Prop firms that offer challenges or entry qualifications for a fee are basically scams.
They make their money by demanding users to pass a challenge for which the user must pay an entry fee. And not only once but sometimes multiple times.
The problem here is that no trader is always 100% on a profit streak. Sometimes they make short-term losses, which they can later make up for. But if you fail one of the challenges, even once, then you are out and have to pay a fee to take the "challenge" again. It is basically gambling. You are betting on whether or not you will make a short-term loss, even if in the long term you are a good trader who makes a profit.
A real prop firm hires traders and does not demand they pay some entry fee for some challenge.
Actually ,they arent scams on which I have known some of my friends or colleagues that are prop firm trader for a while now or lets say 2-3 years already on which they've been able to find themselves that profitable with it. They are commonly dealing up with Futures in NAS100 and SP500 and some mix of XAU on which these are the sweetest spot that they deal on with. Now that we are talking about some scam thing then it isnt that directly true but only a part of. These are businesses as we do all know and the only way that they can make money is into their own terms and conditions on which I can say that it is that hell of a hard thing for you to pass on. Challenges does have Step-1 and 2 on which you would be needing up to follow a max loss for a day or even avoiding those news trading on which this could that potentially breach your account if you wont be mindful or be careful. This is where these propfirms do make money out of those newbies of traders who do lose up their money because of such violation and ended up on getting breached. I have tons of accounts and challenges that had been breached on which no matter how good you are in terms of testing out different strategies but passing up even on that Step-1 is never been that easy.