How prop firm challenges work

Updated 24 September 2026 by the Prop Firm Pal editorial team.

Every evaluation is built from the same few rules, and the numbers are what differ.

• Profit target. The gain you must reach. The median phase-one target across the 23 firms with full terms in our industry report is 5%.
• Daily loss limit. The most you may lose in a day — 3% is the median in the same data. Some firms have none.
• Maximum drawdown. The floor the account may never touch — 5% is the median. It may be static or trailing, which changes everything; see drawdown types.
• Minimum trading days. Some firms require you to trade on a set number of days before you can pass. See minimum trading days.
• Time limit. Many evaluations now have none; where one exists it is set per phase, so check it before you plan your pace. See time limit.
• Conduct rules. News trading, weekend holding, EAs and copy trading, and sometimes a consistency rule.

A two-step challenge has a challenge phase with a higher target and a verification phase with a lower one, both under the same loss limits. A one-step challenge has a single phase, usually with a higher target or tighter drawdown to compensate. A three-step challenge spreads a lower target over three phases and tends to be cheaper.

Fewer phases is not the same as easier. What decides difficulty is the ratio between target and drawdown: a 10% target with a 6% trailing drawdown is harder than 8% then 5% with a 10% static one. Our challenge difficulty ranking scores every evaluation on exactly that. Browse by type: one-step, two-step.

Futures prop firms usually run a single-phase evaluation with a dollar profit target and a trailing drawdown in dollars — for example, a $3,000 target and a $2,000 end-of-day trailing limit on a $50,000 account — and often charge monthly until you pass. They also tend to cap contracts and require positions to be flat before the daily close. Futures vs forex prop firms sets the two models side by side.

Fees scale with account size. The cheapest $100,000 evaluation at the median firm in our data costs $419, and the range runs from $149 to $1,105. Some firms refund the fee with your first payout (refundable fee); many sell discounted resets. Active codes are on the offers page, and every evaluation with its price is on the challenges table.

Breaching a hard limit ends the attempt immediately — the account is closed, and the fee is gone. Missing a soft rule, such as a consistency limit, may instead mean you must keep trading before you can pass. See hard breach and soft breach.

To try again you buy a new evaluation or a reset, often at a discount. A few firms give a free retry if you finish the time limit in profit without reaching the target.

There is no standard answer, and speed is not the goal. At a sensible 0.5% to 1% risk per trade, an 8% target can take weeks. The challenge pass rate calculator estimates how many trading days your win rate and risk imply, and the longest losing streak your limits survive.