In a world where trader payouts often feel like a mystery, especially in prop firms and hedge funds, one question keeps coming up:
Who actually gets paid the most?
Is it the flashy options trader? The quant genius? Or the flow trader with the fastest fingers in the room?
We dug into community insights and insider commentary to break down the types of traders that tend to earn the highest salaries (and bonuses) in this industry, and what separates the top 1% from the rest.
While both environments can involve the same strategies, hedge funds manage external capital, while prop firms typically trade firm capital (or in the retail space, challenge-funded accounts). This fundamental difference impacts how traders are paid.
According to Aaron Brown, a well-known finance expert and former risk manager, traders at prop firms may receive 10% to 20% of their generated profits, while hedge fund traders often land 5% to 10%, depending on how the structure is set up.
Traders who tend to earn the most fall into one of these three categories:
A Quora contributor noted that at top-tier hedge funds like Jane Street, DE Shaw, or Man AHL, you don’t need to be top 1% to cross $1M/year. Roughly 20% of traders there reportedly do — with $500K–$600K as a typical median.
One ex-prop trader shared that at his firm, $1.5M/year was the average, and if you weren’t delivering at least 20–50% ROI, you were shown the door.
Another user added that it’s not just about executing a strategy — it’s about creating or adapting one that actually works and scales. Traders who just "run" a profitable strategy may earn far less than those who innovate or localize it to a new market.
It’s not just about your title — it’s about your edge, risk management, and ability to scale your strategy. And increasingly, it’s about your ability to code, test, and automate your edge faster than the trader next to you.
