FTMO vs City Traders Imperium

Drawdown, the rule that ends most accounts

FTMO runs a Fixed drawdown and CTI runs Balance-based.

In practice that is -3% / -10% of room at FTMO and -5% / -10% at CTI.

What entry really costs

The cheapest entry is CTI, from $24.65 with the coupon applied at checkout, against $79.00 at FTMO.

The discount differs too: 20% OFF at FTMO and 15% OFF at CTI.

FTMO / 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, FTMO pays 90% and CTI pays 100%.

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

Declared speed: 14 days at FTMO and 14 days at CTI.

The rules that kill the account

FTMO enforces a consistency rule (50% Best Day), 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: 0 at FTMO and 3 at CTI.

FTMO explicitly bans: Latency arbitrage, Spread manipulation.

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, FTMO is rated 4.8 on Trustpilot.

Platforms: FTMO runs on MT4, MT5, cTrader; 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.