Short answer Real live account funding firms are the best.
From what I've gathered so far there are two business models:
Real live account: Firm makes money on profit splits so they will encourage withdrawals, the bigger the better for them.
They are few.
Exemple : BluSky.pro, Apteros, E2T, etc...
Livesim account: Firm makes money on subscription fees, reset fees and activation fees, they will generally delay or discourage big withdrawals with some antics.
They are many.
Exemple : Leeloo, Apex Trader Funding, Bulenox, TickTIckTrader, etc...
Most livesim funded accounts are never replicated to a real live account, it's not an automatic process nor guaranteed, it's up to the firm discretion to replicate trades live, so I highly doubt even 10% of livesim funded accounts are replicated to a real live account, so the company doesn't make any profit from the profit split on probably more than 90% of livesim funded accounts.
Livesim do have a few pros however:
- You can have 20 accounts in copy trading and not affect the real market with your size
- You don't have to be considered as a professional trader (when funded on Topstep E2T or Apteros for instance you must), in some countries to trade other people funds you have to get licensed otherwise you'll get fined and shut down.
That's about it lol
Now livesim is fine if the funding firm is net positive on subscription fees, reset fees and activation fees compared to payouts.
But you manage those firms as if it's risk (of going under, changing rules, etc...) and diversify, get accounts in at least one real live account firm and accounts in at least 3 livesim firms, and of course your own brokerage account that you fund with the profits that you can hopefully withdraw in a timely manner from your funded accounts.