Guides for funded traders
Every guide here is written for a trader with a funded or evaluation account and a rule set with numbers in it. No motivation, no indicator reviews. Worked dollar examples, the firm's actual rule as of the month we checked it, and the habit that keeps the account.
Last updated October 19, 2026 ยท rules checked October 2026
Why prop firm accounts get breached
The 7 rules that end accounts, each with the arithmetic that would have caught it.
RULESHow to avoid news trading violations
Opening, closing, holding. Why the firm's calendar is the one that matters. How to size the block window.
DRAWDOWNTrailing drawdown explained
Balance, equity, end-of-day and locking floors, one week of trades on $50K under each.
PAYOUTSHow prop firm payouts work
Cycles, minimum days, consistency rules, buffers and splits, with the numbers.
CHALLENGEHow to pass a prop firm challenge
Size from the daily limit, pace the target, and survive the day after a red day.
JOURNALWhat a journal should do for a funded trader
Room left, news windows, payout dates and the cost of each habit, not just what happened.
FIRM PAGESProp firm rules, firm by firm
FTMO, FundingPips, FXIFY, FundedNext, Goat Funded, The5ers, Topstep, Apex. Every rule that breaches, checked monthly.
COMPARECompare trading journals
How Proof lines up against other journals for a trader with firm rules to keep.
Rules that end accounts
Two guides cover the breaches that have nothing to do with the chart. Why prop firm accounts get breached walks through the seven rules, daily loss, trailing drawdown, news windows, weekend holds, open-risk caps, consistency and inactivity, with a worked example for each on a $100,000 account. How to avoid news trading violations goes deep on the one rule that breaches profitable traders: what counts as a violation at FTMO, FundingPips, FXIFY and FundedNext, why the firm's own calendar differs from public ones, and how to size a block window that holds across several accounts.
For the rules themselves, firm by firm, the prop firm rules hub links every firm page, and the cheat sheet puts ten firms on one printable page.
Drawdown and sizing
Trailing drawdown explained runs the same five days of trades through balance-trailing, equity-trailing, end-of-day and locking floors on a $50,000 account with a $2,000 drawdown, so you can see why the equity-trailing account ends the week with $900 of room and the balance-trailing one with $1,700. Then it gives three sizing rules that follow. The drawdown calculator and the position size calculator do the arithmetic for your own account.
Payouts and consistency
How prop firm payouts work treats a payout as four gates: the cycle date, minimum qualifying days, the consistency ratio, and buffers and splits. The worked example shows a $100,000 account up 4% producing a $950 first payout, and how one oversized day pushes a payout back by two weeks. The payout date calculator and the consistency rule calculator pair with it.
Challenges and routine
How to pass a prop firm challenge without blowing it on day 3 is about the day after a red day, the sizing that survives it, and the pace that reaches the target without a hero day. It ends with the seven-step routine that keeps the plan applied when you do not feel like it, available as the printable daily trading routine checklist.
Journaling for funded accounts
What a trading journal should do for a funded trader makes the case that a logbook tells you what happened and a funded trader needs to know what is allowed right now: room left today, the next blocked window, the next payout date and what blocks it, and the dollar cost of each habit. If you want to see where your own trades land, the free Proof Score takes a CSV and returns a score, your biggest leak and what your rule breaks have cost, with no account needed. The compare page shows how Proof sits next to other journals.
The guides are the rules. Proof is where they run.
Everything in these guides, room left per account, floors under each drawdown type, block windows from the firm's list, payout projections and habit costs, is what Proof tracks for every account you hold. Presets for FXIFY, FundingPips, FundedNext, Goat Funded, FTMO, The5ers, Topstep and Apex, plus custom.
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