Overview
The5ers has funded traders since 2016, which makes it — after FTMO — the oldest firm in this comparison and one of the very few to have survived a full decade of the prop industry's boom and shake-out. According to its imprint the operator is Five Percent Online Ltd, based in Israel; by its own figures The5ers has onboarded around 262,000 traders.
For EA traders the picture is split. Expert Advisors are allowed on every program, and the prohibited list mainly targets behaviour we mark down too. The hard hurdle is a different one: the trader must own the EA's source code. If you want to run a purchased robot without source, this is the wrong place — if you programmed your own EA, you get a cheap prop environment.
Challenge Model & Cost
The5ers runs a spread of programs at different speeds. The Bootcamp is a low-cost 3-step ramp (22 USD to start a 20K account, a further 50 USD only on success; 6% target per step at 5% max loss), Pro Growth and Hyper Growth are 1-step routes (10% target; Pro Growth with a 6% stop-out and 3% daily loss, Hyper Growth advertised without a daily loss limit), and High Stakes is the 2-step option (10% and 5% targets, 5% daily and 10% total loss). Alongside these the Summer Plan runs as a limited-time promotion with 100K and 200K accounts. Starting capital spans 2,500 to 250,000 USD, and platforms are MT5, cTrader (10 USD surcharge) and TradingView.
The stand-out is entry cost. A High Stakes 2.5K starts at 19 USD, a Pro Growth 5K at 52 USD and a Bootcamp 20K at 22 USD — cheap enough to prove an EA on an evaluation before committing to a large account, which is exactly how we would recommend approaching any prop firm with a robot.
Profit Split & Payouts
Split structure depends on the program. The Bootcamp starts at 50% and scales with every 5% target up to 100%. Pro Growth and Hyper Growth start at 75%, with 80% from a 350,000 USD account size and up to 100% from 400,000 USD. High Stakes starts at 80% and climbs through 85 and 90% to 100%.
The first payout is possible 14 days after the funded account is activated, then every two weeks; every scale-up restarts the 14-day cycle. The minimum profit for a payout is 150 USD, and processing takes up to three business days according to the FAQ. Note a 3.5% fee per payout on Rise, crypto and bank transfer — only conversion into hub credits is free. The Summer Plan additionally carries payout caps per cycle (2,000 USD on the 100K 1-step, 3,000 USD on the 200K account).
Rules
The5ers publishes a detailed prohibited-practice list — arbitrage of every kind, high-frequency trading, bulk trading (opening multiple trades at once so that no trader is visibly behind the strategy), the news "bracket" strategy, system exploitation, coordinated or copied trading with others, one-sided bets, over-leveraging and erratic position sizing. Drawdown rules are program-specific: a 3% daily and 6% total limit on Pro Growth, 5% and 10% on High Stakes, 5% per Bootcamp step.
For EA traders the rulebook is less a question of looseness than of where the EA comes from: running your own, traceable robot with a visible stop-loss meets the core rules. Running a third-party EA that other customers also run breaches two items on the list at once.
EA & Algo Suitability
Expert Advisors are allowed on all programs. The mandatory conditions per the FAQ: the stop-loss must sit as a visible order in the terminal (no "stealth" SL), and the trader must own the source code of the EA. On the Bootcamp a stop-loss on every position is explicitly mandatory. Prohibited are EAs that copy other people's signals, tick scalping, latency, reverse or hedge arbitrage, high-frequency trading and emulators — plus EAs that scalp during the rollover, third-party EAs where other traders have the same trades open, and EAs that flood the server with excessive requests. That matches what our own methodology marks down.
That rules out two large groups: purchased closed-source EAs and MT4-only robots, since MT4 is not offered. A self-developed MT5 EA with defined risk and a stop-loss, on the other hand, is well placed here.
Scaling
The scale-up plan is the mechanism that turns the modest starting split into a real income. Bootcamp accounts grow with every 5% target and move from a 50% to a 100% split, Growth accounts grow with every 10% target up to 4M USD, High Stakes accounts up to 500,000 USD. Combined with account growth, a consistent EA can climb the ladder without buying a larger challenge up front — the reason the cheap entry is more than a gimmick.
Verdict
The5ers offers a ten-year record, very cheap entries and a prohibited-EA list that mainly sorts out junk. The two hard limits are concrete: no MT4, and only EAs whose source code you own. If your EA is self-developed, MT5-based and has a stop-loss on every trade, The5ers is one of the best options in this comparison — read passing a prop-firm challenge with an EA for the sizing. If you run a purchased EA or need MT4, look at FTMO instead; for accounts under 50K, FundedNext is also an option.