A Topstep customer has accused the futures proprietary trading firm of repeatedly cutting off his paid Level 2 market-data access while his subscription remained active, alleging that the service was interrupted more than ten times without refunds or extensions for the lost access.
The complaint appeared in an October 12, 2026, Trustpilot review from a Polish trader identified as Bartłomiej Bryła. Unlike broader complaints about trading-platform freezes or disputed account closures, the latest allegation raises a specific question about Topstep’s billing practices: what happens when a customer pays for market data but cannot access it during the subscription period?
Topstep’s published policy confirms that Level 2 data costs $38 per month, is charged in full regardless of the purchase date and is non-refundable once billing has been processed. However, the documentation does not clearly explain whether customers receive credits or extensions when access is interrupted for reasons attributable to Topstep rather than a voluntary cancellation.
Trader Alleges More Than 10 Level 2 Interruptions During Active Subscriptions
In his one-star Trustpilot review, Bryła alleged that Topstep had repeatedly disabled his Level 2 market-data access in the middle of paid subscription periods.
The trader claimed this had occurred more than ten times and that the company would neither resolve the interruptions nor refund the affected subscription payments.
The review does not identify the precise dates of the interruptions, how long each lasted or whether Topstep’s billing system continued to show an active subscription throughout every incident.
It also does not establish whether the interruptions resulted from data-entitlement checks, account-status changes, payment issues, platform errors or another cause.
Those distinctions matter because an interruption caused by a customer cancelling the service would be different from a paid entitlement being disabled while an otherwise eligible account remained active.
The trader separately alleged that TopstepX experienced freezes, delayed operations and occasional problems with take-profit and stop-loss orders. He also claimed to have lost five profitable funded accounts during an earlier December platform outage and said the company provided five replacement challenges rather than refunds.
These additional allegations have not been independently verified. The December incident is historical context rather than a newly reported October 12 outage, and the available review does not provide the account records or order logs necessary to reconstruct it.
The central new allegation concerns repeated interruptions to a separately purchased market-data service.
Topstep Charges $38 Monthly and Rules Out Refunds After Billing
Topstep’s official Level 1 and Level 2 market-data policy, dated June 18, 2026, confirms the terms governing the disputed service.
The company provides Level 1 market data at no additional cost to traders using its Trading Combine and Express Funded Account programs. That service displays top-of-book information, including the best available bid and ask prices.
Level 2, also known as Depth of Market, provides additional price levels, allowing traders to examine roughly five to ten bids and offers. The additional information is particularly relevant to traders using order-book and market-depth strategies.
Customers can purchase the upgrade through the Add Ons section of their Topstep dashboard.
Topstep charges the full $38 immediately, with subscriptions renewing on the 28th of each month. The fee is not prorated, meaning a trader purchasing the service shortly before the renewal date still pays the full amount.
Cancellation takes effect immediately, and access returns to Level 1. Topstep advises customers to cancel on the final day they want Level 2 access and before the next billing date to avoid another charge.
An active subscription also applies across Trading Combine accounts under the same username, rather than requiring a separate upgrade for each account.
Crucially, the policy states that refunds are unavailable once billing has been processed.
What it does not explicitly address is whether this restriction also governs service interruptions caused by Topstep’s own systems or administrative processes.
Market-Data Access Depends on More Than Payment Status
Topstep’s documentation identifies several technical and administrative requirements that could potentially explain an interruption, although none has been established as the cause of Bryła’s reported experience.
For example, traders must complete a CME market-data agreement and declare their professional or non-professional status. Topstep requires participants in its programs to select non-professional status.
The company’s troubleshooting guidance also directs customers experiencing login problems to verify that their subscriptions remain active, since cancelled or overdue accounts may lose access.
Separately, TopstepX documentation acknowledges that browser performance, connection quality and resource-intensive charts can contribute to display delays or freezing. Topstep says order execution operates through a server-side engine rather than depending on the speed at which charts refresh.
These explanations may be relevant to the trader’s broader platform complaints. They do not establish why a paid Level 2 entitlement would repeatedly become unavailable.
Determining that would require the subscription’s billing history, entitlement activation records, account-status changes and timestamps showing when market-depth access was removed and restored.
It would also be necessary to establish what Topstep support told the customer and whether any remediation was offered.
A $38 Subscription Dispute Raises a Larger Service-Delivery Question
The amount involved in a single Level 2 subscription is relatively small. But the allegation is more consequential than an ordinary disagreement about cancellation fees.
There is a meaningful difference between charging for a service that a customer chooses not to use and charging for a service that the customer allegedly cannot access.
Topstep’s no-refund policy makes commercial sense as a way to prevent traders from repeatedly purchasing data for short periods and then seeking partial refunds. Exchange-data licensing also involves costs that may not disappear when a subscriber cancels.
However, an involuntary interruption presents a different question. If a customer’s entitlement is incorrectly disabled while payment remains valid, the issue is whether the contracted service was actually delivered.
A non-refundable subscription does not automatically explain what remedy, if any, should apply when the provider is responsible for an interruption.
The available documentation leaves that distinction unresolved.
Prop Firms Control Both Trading Access and the Records Behind Disputes
The complaint also illustrates a recurring difficulty in retail proprietary trading: the company typically controls the systems and account records needed to determine what happened.
As explained in Dave Finances’ guide to how prop firms differ from conventional brokers, many funded-trader programs operate through simulated accounts governed by company-specific rules rather than traditional customer-funded brokerage accounts.
That structure gives firms significant control over account eligibility, platform access, trading conditions and the procedures used to resolve disputes.
A customer may be able to demonstrate that a subscription payment was processed, but proving precisely why access disappeared usually requires internal entitlement records.
A similar evidence problem appeared in a recent FundingPips account termination dispute involving a $7.07 equity discrepancy. In that case, the trader challenged an account breach allegedly determined using backend information that differed from the balance visible on the trading platform.
The allegations involve different services, but both raise the question of whether traders can obtain sufficiently detailed records to challenge decisions made by systems they cannot independently inspect.
Repeated Interruptions Could Create Costs Beyond the Subscription Fee
Level 2 data is not essential for every futures trading strategy. However, traders relying on order-book depth may use it to assess liquidity, identify concentrated orders and decide where to enter or exit positions.
An unexpected loss of access during an active session could disrupt that process even if ordinary Level 1 quotes remain available.
The financial consequences would depend on how the trader uses the data and whether positions were open during the interruption. There is currently no verified evidence connecting Bryła’s alleged Level 2 interruptions to a specific trading loss.
Nevertheless, the service carries value beyond its monthly price because it forms part of the trading environment that customers pay to use.
For Topstep, granting a small subscription credit after a verified company-side interruption could potentially cost less than allowing a recurring billing dispute to damage confidence in the reliability of its platform.
That does not mean every reported problem should automatically result in compensation. Firms also need to distinguish provider failures from customer connectivity problems, cancelled subscriptions and violations of exchange-data requirements.
What Topstep’s Records Could Establish About the Complaint
The October 12 allegation is unusually testable because its central claim concerns a paid service rather than a disputed trading strategy or subjective assessment of platform quality.
Topstep could establish whether the trader’s Level 2 subscription was active on each disputed date, when the entitlement was removed, what triggered the change and whether access was subsequently restored.
Billing and support records could also show whether the trader requested refunds or extensions and how those requests were handled.
If the interruptions were caused by cancellations, payment failures or legitimate account restrictions, those records could substantially weaken the allegation.
If they instead show repeated company-side entitlement failures while the subscription remained paid and eligible, the unanswered question would be why the customer received neither restored service time nor compensation.
For now, the public evidence establishes one customer’s October 12 complaint and Topstep’s published $38 non-refundable subscription terms. It does not prove that the company repeatedly disabled valid subscriptions or systematically refused compensation for its own service failures.
The most useful next development would be a case-specific explanation from Topstep addressing the interruptions and clarifying whether its no-refund policy distinguishes voluntary cancellations from involuntary service outages.
Johan Shamshad is a financial markets writer at Dave Finances covering cryptocurrencies, trading platforms, brokers, fintech, financial regulation, and developments across global markets. He previously worked at Gulf News, adding newsroom experience to his coverage of fast-moving financial and digital-asset markets.
His work focuses on identifying market-moving events, company developments, regulatory changes, product launches, and shifts in trading and financial infrastructure.
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