Flight School · prop firms

Prop firms, explained simply.

A prop firm lets you trade its money instead of yours. You pay a fee, prove you can follow its rules, and if you do, you keep most of the profit. Here is how it really works, what it costs, how traders scale it, and what usually goes wrong.

FuturesCFD

How it works, start to payout

Every firm runs a version of the same four steps. The names change, the shape doesn't.

Step 1

Buy an evaluation

You pay a one-off or monthly fee for a test account, say a 50K account. No money of your own is at risk beyond that fee.

Step 2

Pass the test

Hit a profit target without breaking the rules: drawdown, daily loss limit, consistency and minimum days.

Step 3

Get funded

You get a funded account, sometimes after an activation fee. The same rules keep applying, often a little stricter.

Step 4

Request payouts

Once you meet the payout rules, you withdraw profit and keep your split, commonly 80 to 90 percent or more.

The rules, in plain words

Break one of these and the account usually closes. Copy the real numbers from your firm's rulebook into the account planner before you buy anything.

Profit targetHow much you need to make to pass, or to unlock a payout.
Max drawdownHow far the account can fall before it closes. This is the number that sets your size.
Trailing or staticA trailing drawdown follows your profit up, so the floor rises under you. A static one never moves.
Daily loss limitThe most you can lose in one day. Hit it and you are done for the day, or for good.
Consistency ruleNo single day can be too big a share of your total profit. One lucky day can't carry the payout.
Payout rulesMinimum days, minimum profit, caps per request, and how often you can withdraw.

Want the full walkthrough? The Futures Primer has a six-lesson section on building a plan around prop firm rules.

How traders scale it

Once one account pays out, the common next step is running several accounts at once, often copying the same trades across all of them. The upside multiplies. So does the downside.

A good month$3,000
If every account fails−$450

Example numbers, not a promise. Copying trades means one mistake hits every account at the same time.

What scaling really needs

  • A plan that already pays on one account. More accounts don't fix a losing plan, they speed it up.
  • Small risk per account. Size for the account with the least room left, not the one with the most.
  • Account limits. Most firms cap how many funded accounts you can hold at once.
  • Fees count. Evaluations, resets and activation fees come straight out of what you make.

The honest part

Most evaluations fail

Firms earn a large share of their revenue from evaluation fees. Most people never reach a payout, usually from oversizing or breaking a rule, not from bad analysis.

It's usually simulated

Many funded accounts trade in a simulated environment, and the firm pays you from its own funds. Payouts follow the firm's terms, which it can change.

Treat fees as the risk

Only buy evaluations with money you're fine losing. Think of a fee as the cost of a test, not an investment.

Before you pick a firm

  • Read the whole rulebook, especially drawdown type, consistency and payout rules.
  • Check the payout record. Look for recent, independent reports of traders being paid.
  • Compare the full cost to the first payout, not just the evaluation price. The account planner works this out.
  • Check what you can trade (micros, minis, gold) and when, including news and overnight rules.
  • Look for resets and discounts. Prices change often, and discount codes are common.
Coming soon

Firms we use, with discount codes

We're putting together a short list of firms we trade with, with codes that lower the evaluation price. If we earn a referral fee from a link, we'll say so right next to it.

Plan it before you buy it

Put a firm's numbers in, see how much room you really have, and what it costs to reach the first payout.

Open the account plannerPayout planner