share-style split that looks standard on paper; the honest caveat is that a newer firm's payout reliability is the thing you can least verify from the outside. That's not an accusation — it's a reason to treat your first Bulenox payout as the real test.
- Verify the split percentage for each firm and whether it improves after a set number of payouts.
- Verify the minimum payout threshold and how often you can withdraw — first withdrawals are often gated harder than later ones.
- Verify any consistency rule (e.g., no single day exceeding X% of total profit) — these quietly delay payouts on otherwise-passing accounts. Apex has one; check whether Bulenox does.
- For Bulenox, prove it small first. Get funded, hit the minimum, request a withdrawal, and judge the firm on that experience before committing more.
Platform support and what you can trade
Both firms are squarely in the futures lane, so you'll be trading the usual liquid contracts: ES/MES (the E-mini and Micro E-mini S&P 500), NQ/MNQ (Nasdaq), and the other common index, energy and metals products. Beginners should lean on the micros like MES — at roughly a tenth the size of the full ES, they let you respect a tight trailing drawdown without oversizing. On software, Apex supports a broad set of popular futures platforms; Bulenox supports a platform lineup of its own that it updates periodically. Confirm the exact supported platforms and any per-platform data fees on each firm's live page before you assume your charting setup is covered — this is an easy detail to get wrong.
Account stacking
This is where Apex has a structural edge. Because Apex pairs a one-time eval fee with heavy coupons, it's genuinely cheap to run several accounts in parallel and keep the ones that perform — that's the entire strategy a lot of Apex traders build around. Bulenox's low headline price makes stacking tempting too, but you have to re-run the all-in math (activation fees, resets) per account, and you're stacking on a firm with a shorter public track record. If stacking is core to your plan, Apex is the more battle-tested vehicle.
Side-by-side: Apex vs Bulenox
| Factor | Apex Trader Funding | Bulenox |
|---|---|---|
| Headline cost | Higher sticker, but near-constant 50–80%+ coupons | Very low headline price, frequent discount codes |
| Fee model | One-time eval fee + ~30-day access (2026 rebuild) | Low eval fee; verify activation/funded fees |
| Drawdown | Intraday trailing (tight — fails most evals) | Historically trailing; verify type on live link |
| Payout gates | Consistency + minimum-winning-days rule before first payout | Rev-share split; verify thresholds and rules |
| Track record | Years of public payout history | Newer firm, shorter public history |
| Stacking | Built for it — cheap to run multiple accounts | Possible, but re-check all-in cost per account |
| Best for | Proven firm, disciplined stackers | Lowest-cost entry this week |
Want the deeper dives? I've written a full Apex Trader Funding review and a standalone Bulenox review that go further on each firm's specifics.
Who should pick which
Pick Apex if…
- You want a firm with a long, public payout track record and don't want to bet on a newer name.
- You plan to stack multiple cheap accounts and keep the winners — Apex is purpose-built for it.
- You genuinely respect intraday trailing drawdown and won't give back open profit.
- You prefer a one-time eval fee over paying month after month while you grind toward a pass.
Pick Bulenox if…
- Your single priority is the lowest starting cost this week and you're comfortable using a newer firm.
- You're an experienced trader adding a cheap extra account to diversify across firms — not putting everything on one.
- You're disciplined about trailing drawdown already and will verify the exact rules before funding.
- You're willing to prove the payout small first rather than assuming the track record is there.
Still deciding between firms? My cheapest prop firms breakdown ranks the low-cost options head to head, and how to get funded trading futures walks through passing an eval without blowing the drawdown.
My verdict
For most traders, Apex is the stronger pick — not because it's the absolute cheapest, but because the heavy coupons make it effectively cheap while giving you a proven payout history and a one-time-fee model built for stacking. The price you pay for that is the tight intraday trailing drawdown, which you must respect or it'll eat account after account. Bulenox wins on one axis: raw starting cost. If that's your top priority and you treat it as a newer firm — verifying the drawdown type, the payout rules and the platform support on the live link, and proving the first payout small — it's a legitimate, low-risk-to-try option. Match the tool to the job: Apex for proven cheap stacking, Bulenox for the cheapest possible on-ramp.