Prop Challenge Calculator

What does a challenge actually cost?

The headline number is the expected spend before a funded account, not the sticker fee. The calculator assumes a per-attempt pass rate between 5% and 17%: the upper end is anchored on the 16.8% that Topstep published for its 2025 evaluations, and the lower end is an assumed floor. Expected attempts are 1 ÷ pass rate, so a 10% rate implies about 10 attempts on average. A $100,000 account bought for a $200 fee at that rate has an expected cost near $2,000, and a $50 reset fee from the second attempt brings the expected spend down rather than charging the full fee each time.

The single average hides a long tail. At an 11% pass rate, about 35% of traders are still unfunded after 9 attempts, which is why the result is shown as a range with that tail figure beside it. Reaching a funded account is also not the same as a payout: across a dataset of more than 300,000 accounts, about 14% reached funding and about 7% ever received a payout (FPFX Technologies, 2024).

How fast can the daily limit and the drawdown end an attempt?

The calculator sets the daily loss ceiling at the account size multiplied by the daily loss percentage. Firms differ on the base: some apply the percentage to each day's opening balance or equity, which changes the dollar figure once the account is in profit or loss. On a $100,000 account with a 5% daily limit, the ceiling is $5,000, and at 0.5% risk per trade ($500) it takes 10 losing trades to reach it. An equity-based rule counts the floating loss on open positions, so an unrealised drawdown can breach the limit before a trade is closed. The calculator's balance setting counts only realised losses, though a firm can measure the limit from its balance and still count floating losses. The total drawdown buffer works the same way over the whole attempt: a 10% maximum drawdown on $100,000 is a $10,000 buffer, or 20 maximum-loss trades at 0.5% risk.

Why does the drawdown type change the answer?

A static floor sits at a fixed level below the start and never moves, so profit adds directly to the buffer. A trailing floor follows the account's high instead (the end-of-day balance or the intraday high, depending on the type), holding the buffer at the drawdown amount no matter how much profit accumulates, until it locks. A common misconception is that profit always makes an account safer. Under a trailing rule it does not: as the account profits the floor trails upward but stays below the starting balance, reaching the start only once that high has risen by the full drawdown amount. At that lock point (a high equal to the start plus the drawdown amount) the floor locks at the starting balance, and from then on a fall below the opening figure breaches the account (a return to it, at firms that count touching the floor as a breach). The lock point varies by firm: some lock at the starting balance, some at a small buffer above it, and a few never lock. End-of-day trailing moves the floor only on the closing balance. Intraday trailing moves it during the session: at some firms on every tick of unrealised profit, which makes that version the most punishing of the three, and at others only when a trade closes at a new balance high.

What risk per trade survives both limits?

Safe risk per trade is the largest risk that passes neither the daily loss limit nor the total drawdown. The daily leg sizes risk so a full day of losing trades reaches the daily limit rather than exceeding it. The drawdown leg sizes risk so a run of three full-loss days reaches, but does not pass, the total drawdown before trading costs. The smaller of the two applies, and the calculator names which limit binds. Some firms count touching a limit as a breach, and at those firms the safe level itself breaches. On a day-trader profile taking 3 trades a day with a 5% daily limit and a 10% total drawdown, the drawdown leg binds at about 1.1% per trade.

How are days to target, income, and payback estimated?

Expected profit per trade is the risk amount multiplied by (win rate × reward-to-risk − loss rate), assuming every trade is either a full loss of the risk or a profit of exactly the reward-to-risk multiple of it, before trading costs. At 50% win rate and 2:1 reward-to-risk on a $100 risk, that is +$50 a trade. Days to the profit target divide the target by that per-trade figure and then by the trades taken per day, so a $1,000 target needs 20 trades, which is about 20 days at one trade a day or 7 days at three. A profile with no positive expectancy has no expected path to the target: the average trade breaks even or loses money, so the calculator shows no day count. The result never drops below the minimum trading days the rules require. The income projection applies the same per-trade expectancy across 22 trading days at the stated profit split, then deflates it by the share of funded traders who ever receive a payout, so the figure reflects the conversion reality rather than an idealised month.