Prop firm challenge simulator
Choose a firm from the prop firm rankings, describe how you trade, and see its rules played forward against a thousand attempts: how many pass, what ends the rest, and how the same trades fare under a different drawdown rule. The difference between those rules is set out in static and trailing drawdown, on the same trades.
The challenge
- Target 10%
- Daily loss 5%
- Max loss 10%
- Static
- Min 4 days
Phase one only — FTMO has a second phase after this. Rules as read at FTMO’s own pages.
How you trade
No real edge: whether this reaches the target or the floor first is close to a coin toss, weighted by how far away each one is.
1,000 attempts at FTMO
52%
pass
Half of those that pass have done it by day 28.
- Passed52%
- Hit the total loss limit48%
The same trader, the same trades, a different drawdown rule
| Static (these rules) | 52% | |
|---|---|---|
| End-of-day trailing | 42% | |
| Intraday trailing | 39% |
One attempt, drawn
Passed on day 13, with the balance at $110,000.
What this models, and what it leaves out
- Each trade risks a fixed share of the starting balance, and wins or loses independently at the rate you set.
- A losing trade first moves in your favour by up to half its target before it reverses. That only matters to an intraday trailing floor, which follows it up — the trap that design sets.
- The daily limit is measured from the day’s opening balance. Some firms measure from equity or the initial balance.
- Trailing floors here never stop rising. Some firms stop theirs at the starting balance; that is in their terms or it does not exist.
- Left out: spreads, commissions and slippage; streaks beyond chance; news gaps; consistency rules; and the second phase of two-step firms. Each of them lowers the pass rate.
A simulation shows what a set of rules does to a way of trading. It is not a forecast of anybody’s result, and a high number here is not advice to buy a challenge.
Common questions
How accurate is the pass rate?
It is exact for the model and approximate for you. The model plays the firm’s published limits against trades that win or lose at the rate you set, independently of each other, with no costs. Real trading has spreads, commissions, slippage and streaks, all of which lower the number.
Why does a trader with no edge still pass about half the time?
Because with no edge the balance wanders, and whether it reaches the target or the floor first depends mostly on how far away each one is. Where the target and the floor are the same distance away, that is close to a coin toss — which is also why the fee is lost the other half of the time.
Why does the daily loss limit rarely end an attempt here?
At low risk and few trades a day, one day cannot lose enough to reach it: two losing trades at 1% risk is 2% against a daily limit of 4% or 5%. Raise the risk or the trades per day and it starts to bite.
Does this include the second phase?
No. It simulates phase one, whose target is the one each firm’s record carries. Two-step firms have a second phase with a lower target and the same limits, which a trader has to survive as well.