Prop Firm Match Admits Routing Clicks Through Its Affiliate Links as Apex, Tradeify and Others Cut Ties

What happened

Prop Firm Match (opens in new tab) (PFM), one of the largest prop firm comparison and discount-code sites, has admitted that clicks on its site were being routed through its affiliate links without traders choosing them. At least seven prop firms ended their affiliate deals with PFM over roughly 36 hours on 30 and 31 October.

Here is the timeline from the posts themselves. All times are UTC.

• 29 Oct, 20:33: trader and affiliate Kane (@traderkane (opens in new tab)) posted a short video. He alleged that clicking a firm's profile page or copy code button on PFM, both of which point to pages on PFM's own site, triggered a script that sent the original tab through PFM's affiliate link to the firm's website and opened the intended page in a new tab. That sets PFM's referral cookie even though the visitor never clicked an outbound link. He used MyFundedFutures as his example and said the same thing happened with "most firms listed".
• 30 Oct, 03:14: PFM replied (opens in new tab) that it was "looking into the questions raised" and would share a full statement within 24 hours.
• 30 Oct, 03:15 to 19:15: firms began announcing they were ending their PFM partnerships (list below).
• 31 Oct, 02:10: PFM published its statement (opens in new tab).

What Prop Firm Match said

PFM's statement confirms the core of the allegation. "Until yesterday, when someone clicked on a firm or a code on our site, a new tab would open the firm's site through our affiliate link. This should not have happened. We take full responsibility for it. We have reached out to each of our partners to review this together and reconcile any inaccuracies. We respect any decisions firms have made based on this."

The statement doesn't say how long the behavior ran, how many clicks or sales it affected, or how the "reconcile" process will work. The fix is dated to 30 October ("until yesterday"). PFM says it will "learn from this" and "hold ourselves to the highest standard".

Who cut ties

These firms announced the split from their own official X accounts.

• Apex Trader Funding (30 Oct, 03:15 UTC): Terminated (opens in new tab) the affiliate relationship "effective immediately" and disabled all PFM tracking codes, after "a review of referral tracking practices and compliance with our Affiliate Marketing Agreement".
• Blue Guardian (30 Oct, 13:51 UTC): Ended (opens in new tab) the relationship and deactivated all PFM affiliate links and tracking codes.
• Goat Funded Trader (30 Oct, 13:51 UTC): Terminated (opens in new tab) the partnership and disabled all tracking codes. Its futures brand, Goat Funded Futures, did the same (opens in new tab) at 14:12.
• Alpha Capital Group (30 Oct, 14:32 UTC): Terminated (opens in new tab) the partnership "following a thorough investigation into Prop Firm Match and its cookie practices" and is removing all PFM discount codes.
• Tradeify (30 Oct, 16:13 UTC): Said (opens in new tab) that after "looking closely at how referrals to our site were being generated, we found they broke our affiliate terms". PFM will also no longer sponsor Tradeify's Premier Trading League.
• Funded Futures Family (30 Oct, 19:15 UTC): Paused (opens in new tab) PFM codes earlier that day, then terminated the relationship after its own investigation.
• Finotive Funding (31 Oct, 13:57 UTC): Ended (opens in new tab) the relationship and disabled every PFM code. Finotive says it was paying PFM "around $20,000 a month in affiliate commissions".

Other accounts and aggregators have named more firms, including FundingPips, Lucid Trading, Take Profit Trader and Topstep. We couldn't find a statement from any of those firms on their own channels as of 1 November, so we haven't listed them. Several smaller firms also posted joke "terminations" of partnerships that never existed. Those aren't included either.

Why it matters

Cookie stuffing means setting an affiliate tracking cookie when the visitor didn't choose to click the affiliate link. It matters because most affiliate programs pay whoever holds the last cookie before a purchase. If a trader read a review on PFM, then later bought through a YouTuber's code or another site's link, PFM's forced cookie could have taken the credit. The firms' statements point to the same problem: Apex, Tradeify and Funded Futures Family each cite referral attribution or their affiliate terms.

PFM has offered to "reconcile any inaccuracies" with its partners, but it hasn't said whether that means returning commissions. Neither PFM nor any of the firms has published figures.

What it means for traders

• This is about commissions, not your price. A forced cookie changes who gets credited for a sale, not the discount you entered at checkout.
• PFM codes for these firms no longer work. Apex, Blue Guardian, Goat Funded Trader, Goat Funded Futures, Alpha Capital Group, Funded Futures Family and Finotive all say their PFM codes or tracking are disabled, and Tradeify has ended the partnership. If you saved one of those codes, expect checkout to reject it. Use the firm's own site or a current code instead.
• PFM listings aren't the same as partnerships. The firms ended affiliate deals. Some may still appear on PFM's comparison pages, so check whether a listing still includes a working code.
• Check the firm's own pages. Rules, prices and promotions are best confirmed on each firm's website and help center, whatever comparison site you start from.

We'll update this story if PFM publishes the scope of the issue or more firms confirm a split on their own channels.