Prop firm accounts · Topic guide
Prop firm accounts: the challenge, the rules and the payout, step by step
A prop firm account always runs in the same order: you pay for an evaluation, you trade inside a set of loss limits, and if you respect them you move on to an account where you are paid a share under a contract. Each stage has its own small print, and each one has its own guide here.
This page is the map. It explains the route in general, says which question each guide answers and links to it. Nothing below is a method for passing, or a view on any particular firm.
Sources re-read at origin on 25/09/2026 · linked at the end
This page explains the model, it does not assess any firm
One of two routes, not the only one
Trading on a prop firm's capital is one way to automate your trading. The other is to do it with your own money, in an account opened in your name with a broker.
On screen the two routes look alike; underneath, they differ in almost everything. With a broker the money is yours: you deposit it, the firm holds it and you decide the risk limits. With a prop firm you deposit nothing: you pay a fee for a test, and the limits are written by the firm in a rulebook it can change. What that firm actually is, and why the term means something else in law, is covered in what a prop firm is and how it works.
Everything else on this page is about the first route. If yours is your own capital, what changes when you automate —who opens the account, which conditions the parameters are set against and which brokers we recommend— is set out in how the installation works.
The route through a prop firm account
Six questions, in the order they come up. Each has a guide that answers it in full, with its sources; here you get the summary and the way in.
What money is being traded
The first surprise, and one worth having before you pay: in most programmes the environment is simulated, including the account called "funded". FTMO says so in the footer of its own home page: "Please note that all accounts we provide to our clients are demo accounts with fictitious funds and any trading is in a simulated environment only". What each firm writes, quoted, is in whether prop firms use real money.
What the evaluation measures
Not whether you can win, but whether you can avoid losing more than the rulebook allows while you reach a target. That is why nearly all of its rules are loss limits, and why some of them disqualify you without the platform saying so. The mechanism, rule by rule, is in what a prop firm challenge actually measures.
Which limit closes the account
The drawdown, in its two forms: daily and overall. And the overall one is not measured the same way everywhere: FTMO's objectives page describes both a static limit and an "end-of-day trailing" one, recalculated each day from the highest balance. Why the same fall fits inside one and breaks the other is in prop firm drawdown explained.
What changes when you pass
Less than the name suggests. Some rules go, some stay, a new one may appear and a different contract is signed; the environment does not change. The detail is in the difference between a challenge and a funded account.
How you get paid
Through a procedure the firm publishes: you request it, it is reviewed and it is paid, and the rulebook lists what can block it. What you can check is that procedure, not the percentage on the home page. What a payout is and is not, in whether prop firms actually pay.
Which rules govern how you trade
Beyond the loss limits, each firm writes down the practices it bans, and that is where a bot can trip without its owner noticing. Where those rules are written and how to read them has its own guide, in prop firm rules.
What you will not find here
Three things these guides do not do, said before anyone goes looking for them.
A method for passing. There is no general one that works, and a trading tip would be exactly what this site does not give. What can be explained is what each rule measures and how it is calculated.
Fees, account sizes or percentages. They change by firm and by week, and a table of them would be wrong within a month. The document that counts is your firm's rulebook, in the version published on the day you read it.
A verdict on any firm. If what you want to know is whether the model holds up, that is in whether prop firm accounts are legit, and if a particular offer worries you, in how to spot a prop firm scam.
Before you automate, compatibility
With a prop firm account or with your own capital, the first thing to know is whether your combination of account and platform accepts an automated system. That is confirmed before anything is charged, and the route is written out step by step.
Continue reading
The site's other two general guides.