OneUp Trader Review – Can This Service One Up The Rest?

About OneUp Trader

OneUp Trader is a platform in which successful traders can receive a funded trading account. The platform doesn’t require a specific trading strategy, but offers a set of rules by which traders must abide in order to pass an evaluation stage and maintain their funded accounts. OneUp Trader can be a good deal for traders who have a winning strategy and want to trade with a risk-free funded account, but it can also be a money pit for traders who aren’t able to pass the evaluation stage. How does it stack up to competitors like TopStep Trader? Read our review to find out.

OneUp Trader Pricing Options

When you sign up for OneUp Trader, you choose a plan based on the size of the funded account that you would like to receive if successful during the evaluation. Different sized accounts vary in the maximum number of contracts you are able to hold at any time, your daily profit target, your maximum drawdown, and maximum daily loss.

After choosing the funded account size, there are also pricing differences depending on whether you want to keep 50% or 80% of the profits from your trading. Plans for a 50% profit share allow you to keep the entirety of your first $5,000, while plans for an 80% profit share allow you to keep your first $8,000.

Plan prices vary from $95 per month for a $25,000 account at 50% profit share up to $650 per month for a $250,000 account at 80% profit share. Importantly, resetting your account if you break OneUp Trader’s rules during the evaluation stage costs $100 per reset.

OneUp Trader also offers a 14-day free trial with a $100,000 account (normally $240 monthly for a 50% profit share).

Evaluation

Before you can get a funded account with OneUp Trader, you have to go through a 15-day evaluation period. This evaluation can take place on non-consecutive days, which is advantageous if you are trialing during volatile market periods. For evaluations, the Ninja Trader platform is provided for free – but you may not use other platforms for the evaluation.

One of the nice things about OneUp Trader is that the platform is extremely up-front about all of its requirements. Your profit target over the 15-day evaluation is specified by your account size, as is your daily loss limit and trailing drawdown. You’re not permitted to trade a huge variety of products, but rather a limited number of equity and E-mini futures, currency futures, and commodity futures. Finally, all positions must be closed by 3:15 pm Central time every day and you must trade consistently across your trial.

Since the evaluation rules are relatively transparent, traders should be able to tell ahead of time whether or not they can achieve a funded account within one or two attempts. It’s worthwhile trying to trade within OneUp Trader’s regulations with a simulated account on your own if you’re not certain, as resetting your account on top of the monthly fee can be quite expensive.

OneUp Trader Funded Accounts

If you do achieve a funded account, things become slightly more complex. The rules of trading remain the same, but you’re allowed to choose from any of 20 different trading platforms to conduct your trades and analysis. On the other hand, you’ll have to pay for your trading platform as well as trading data from Rithmic. These fees are automatically subtracted from any earnings you make with your funded account.

If, for any reason, you violate OneUp Trader’s rules, you will lose your funded account and be returned to the evaluation stage.

It’s extremely important to note that OneUp Trader has minimum limits on the amount of money you can withdraw from your trading account. If you do not meet these minimums before losing your funded account, you will not be eligible to receive any of the money you earned during funded trading. Notably, OneUp Trader is not forthcoming about this, and many traders don’t realize that they may not be paid even if they only have their funded accounts for a short time.

Features and Layout

The OneUp Trader platform itself is more like a social trading platform than a serious analytics dashboard. It’s similar to the eToro dashboard in this sense.

You’ll find market quotes and basic charts in your dashboard, but the vast majority of your homepage is comments and screenshots from other traders using OneUp Trader. The social community is nice, but unprofitable traders should be wary of this feature as it can help trap you on OneUp Trader even as you spend more money resetting your account for evaluation.

The Account Analytics screen offers a variety of charts to give you insight into how your evaluation or funded account is going. You can view numerical stats as well as graphical breakdowns of how your trading compares to the goals set by your account balance.

Beyond these basic features, though, there is not much to the OneUp Trader platform. Most of your time will be spent in the Ninja Trader interface, which is where trading actually takes place. This interface has very little customization compared to the standard Ninja Trader platform.

Platform Differentiators

OneUp Trader directly competes with Top Step Trader for traders who are seeking a funded account. Compared to Top Step Trader, OneUp Trader is far more transparent about what it takes to follow the rules and achieve funding. OneUp Trader is also more flexible in allowing traders to bring their own trading strategies, placing fewer rules overall on exactly how traders can use their accounts. Finally, the evaluation period is much shorter for OneUp Trader compared to Top Step Trader.

Still, that doesn’t mean achieving a funded trading account with OneUp Trader is simple, or that keeping it is easy. The withdrawal limits on funded accounts mean that many traders who pass evaluation never actually see any money from their efforts. The social community aspects of OneUp Trader also seem largely designed to retain paying traders even though they are not earning any money from the platform.

What Type of Trader is OneUp Trader Best For?

OneUp Trader is best for experienced traders who are confident that they can trade within the platform’s boundaries. It is a good idea for traders who think they can succeed at OneUp Trader to try themselves out on a trading simulator before paying for an account on the platform. It should be easily possible to determine whether you can stay within the regulations for funding that OneUp Trader puts forward, without risking any money.

Even then, the majority of traders who are consistently profitable may be better off trading on their own than trading with OneUp Trader. After considering platform fees, data fees, evaluation reset fees, and profit sharing, OneUp Trader is not necessarily a great way for successful traders to leverage their winning strategy.

Pros

• Allows access to funded, risk-free trading accounts
• Free use of Ninja Trader and Rithmic data during evaluation period
• 15-day evaluation can take place on non-consecutive days
• Trading requirements are relatively transparent

Cons

• Lots of fees associated with funded trading accounts
• Minimum withdrawals prevent many traders from getting paid
• $100 account reset fee for evaluation