Reviewed · how we check firm rules
Start here, not with a strategy
Prop firm rules, explained one at a time
Every failed evaluation is a failed reading of a rulebook. This page is the index: the eight rules that decide most challenges, what each one actually measures, and the guide that takes it apart in full. Use it to find your firm's rule, then read only that one.
How to use this page
- Find the rule that ended your last attempt — or the one you cannot explain out loud.
- Read the guide, then check the same rule in your firm's plan document, not in a comparison table.
- Put the numbers into the prop firm calculator before the first trade, not after the first loss.
- Where a firm publishes several plans, the plan name is the rulebook. Compare plans, never firms.
The eight rules, and the guide for each
| Rule | What it actually decides | Where firms differ most | Guide |
|---|---|---|---|
| Daily loss limit | The most you may lose in one server day | Balance or equity, reset hour, whether floating loss counts | Daily drawdown explained |
| Maximum loss | The total floor below which the account is closed | Static from start balance, or trailing from the peak | The rules that end challenges |
| Trailing drawdown | How fast the floor rises as the account gains | Intraday versus end-of-day high, and whether it ever stops | Trailing versus static |
| Consistency rule | How uneven your profitable days may be | Whether it applies at evaluation or only at payout | Consistency rules |
| News trading | Whether you may hold through scheduled releases | Blanket ban, a window either side, or funded-only | News windows |
| Weekend and overnight | Whether positions may stay open when the market shuts | Allowed, banned, or banned on some plans only | Weekend holding |
| Expert advisors | Whether automated trading counts as your trading | Permitted, permitted with exclusions, or banned outright | EAs and automation |
| Minimum trading days | How quickly the target may legally be reached | Counting days versus counting profitable days | Minimum days |
If you want the numbers themselves rather than the mechanics — targets, daily limits, drawdown type and consistency stage side by side — those live in the rules matrix, which records the date each figure was read from the firm's own documentation. For a single firm written out in dollars, the firm rulebooks cover FTMO, FundedNext, The5ers, Apex and Topstep.
Why the rulebook beats the strategy
A trader can hold a genuinely good plan and still fail four evaluations in a row, because the plan is answering a question the firm did not ask. A strategy decides whether you make money. The rulebook decides whether the money counts. They are different documents and they are scored by different tests.
The asymmetry is in the penalty. A mediocre strategy usually produces a small loss, which the daily limit absorbs. A misread rule produces an instant failure regardless of profit — a position held three minutes into a news window, a profitable day that was too profitable, an account closed on a Friday evening it should have been flat. The distribution of outcomes is why reading time is better spent on the terms than on one more indicator.
The three numbers almost always misread
Balance versus equity. A 5% limit measured on equity counts an open losing position; the same limit measured on closed balance does not. Two firms with identical percentages can therefore have materially different room, and the wording — not the number — is the tell.
The drawdown base. A static 10% floor sits still for the whole evaluation. A trailing 10% floor follows the peak upward, so profit reduces room instead of creating it. The same headline figure produces completely different arithmetic, and it is why an account can be "up 6%" and closer to failure than when it started.
The stage a rule applies at. Consistency is the clearest example: it may be absent at evaluation and enforced at payout, so an evaluation passed in nine good days produces a funded account that cannot withdraw. Reading the evaluation document alone is how that happens.
What this hub is not
It is not a substitute for your firm's terms, and it is not a claim that any firm's figures are permanent. Firms revise targets, drawdown models and consistency thresholds without notice, and they publish different rule sets under different plan names. Every figure on this site is stamped with the date it was read, and how we check firm rules sets out what that date does and does not promise.
If your firm is one we trade, the evaluation is planned around these eight rules before a position is opened — that is most of what a passing service is actually doing. If you would rather read the whole picture first, the FAQ answers the questions traders ask before paying.
Questions this hub gets asked
Which rule fails the most challenges?
The daily loss limit, because it is the rule a trader meets most often. Maximum loss ends more accounts in total, but the daily limit is the one that ends an ordinary bad afternoon, and it is the one most often breached while trying to recover a nearly-spent budget.
Do all firms measure the daily limit the same way?
No. Some measure equity including floating positions, some measure closed balance, and reset times vary between server midnight, the broker's daily close and a rolling window. The percentage is the least interesting part of the rule; the measurement basis is the part that decides outcomes.
Is a trailing drawdown worse than a static one?
It is stricter in the middle of an evaluation and can be the difference between passing and failing on the same trade sequence. A trailing floor rises with the peak, so the account has to reach the target without ever giving back more than the permitted distance from its best point. Static floors do not move at all.
Where do the figures on these pages come from?
From each firm's own published rulebook, linked at the foot of the pages that quote figures, with the date the link was opened. Figures we could not confirm are shown as unconfirmed rather than copied from another comparison site — see how we check firm rules for the full method.
What does ElitePropX charge to trade an evaluation?
One flat $220 per evaluation at any prop firm and any account size, with retries on rule breaches at the same firm and size covered, no profit split, and the funded account handed over in your name.
Where these rules come from
Firm figures on this page are read from the rulebooks below rather than from other comparison sites. Every link was opened and checked on . Firms revise targets and drawdown rules without notice, so confirm the figures on the plan you are buying before paying. How we check firm rules sets out what a checked date means, what we publish when a figure cannot be confirmed, and how corrections are handled.
- FTMO — 2-Step Challenge trading objectives
- FundedNext — CFD trading objectives
- The5ers — High Stakes plan rules
- Apex Trader Funding — EOD evaluation parameters, intraday trailing drawdown, 50% consistency requirement
- Topstep — maximum loss limit, daily loss limit, consistency targets