Reviews of prop firms: how to tell genuine ones from paid ones

Where to read customer reviews about prop firms

Reviews about prop firms are scattered across Trustpilot, YouTube, Telegram, and forums, and each platform has its own bias. On Trustpilot, both clients and random people write. On YouTube, there are many questions and anger under reviews, but almost no details. The prop firm's own Telegram chat is moderated by the prop firm itself, and a complaint there may not stay up. On forums like smart-lab and MQL5, where there are many forex traders, reviews about prop firms are more detailed, but often about prop trading in general rather than a specific prop firm.

A prop firm's reputation is made up of all platforms at once, so one source proves nothing. If people complain about a prop firm on three platforms using the same words about the same rule, that is a signal. If the same enthusiastic phrase appears everywhere, the reviews were most likely written to order.

We collected 268 live comments from traders from Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Belarus, and neighboring countries: YouTube, smart-lab, vc.ru, Reddit, forums, Telegram. Most often they ask whether the prop firm accepts traders from their country and how to withdraw money. Shares of topics across all comments:

PropMarketCap research, 268 quotes verified against saved copies, collected 21.10.2026, shares rounded to whole numbers. The remaining 14 topics are each under 5%.

12 signs of a paid review

Not only glowing reviews are ordered, but also scathing ones. In the US, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) rule published on 22.08.2024 explicitly prohibits both: buying reviews with the desired sentiment, writing reviews on behalf of management without disclosure, and removing bad reviews through threats. The rule applies in the US. Check the reviews you read yourself against these 12 signs.

Before believing a review, run it through five questions. Each yes answer adds a suspicion point.

How to read Trustpilot when it comes to a prop firm

Anyone can leave a review on Trustpilot; no invitation is needed. A prop firm, like any business on the platform, can invite customers itself: up to 50 automatic invitations per month for free, and with a paid subscription after every order. Trustpilot marks such reviews as Verified and links them to a specific purchase or request. You can't remove a bad review for money; a prop firm can only report it to the moderators.

A prop firm may invite reviews from those who just received a payout and not invite those who blew their account. This adds stars, but the picture doesn't get any more honest. Conversely, a review without a mark isn't necessarily fake: it's just that no one has confirmed their experience.

There are many fakes on the platform. According to Trustpilot's 2024 report, 4.5 million fake reviews were removed, which is 7.4% of all submitted (6.1% a year earlier). 90% of them were filtered out automatically. If a review is still on the page, it only means the filter didn't catch it.

How to read a prop firm's page on Trustpilot:

• first open the 1-2 star reviews and find a recurring complaint;
• check whether the prop firm responds and whether it names a specific rule in its reply;
• compare dates: a spike in five-star reviews right after a wave of complaints looks suspicious;
• separate complaints about rules from complaints about payouts: the first is solved by reading the terms, the second is not.

Reviews of Hash Hedge, FTMO and other prop firms in the catalog

Hash Hedge, FTMO, SpiceProp and four more prop firms are in the PropMarketCap catalog. Traders from the CIS write various things about them, and almost every complaint can be checked against the rules.

Hash Hedge. In the comments under a YouTube video, a trader writes that Hash Hedge doesn't pay the promised percentage of profit. First, check the percentage itself. According to the Hash Hedge card, the trader's share is 80%, and 90% only with a paid option that is purchased separately. Payout is available after 14 days, with profit on the account and closed positions. If the author expected 90% without the option, the prop firm is simply paying according to its own rules.

FTMO. Traders from Russia and Kazakhstan most often don't complain about FTMO but ask whether they can trade there. They can't: Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan are on the list of countries where FTMO does not operate (verified 22.10.2026). At the same time, FTMO accepts traders from Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Moldova and all EU countries. If a trader from these countries praises FTMO, ask whose documents the account was opened with: registering with someone else's data violates the prop firm's rules and puts the payout at risk. For Russians, it's more honest to look at Hash Hedge and Era Trade: in Hash Hedge's terms, Russia is not among the closed countries, and Era Trade states in its help section that it works with all traders over 18.

SpiceProp. On YouTube there is a video accusing SpiceProp of not paying 7,400 euros and blocking the account. Such an accusation can be checked against the rules. SpiceProp's terms include a risk limit of 2% per trade idea (clause 4.2) and a mandatory stop-loss within 60 seconds if two or more positions are open on an instrument (clause 4.3). Find in the video which rule the prop firm named as the reason, and compare it with the text of the terms.

If you are reading reviews about the prop firms Upscale or Funding Pips, keep in mind: these prop firms are not in the PropMarketCap catalog, and we have no assessment of them. Check such reviews against the same 12 signs.

How reviews of prop firms on PropMarketCap work

Any registered user can leave a review on PMC. Every review and every edit goes through moderation, and after that one thing decides everything: whether the purchase is confirmed.

One user writes one review about one prop company; between reviews about different prop companies there is a 15-minute pause. Editing a review sends it back to moderation. The author cannot delete an approved review themselves, only through support.

A prop company can officially respond to a review or file an appeal. It cannot delete a review: if PMC moderation approves the appeal, the review will be removed; if not, it will stay.

A review from an unverified user does not affect the prop firm's rating in any way. It is visible on the site, but it does not count toward the stars. That is how paid reviews lose their point: you can buy a hundred raves, but not a hundred verified purchases.

The overall rating of a prop firm on PMC is made up of five parts: buyer ratings, the share of positive reviews among them, time on the market, verified payouts over recent months, and activity. A week after a review is posted, the weight of the rating begins to decline so that old reviews do not hold the rating up for years. How this is calculated is shown in the video on the page how the prop firm rating is calculated. The review author also has their own rating, covered in the video how the user rating is calculated.

There are still few reviews in the catalog: as of 22.10.2026, seven prop firms have 6 reviews in total. That is why the rating currently also relies on time on the market, payouts and activity, and read buyer reviews together with the rules.

Reviews will not pass the challenge for you

Even honest reviews of a prop firm describe someone else's trading. The challenge is paid, most people do not pass it, and the fee is not refunded on failure. No capital is handed over to you to manage: the trader trades on a simulated account, and the prop firm pays the payout from its own funds under the terms of the contract. Online prop firms have no regulator that will stand up for you in a dispute.

So choose not by the stars, but by the requirements and restrictions that suit your trading: daily loss limit, overall drawdown, time limits, news trading ban, stop-loss. If you scalp and do not set a stop in the first minute, SpiceProp rule 4.3 will work against you, no matter how many five-star ratings are on its page. Compare programs in the challenge calculator: it selects a challenge to fit your budget and rules from among 130 programs at 7 prop firms.

Bottom line

Trust a review of a prop firm if it contains a verified purchase, trade details and a named rule. Raves without details and scam claims without facts are worth equally little. Then choose a challenge by the rules: pick a challenge in the PMC calculator to fit your budget and trading style. If you have doubts about a specific prop firm, ask PMC support a question on Telegram.