Almost everyone preparing for a challenge is thinking about the profit target. Ten per cent. How do I make ten per cent.
That is very rarely what stops them. Traders fail challenges on the rules attached to the target — how much you can lose in a day, how far you can fall overall, how much of your profit is allowed to come from one good session. You can make the money and still fail.
What the numbers say
Firms don't publish audited pass rates, so treat all of this as indicative rather than exact. But the figures that get reported across the industry are consistent: roughly 5–15% of traders pass an evaluation on the first attempt, and only around 7% of everyone who starts one ever takes a payout. The commonly cited split is that most failures come from breaching a loss limit, not from running out of time on the profit target.
That is the useful part. It means the skill being tested isn't making money. It's not losing more than a set amount on your worst day, whatever the market does.
The rules that actually end challenges
1. The daily loss limit
Usually 4–5% of the starting balance. This is the one that catches people, because it only takes one bad session and it often arrives on a day you were already down and decided to trade back to flat.
Two details decide whether you breach it: when your trading day resets (the broker's server time, not your midnight) and whether it's measured on balance or equity (if it's equity, an open losing trade counts against you without you closing anything). We went through both in detail in prop firm drawdown explained.
2. The maximum drawdown
How far below your high-water mark you can ever go. The thing to establish is whether it's static (measured from your starting balance, never moves) or trailing (follows you up as you profit). Under trailing, being up money does not give you more room — you are always the same distance from failing. Again, that post has the worked numbers.
3. The consistency rule
This is the one people don't see coming, because it can stop you after you've hit the target.
Most firms cap how much of your total profit is allowed to come from your single best day. The cap is commonly somewhere between 30% and 50%, and it's applied either to pass the challenge or to release a payout.
Say your cap is 40% and your target is £10,000:
- You have one outstanding day and make £6,000.
- You grind out the other £4,000 over the following fortnight and hit the target.
- Your best day is 60% of your total profit. You've made the money and you have not passed.
- To get that £6,000 day down to 40%, your total profit has to reach £15,000 — so you now need another £5,000 on top of a target you already met.
The maths is simple: your total profit has to be at least your best day divided by the cap. £6,000 ÷ 0.40 = £15,000. Work that out on the day you have the big win, not three weeks later.
Not every firm has one, and the ones that do apply it differently — some only to payouts, some only to profitable days. It's the first thing worth checking on the rules page.
4. Minimum trading days
Commonly between four and ten days with at least one trade on each. It exists to stop someone passing on a single lucky punt. It's easy to satisfy, but it does mean you can't rush — and it's worth knowing whether a day with one tiny trade counts, because at some firms it does and at others there's a minimum size or duration attached.
5. Time limits
Plenty of firms have dropped these, and several now give you unlimited time to reach the target. Others still run 30 or 60 day windows. It changes how you trade completely, so check rather than assume — if there's no clock, waiting for your own setup costs you nothing.
6. What you're not allowed to do
The restrictions vary more than anything else on this list. The usual ones:
- News windows. Some firms ban trades in a window either side of high-impact releases. Some allow it. Some allow it in the challenge but not once you're funded.
- Holding overnight or over the weekend. Many FX firms allow both; many futures firms require you flat before the session closes.
- Automation and copy trading. Running the same trades across several accounts, or copying someone else's, is restricted almost everywhere.
- Doubling down after a loss. Martingale sizing is explicitly banned by most firms.
These are the rules that get accounts closed after a pass, which is the worst possible time to find out about them.
The three numbers to know before you place a trade
Not your balance. Your balance is the number the platform shows you and it's the least useful one you have.
- How far you are from today's limit. Starting balance × the daily percentage, minus what you're already down today — including anything open, if your firm measures on equity.
- How far you are from the floor. Your current equity minus the maximum drawdown level. Under trailing drawdown this moves on its own, so it needs recalculating rather than remembering.
- What today is allowed to be worth. Careful here — today's profit counts towards the total it gets measured against, so the ceiling isn't simply the cap times what you have. At a 40% cap it works out at two thirds of your profit so far. Sitting on £4,000, a £2,000 day is fine (£2,000 of £6,000 is 33%) and a £3,000 day is not (£3,000 of £7,000 is 43%).
Three numbers, two minutes, once a day. Every one of them is invisible unless you work it out.
A worked week
£100,000 account. Target £10,000. Daily loss limit £5,000. Maximum drawdown £10,000, static. Consistency cap 40%.
- Monday. +£1,200. Total profit £1,200. Floor is £90,000, so you have £11,200 of room.
- Tuesday. −£2,800. You're £2,200 from today's limit at lunchtime. This is the afternoon where people give the account back.
- Wednesday. +£4,600. Total profit £3,000. That £4,600 day now needs total profit of £11,500 before it's inside the cap — more than the target itself.
- Thursday and Friday. +£900. Total profit £3,900, 39% of the way to target. Your real job for the rest of the challenge is not the remaining £6,100 — it's the £11,500 that Wednesday quietly created.
Nothing went wrong that week. There was one good day, one bad day, and steady progress. The trader still has a target they don't know about.
Size against the rule, not the balance
Risking 1% of £100,000 sounds careful. Against a £5,000 daily limit it means five losing trades ends your day, and against £10,000 of total room it means ten ends the account. Traders who pass tend to risk a good deal less than they would on their own money, precisely because the room is so much smaller than the account size suggests.
A simple version that works: set your own daily stop at half the firm's. If they allow £5,000, you're done at £2,500. It costs you nothing on a normal day and it makes the breach mathematically difficult on a bad one. Our position size calculator is free and needs no account — work backwards from the room you have left rather than forwards from the balance.
The part nobody tracks
Pressure pushes both ways. Early in a challenge people take trades they wouldn't normally take because they want to be done. Late in a challenge, once the floor is close, they skip good setups because a loss would hurt too much.
The second one is more expensive and completely invisible. A skipped A+ setup leaves no mark on your balance, your equity curve or your statement. You cannot review a trade that isn't there.
That's why logging the setups you skipped matters more under a challenge than at any other time. If you fail, the honest question isn't just what lost the money — it's what you saw, sized, and talked yourself out of. Most traders find the second list is worth more than the first. We wrote about why that happens in why am I missing trades.
Before you buy another challenge
- Open the rules page and write down all six: daily limit, drawdown type, consistency cap, minimum days, time limit, restrictions.
- Find your daily reset time and convert it to your own timezone.
- Check whether the daily limit is measured on balance or equity.
- Work out how many losing trades at your normal risk it takes to breach each limit. If the answer is under five, your risk is too big for the account.
- Set your personal daily stop at half the firm's, and decide now what you do when you hit it.
None of this makes you a better trader. It stops a decent trader being removed by a rule they hadn't read, which is what happens to most of the people who fail.
Exhibit A is a trading journal built around the numbers that decide outcomes rather than the ones that look good — including the trades you skipped, which most journals ignore. Prop-firm rule tracking is on the roadmap.
Try it free for 14 days. No card needed to start.
Common questions
Can one good day fail my challenge?
If your firm has a consistency rule, yes — not immediately, but it can stop you passing or stop a payout being released until your total profit has grown enough to bring that day back inside the cap. Divide your best day by the cap to see the total profit you now need.
Does an open trade count towards my daily loss limit?
If the limit is measured on equity, yes. That's the most common way people breach a daily limit without closing anything. Check which basis your firm uses before you hold a loser through the close.
Do I have to trade every day?
No, but most firms require a minimum number of days with at least one trade — commonly four to ten. Check whether there's a minimum size or holding time attached, because a one-second trade doesn't always count.
Does a losing day count against the consistency rule?
Usually the cap is applied to your profitable days only, so a loss doesn't help or hurt the ratio directly. Firms differ on this, and it's specific enough that it's worth reading rather than assuming.
Is it worth retrying after a failed challenge?
Only if you know which rule ended it and why. Reported figures suggest most traders who eventually pass need around three attempts, which is a lot of fees for something that is usually one fixable habit. Work out what breached, and whether it was the market or your sizing, before paying for another.