A prop-firm rule is only usable when five coordinates are fixed: firm, exact program, phase, region, and account size. This page holds three CFD evaluations at the global/default $100K first stage and shows Topstep’s $100K futures evaluation separately. Never copy a firm-wide percentage from one plan into another.
“Every rule, one page” means every rule family you must resolve before paying or trading—not every plan a firm has ever sold. Use the exact program rows, follow the official-source links, and confirm the checkout and agreement for your region before paying.
1. Full Rules Comparison—Exact Programs, Not Firm Names
Read the component in decision order. Start with market and platform eligibility, then evaluation price, profit target, daily loss, maximum loss mode, minimum days, payout conditions, restrictions, and verified date. A lower headline target is not automatically easier. A strategy can be incompatible with the loss engine, trading-day definition, execution route, or payout gate even when the target looks attractive.
| Rule field | Question it answers | Common reading error |
|---|---|---|
| Market and platform | Can the strategy and required instrument actually be executed? | Comparing a CFD evaluation with a CME-futures evaluation as though the products were interchangeable |
| Evaluation price | What verified amount applies to this exact size and route? | Copying a sale, another region, activation cost, reset, data fee, or a different account size |
| Profit target | What realized result must be reached in this phase? | Ignoring minimum days, consistency, or another pass condition |
| Daily loss | Which daily floor applies, what enters the calculation, and when does it reset? | Treating it as a simple percentage of starting balance |
| Maximum loss | Is the floor static, trailing intraday, or trailing end-of-day? | Using one firm’s drawdown formula for another program |
| Minimum days | Which days qualify and what must happen on them? | Counting calendar days or any session with an open position |
| Payout and restrictions | What later conditions affect reward eligibility or account use? | Reading the maximum split as a guaranteed first payout |
Once the market branch is settled, use FTMO versus Topstep for the CFD-versus-futures decision or FundedNext versus The5ers for a like-for-like CFD comparison.
2. Translate Percentage Rules Into Account-State Values
A static table of dollar examples becomes misleading when the rule’s reference balance, equity treatment, timezone, or trailing mechanic changes. Translate only after the exact program and phase are selected.
Static maximum-loss floor
reference amount − allowed maximum loss. Confirm whether the reference is nominal starting balance, initial balance after adjustments, or another program-defined amount.
Daily-loss room
Resolve the program’s daily reference, realized and unrealized P/L treatment, commissions, swaps or fees, open risk, and reset timezone. Do not derive it from current balance alone.
Trailing floor
Apply the exact update event: intraday high, end-of-day balance or equity, lock point, and any phase transition. A generic percentage cannot reproduce a program’s state machine.
Consistency headroom
Use the program’s numerator, denominator, qualifying period, rounding, and pass or payout stage. “Best day share” is not one universal formula across firms.
Store both the rule value and the rule version used. The useful session number is not merely “five percent”; it is the exact remaining room under the selected program at the current timestamp, after every event the rule includes. If live equity, fees, conversion, or cash-flow treatment is missing, label the result incomplete.
3. What Each Rule Actually Means
Daily loss limit—the event boundary
Daily loss rules differ in reference point, included P/L, reset time, and whether the control is mandatory or selectable. Ask four questions: What opens the day? Which realized, unrealized, fee, and funding events count? What timezone closes it? Is breach tested continuously or at a defined checkpoint?
A closed-trade export can prove realized results but may not prove intraday floating-equity compliance. A Replay should therefore refuse a clean pass when the selected rule requires live equity that the imported evidence does not contain.
Static vs trailing drawdown—the crucial difference
A static floor stays tied to its program-defined reference. A trailing floor can rise when the relevant balance or equity checkpoint rises. Some trailing floors update intraday; others use end-of-day values; some stop trailing after a lock condition. The trailing-drawdown guide separates these state transitions without pretending one generic formula describes every firm.
Consistency rule—phase, denominator, and consequence
“Consistency” may constrain a best day, require qualifying profitable days, affect the evaluation, gate a payout, or not exist in the selected phase. Those are different rules. Record the exact phase, numerator, denominator, comparison operator, rounding policy, and consequence. The consistency-rule tracker guide shows how to keep that denominator auditable as total profit changes.
Minimum trading days—not calendar time
A minimum-day value is incomplete without the qualifying-day definition. A firm may count any executed day, require a minimum profit, define a session boundary in another timezone, or apply the condition only to one phase. Do not force extra trades merely to satisfy a rule you have not resolved precisely.
Restrictions—strategy compatibility before price
Check news windows, weekend holding, overnight positions, automation, copy or group trading, prohibited strategies, maximum size, scaling, platform, instrument, and inactivity rules. If the current official terms do not answer one of those questions, do not assume the strategy is allowed—ask support before paying.
FTMO Futures launched on September 17, 2026 as a separate futures product with Growth and Pro routes. Do not carry FTMO’s CFD Challenge rules into FTMO Futures or compare either route with Topstep until the exact product is fixed.
4. Account Sizes and Evaluation Prices
Account size is not a cosmetic dropdown. It can change price, target amount, allowed loss, trailing distance, contract limit and the later account state. This page uses the $100K evaluation scope; open the firm profile or official source for another size instead of multiplying every field yourself.
Confirm the displayed evaluation price and checked date, then separate it from recurring subscription, activation, reset, platform, exchange-data, tax, conversion and withdrawal costs. “Lowest challenge fee” is not a useful answer until those cost classes and the expected time to pass are included.
5. Scaling Plans—How to Read Them Without Overpromising
A maximum advertised allocation is not the account a trader will receive, the amount of real capital deployed, or a guaranteed path. For each scaling plan, resolve:
- the exact funded program and eligibility cohort;
- the measurement window and required result;
- drawdown, payout, consistency, inactivity, and risk conditions during the window;
- whether scaling changes balance, loss limits, contracts, profit split, or only a display value;
- whether multiple accounts can be combined and which caps apply;
- the official source and verified date for every claim.
Do not infer today’s scaling terms from the evaluation row above. Scaling is a later-stage contract and may use a different policy version. The editorial conclusion is simple: choose a program that fits the current strategy before valuing a distant maximum allocation.
6. Status and Closure Checks—Do Not Send Money on a Stale Claim
A dated “dead firms” list can become wrong in both directions: an operating company can close after publication, and a paused or disputed status can later change. Before payment, confirm the official domain, legal entity, live checkout, current program terms and reachable support. If one of those checks fails, do not pay until the firm resolves it.
Social payout screenshots do not establish solvency, regulatory status, or the terms that govern your purchase. Preserve the checkout page, terms version, refund policy, entity name, and receipt. If the program later changes or closes, those records are more useful than a generic reputation score.
The One-Page Decision Order
- Market gate: choose the instrument model and execution route first.
- Loss-engine gate: reject programs whose daily or maximum-loss state machine conflicts with the strategy.
- Restriction gate: verify news, holding, automation, copying, size, and inactivity behavior.
- Pass-condition gate: resolve target, days, consistency, and phase transitions.
- Cost gate: total evaluation, subscription, activation, reset, data, platform, and conversion costs.
- Payout gate: review eligibility, schedule, split, limits, verification, and later funded rules.
The correct result is not “Firm A is best.” It is “This exact program, phase, region and size fits or conflicts with this strategy, for these recorded reasons.” Recheck those reasons whenever the firm changes its terms.
Run the Exact Rule Loop in TSB
TSB turns the checklist into a personal rule replay. Select the exact firm, program, phase, region and size, then run the imported trades in chronological order. Prop Replay returns the first supported breach or blocker; if the export lacks live equity, currency conversion, cash-flow treatment or a tier rule, it shows the missing evidence instead of inventing a pass.
Journal keeps the underlying trades and account scope inspectable. The Prop Rule Tracker keeps the selected rule version and current pressure visible. AI Coach can then examine the same evidence set through data-quality, plan-compliance, setup-risk, market-regime, rule-testing, and setup-decay lenses. Its job is not to repeat the percentage table: it identifies the supported mismatch, links back to the trades and rule evidence, explains the limitation, and carries one concrete response into Current Focus.
That makes Coach a real decision layer. A generic chatbot says “reduce risk.” TSB can say which rule is under pressure, which recorded decisions created it, what evidence remains missing, and what exact behavior should be tested next—without turning an incomplete export into a false pass.
TSB has processed 600K+ imported trades across its import history, and the source registry recognizes 332 exact broker, exchange, platform, and prop-export profiles. Those values mean imported trades and recognized routes—not users, guaranteed compatibility, or trades analyzed by Coach. Exact route validation and reconciliation still come first.
Choose the exact program Replay my real sequence Turn the first blocker into Current Focus
Bottom Line
Do not compare prop firms as brands. Fix the exact program, phase, region and size, then read the rules in decision order: market, loss engine, restrictions, pass conditions, total cost and payout. Translate percentages only after the rule’s reference state and event logic are known.
TSB adds the step a static cheatsheet cannot: replaying your own sequence, showing the first rule under pressure, keeping the supporting trades inspectable and turning that blocker into one measurable next action.
Disclosure: Trader’s Second Brain is our product. We rechecked the four program scopes, their official rule sources and the TSB replay workflow on September 22, 2026. Firm terms can change; confirm the linked source and checkout before any purchase or trading decision. This is educational product analysis, not investment, legal, or tax advice. See our editorial methodology.
