I believe most every funded program has a monthly fee.
What you mean by "preparing yourself for full contracts and larger size in the near future"...Don't know what you mean by that. If trading the micros is a good way for you to get a feel for it, as you said, then just trade your own sim account with the same rules as the funded company. Don't just jump in with 50K e-mini sim and expect it to be same as 5K live e- micro, and vice versa. They ain't the same thing.
Yeah of course it's not the same. But I've traded e-minis for a long time, and never had the funds to actually try more than 2 contracts on my own. Micros are typically for longer term holds/testing new setups, while I daytrade e-mini on a separate account. My experience lets me comfortably trade my strategy with 1, but what about 5? or 10? I am not sure I can do that and not feel stressed, let alone on my own account. So I feel that I am not prepared for that. But I need to be, if I want to get to the next level. And these funded programs allow me to do so and also make money while I practice these things. I don't expect everyone to get it, since it seems most traders are content to make very small profits and treat this like a basic job. But I do intend to scale up quite a lot the next year or two and this is one very cheap way to do it (without borrowing close friends' money).
As for fees, OneUp has no monthly fee. FTMO (for forex and CFDs) has no monthly fee. UProfit also has a one time fee and no other monthly fee. I will hopefully find a few more as I look into them, but there are definitely a few options.