XLTrade Forex prop firm review — Major Red Flags Detected!
XLTrade prop firm offers funded accounts ranging from 10k to 1 million dollars. The firm offers evaluation and instant accounts and the profit sharing is 90% at all times for all accounts. Traders can access diverse markets including FX and cryptos on the advanced MetaTrader 5 trading platform, and EAs are allowed. However, we have detected several big issues with the firm.
In this XLTrade review, we will present an unbiased opinion about the firm based on its safety, rules, funding, assets, fees, support, and more. After reading this review, you will be able to decide whether XLTrade is reliable.
Overall
XLTrade prop trading provides competitive profit splits and diverse funding options but falls short in transparency and cost-effectiveness. The firm claims 1:500 super high leverage. There is no direct access to live chat and no regulated broker to back the firm’s services. The website of XLTrade is incredibly messy, and it is very difficult to find details about the firm’s services. Overall, XLTrade seems unattractive and highly risky to sign up for.
Pros & cons of XLTrade prop firm
Pros
- ✅ XLTrade offers high-profit splits of up to 90%
- ✅ Allows any trading strategy, including EAs, news trading, and holding positions overnight
Cons
- 🚫 Fees are expensive, with a minimum of 320 USD
- 🚫 12% of traders evaluate it with 1-star, making the firm risky
- 🚫 Customer support is limited and lacks immediate access to live chat
- 🚫 The firm provides no educational resources
- 🚫 The firm’s high leverage of 1:500 is suspicious
Safety of XLTrade
XLTrade reviews are lacking on the FPA platform, but the firm managed to achieve a 4.6 score on Trustpilot. Despite this high score, the firm has 12% of 1-star reviews, which is a red flag. However, 82% are 5-star and there are only around 100 reviews. The firm does not offer any information about the broker that backs its trading, which reduces its chances of being a legitimate and reliable prop firm. As for the experience, the firm was launched in 2021, giving some substantial experience, but online reviews are scarce which indicates poor marketing efforts from the firm’s side, but it does not affect safety.
Overall, XLTrade only offers its experience as a safety net, and there are no sufficient reviews for determining whether the firm is safe or risky. The firm also offers hotline support, where it discloses its phone number, which is a green flag.
XLTrade Funding and maximum capital allocation
XLTrade funded programs are mainly instant funding challenges and there are also evaluation account types offered. Instant funding allows traders to access funded accounts directly without requiring them to pass the challenge beforehand. Both accounts are expensive and the website of XLTrade is very messy, making it extremely difficult to find out what exactly the firm offers.
XLTrade funding challenges require traders to get through two phases before accessing funded accounts, and the instant account allows for instant funding. Despite this, the evaluation account is also very costly, with the cheapest option being 320 dollars. XLTrade instant accounts have 10k, 20k, 50k, and 100k funding options only.
The Evaluation XLTrade challenge offers 50k, 100k lite, 500k pro, and 1 million pro amounts. All accounts have 90% profit sharing. Pro accounts can be scaled higher. The 500k account can be scaled up to 1.5 million and 1 million accounts allow for a maximum of 3 million in funding.
XLTrade scaling plans, in general, seem very attractive, but the base funding options are limited and expensive. The small funding amount is 10,000 dollars for the Instant accounts. The plan increases the account size by 25% once every 3 months and the profit split remains 90% with weekly withdrawals.
XLTrade Assets
XLTrade prop trading assets are diverse and include Forex pairs, equity indexes, cryptos, and commodities such as oil and metals. The maximum leverage is very high at 1:500 which is a red flag. Prop firms typically have low leverage limits as they offer significant amounts of capital, and XLTrade seems very suspicious with the leverage this high. Accessing a funded account right away and using a 1:500 leverage without passing the evaluation first, would put the firm under serious risk unless it is only offering demo accounts and has hidden rules. We suggest our readers exercise extra caution with this firm.
XLTrade Trading rules and limitations
XLTrade rules are average as well. The instant account does not require a profit target but has a 10% maximum drawdown and 5% daily loss limits. The firm allows any trading strategy. Positions can be held overnight or over the weekends, and news trading is also allowed. EAs or automated trading robots are allowed and supported by MT5. There are no lot size restrictions and traders can use this 1:500 leverage to open even 100 lot positions without any evaluation, which is ridiculous.
XLTrade Fees
The fees at XLTrade are expensive, which is natural when the minimum funding option on evaluation starts from 50k. The minimum funding option at the instant account is 10k but costs 320 dollars. Let’s compare fees for each of the two funded account types.
XLTrade EVALUATION accounts for one-time fees:
- Funded amount: 50k Lite — one-time fee: 320 USD
- 100k Lite account — 790 USD
- 500k Pro account — 1,990 USD
- 1,000,000 Pro account — 3,690 USD
The fees for INSTANT accounts are also one-time:
- Funded amount: 10,000 USD — One-time fee: 500 USD
- 20k Instant account — 1,000 USD
- 50k Instant account — 1,950 USD
- 100k Instant account — 3,850 USD
With these fees, the firm is not competitive in the prop trading space, where firms offer 10k accounts with sub-100 USD fees.
XLTrade free trial is not offered at the moment but XLTrade free repeat is available if the trader’s balance is higher than the starting balance, but the performance target was not achieved.
XLTrade Platforms
XLTrade provides access to the advanced MetaTrader 5 (MT5) platform. The platform is very capable and comes with EAs and custom indicators, making it very useful for technical analysis and trading activities. The firm does not offer indicators, tools, or guides for the platform, which is a downside. The firm allows EAs and all kinds of trading styles. Mobile trading is available through the mobile app version of MT5.
XLTrade Profit-Sharing
XLTrade profit split is 90% for all accounts at all levels. This is a pretty high profit share and very competitive in the prop firm industry.
Traders have to trade at least for 30 days before they become eligible for withdrawals. After that, they are allowed to request payouts once per week. To wait for 30 days before you can request a withdrawal is too much and makes it difficult and frustrating for traders.
Education and trading tools at XLTrade
XLTrade lacks educational resources and trading courses. There are no webinars or video guides to help beginners learn and build their strategies. The firm also lacks any kind of tools to help traders with market insights and analysis. There is a blog but the website is so messy it requires scrolling down to the bottom to find it. The blog offers mostly outdated posts.
Customer Support at XLTrade
Customer support at XLTrade is mediocre, with email and live chat options. The phone support is actually a good sign for the firm, if not exaggerated claims about conditions. However, there is a catch with the live chat. Traders have to log in to their accounts to use the live chat support. Overall, XLTrade requires refining and work to make its website useful and its offerings clear. The absence of a decent live chat is also a big downside.