What is funded account?

How does a funded account work?

You pay a fee for an evaluation, often called a challenge, and trade an account under the firm's rules. Reach the profit target without breaking a loss limit and the firm gives you a funded account, which at FTMO has no profit target at all. From then on you trade it under the same kind of limits and are paid most of the profit you make; the firm keeps the rest. What you risk is the evaluation fee and the account itself.

Is a funded account real money?

Usually not, and the firms say so. FTMO describes the accounts it provides as "demo accounts with fictitious funds", with trading "in a simulated environment only". Alpha Capital says that after you pass, "you stay in a simulated market environment". Topstep calls its Express Funded Account "the simulated funded-level account you earn after passing". What is real is the payout: in Topstep's words, it "pays you real money based on your simulated trading results". Because the trades are simulated, a loss costs you the account, not money beyond the fee.

Which rules still apply after you are funded?

Nothing relaxes. The daily loss limit and the maximum loss limit stay in force, and breaking either ends the account however much it has made. Open losses count: FTMO measures its limits on equity, "Balance + Open Positions P/L ± Swaps – Commissions", and Topstep applies its maximum loss "including on unrealized P&L". Some limits trail: Topstep's maximum loss "rises as your end-of-day balance grows, but never moves down" until it reaches the starting balance, and FTMO's 1-Step account has an end-of-day trailing limit that "can only increase, but never decrease". See trailing drawdown and daily drawdown.

How do payouts and profit splits work?

You are paid a share of the profit, on a schedule. The standard splits at the firms we checked: Topstep 90%; FundedNext 80%, rising to 90% with its Scale-Up plan and up to 95% with paid add-ons; Alpha Capital 80%, rising to 90% on some plans or with an add-on. The first payout usually comes with conditions, such as FundedNext's standard option paying out after 21 days, or a consistency rule. On a $100,000 account with $6,000 of profit in the period:

How does a consistency rule affect payouts?

A consistency rule stops one lucky day from carrying the whole result. FTMO's Best Day Rule requires that "your Best Day does not represent more than 50% of your Positive Days' Profit" before a 1-Step challenge passes or a reward is paid. If your winning days add up to $6,000, no single day may account for more than $3,000 of it. A strategy that makes most of its money in a few big days, as trend-followers do, runs into this rule more often than one that makes a little most days.

Can US traders get a funded account?

Yes, but the trading platform is the catch. FundedNext says it "proudly accepts traders from the United States", and FTMO serves US clients through an affiliated entity at ftmo.oanda.com. MetaTrader is the problem: FundedNext states that "MetaQuotes services are not available to clients located in the United States", The5ers lists TradingView as the only platform for US-based clients, and Alpha Capital says "MetaTrader 5 is not available to U.S. residents". The other route is futures: Topstep, for example, is "a Futures-only program" on its own platform, trading contracts such as COMEX gold futures.

What does gold's volatility mean for a funded account?

Gold moves far enough in a day for one position to break a daily limit. In our year of data (257 sessions, August 2025 to August 2026), the median down day for gold was $30.85 an ounce from close to close, and one down day in ten was $122.41 or worse. For a position on the wrong side of such a day, on a standard lot of 100 ounces, against a 5% daily limit on a $100,000 account ($5,000):

To keep a $122.41 move inside a $5,000 daily limit, a position can be no bigger than about 0.40 lots, before counting any other open trade. And that is close to close: the move inside the day can be larger, and open losses count. The prop firm drawdown calculator works this out for your own limits, and the underlying data is in our losing streak study.

Can you run a trading bot on a funded account?

At some firms, on some accounts. FTMO has no reason to restrict a strategy, "whether it's discretionary trading, algorithmic trading, EAs", but warns that a third-party EA may be run by other traders with "exactly the same strategy", and caps allocation at "$400,000 per trader or strategy". FundedNext allows bots on MetaTrader only below $50,000: "Traders on account sizes of $50,000 and above must trade manually". Topstep allows automation only through its paid API and prohibits "VPS, VPNs, and remote servers". Alpha Capital allows only approved risk-management EAs on MT5. The full rules, firm by firm, are on our prop firm trading bot page.