The primer · 2-minute read

How prop firms actually work

A prop firm rents you its capital. You prove discipline on a paid evaluation; pass, and you trade a funded account and split the profits. Simple on paper — brutal in the five seconds after a loss. Here's the whole game in one glance.

The cycle
01
Buy the evaluation
Pay a fee for a simulated account with a profit target and strict risk limits.
→
02
Pass the eval
Hit the target without breaching drawdown or daily loss. This is where most traders fail.
→
03
Get funded
Trade the firm’s capital. Now the job is to protect it and reach a withdrawal.
→
04
Take a payout
Withdraw your profit split. Recover your fees, then fund the next account from profit.
↻The loop only closes when a payout pays for the next account. Until then, every reset comes out of your pocket.
The five rules that decide everything

Learn these before you buy anything

Evaluation (eval)
A paid test account. Reach the profit target under the rules and you advance to funded. Fees run from ~$20 to a few hundred per account.
Trailing drawdown
A moving floor that follows your highest balance. Touch it and the account is dead — instantly. The single biggest account-killer.
⚠ Most breaches happen here
Daily loss limit
The most you can lose in one session. Blow it and the day (or the account) ends, even if you were up earlier.
⚠ One revenge trade can trip it
Profit target
The gain that clears the evaluation — e.g. a 50K eval clears around $53,000. Fixed by the firm per account size.
Payout & split
Once funded and eligible, you withdraw a share of profits (often 80–90%). Getting here, not passing, is the real finish line.
What the data says

1,000 traders start. About 7 get paid.

Roughly 5–15% pass the evaluation and get funded. Of those, only a fraction ever withdraw — most breach the account first. The joint odds of starting an evaluation and ever receiving a payout land near 7%.

The drop-off isn't talent. It's the gap between passing and getting paid — the exact gap PayoutPartner was built to close.

Start an evaluation1,000
Pass & get funded~100
Ever receive a payout~7
Industry estimates, 2026 · illustrative

PayoutPartner is the layer between you and the firm.

You enter your firm's limits. It watches the account in real time, and coaches the one thing the stats say matters most: staying inside the rules long enough to reach a payout. It shortens the learning curve so you spend less time — and less money — in evaluation.

See how it helps →Meet Maru