Earn2Trade vs City Traders Imperium

Drawdown, the rule that ends most accounts

E2T runs a EOD → Trailing drawdown and CTI runs Balance-based.

Trailing means the limit rises with your equity peak, open positions included: giving profit back can end the account even without a real loss. EOD only recalculates at the session close, which forgives intraday swings.

In practice that is $1.5K a $3.5K of room at E2T and -5% / -10% at CTI.

What entry really costs

The cheapest entry is CTI, from $24.65 with the coupon applied at checkout, against $75.00 at E2T.

The discount differs too: 50% OFF at E2T and 15% OFF at CTI.

Add the activation fee at E2T before comparing: it is charged after you pass and never shows up in the evaluation price.

CTI charges no activation fee, so the price you see is the full cost up to the funded account.

When the money leaves

On the split, E2T pays 80% and CTI pays 100%.

Neither offers a day-one payout, so plan around each standard cycle.

Declared speed: Monthly at E2T and 14 days at CTI.

The rules that kill the account

E2T enforces a consistency rule (Yes), which stops a single day from carrying the whole result.

CTI has no consistency requirement, so one strong day counts in full.

Minimum trading days: 10 at E2T and 3 at CTI.

E2T explicitly bans: HFT, Latency arbitrage.

CTI explicitly bans: HFT, Latency arbitrage, Hedging between accounts.

Which one fits you

If the goal is testing the model on the smallest possible budget, CTI has the cheaper entry.

If reputation matters more than price, E2T is rated 4.6 on Trustpilot.

Platforms: E2T runs on Rithmic, NinjaTrader, Finamark, Tradovate; CTI, on Match-Trader. A strategy tied to one platform decides this on its own.

There is no better firm in the abstract: there is the one that matches your drawdown, your trading hours and how fast you need to withdraw.