Prop Firm Guides
Everything here is built around two jobs: getting funded, and staying funded. Getting funded is the front half, choosing the right firm for how you trade, understanding the rules before you pay, and passing the evaluation. Staying funded is the harder half most traders skip, running a funded account so you actually collect payouts instead of handing the account back. The guides follow that path.
If you are new to this, start with the foundation below. It covers what a prop firm actually is, how evals work, and how the funded side pays, and every other guide builds on top of it.
Foundational
- What Is a Prop Firm?
The whole arrangement in plain terms: the eval, the funded account, the rules, and the profit split.
- How Do Prop Firms Make Money?
Every revenue stream behind the cheap evals: fees, resets, rebills, where payouts actually come from, and why the firm profits whether you pass or fail.
- Are Prop Firms Legit?
The honest answer, the red flags that mark a firm to avoid, and how to verify any prop firm yourself in under an hour.
Get Funded
- Are Prop Firms Worth It?
The honest answer by trader type, what a slow year of evals really costs next to risking your own money, and the one rule that decides whether the fee is worth paying.
- 1-Step vs 2-Step Prop Firm Challenges
The same test given once or twice: what changes in targets, time limits, drawdown and price, the pass math behind the second step, and why futures firms mostly sell one.
- How to Pass a Prop Firm Evaluation
Everything about the test: why most attempts fail, the exact rules I trade evals by, what failing really costs, and why passing is the starting line, not the finish.
- How Much Does a Funded Account Really Cost?
The checkout price is one line of the bill. Every fee a firm can charge, the math by account size, and why the cheapest eval is rarely the cheapest way to a payout.
- Trailing Drawdown Explained
The rule that ends more futures evals than the profit target does. How the drawdown line follows your balance up, why the intraday version is the dangerous one, and where it finally locks.
- Prop Firm Consistency Rule Explained
Your best day doesn't break the rule, it raises the total you have to earn. The math behind that, where the rule gets applied, and what to do about it.
- Prop Firm Taxes Explained
Why a payout is a paycheck and not a trade: the 1099, the self-employment tax nobody withholds, what you can write off, and the business setup and banking problem I hit running it.
- How to Choose a Prop Firm
The framework behind the finder: your style and budget first, then the drawdown, the rules, the fees, the caps and the trust check that can veto all of it.
Stay Funded
- How to Keep a Funded Account
Passing is the easy half. The rules to re-read the day you get funded, the risk-per-trade math that respects the drawdown, the daily stop that saves the bad days, and a calculator that runs it on your own account.
- What Happens If You Blow a Funded Account?
The account closes, the sim balance goes with it, and you do not owe the firm a dime. What you actually lost in dollars, when a reset is worth buying, and why the account right after a payout is the one traders blow most.
- How Prop Firm Payouts Work
The wait time, the payout buffer and the cap that come before every payout, how the money actually moves once you click request, and how to withdraw without handing the account back.
- How Much Do Funded Traders Make?
The averages online are built on traders who earned nothing. The real arithmetic of one payout on a 25K, 50K, or 100K account, and the four rules that move it.
- Prop Firm Stacking: Running Multiple Funded Accounts
What account stacking is and is not, how many accounts a firm really lets you run, why the fees multiply while the drawdown doesn't, and the rules that can end every account you own at once.