- At Topstep, 16.8% of Trading Combines started in 2025 were passed. Across the industry, about 7 in 100 challenge accounts ever reach a payout.
- Most failures are drawdown breaches, not running out of time. The usual cause is position size, not the strategy.
- In our simulation, the same trader passed 68% of the time risking $100 a trade and 40% risking $400. Without an edge, no size passes reliably.
Prop firms sell a simple promise: pass a test, trade the firm’s money. The numbers behind that promise are less often shown. This page collects the figures firms have published, says where each one comes from, and then uses a simulation to show why so many attempts end the same way.
The numbers firms have published
| Figure | What it measures | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 16.8% | Topstep Trading Combines passed in 2025 | Topstep’s 2025 disclosure |
| 33.3% | Topstep funded traders who received a payout | Topstep’s 2025 disclosure |
| 0.71% | Topstep Express Funded traders moved to a Live account | Topstep’s 2025 disclosure |
| 7% | Accounts that reached a payout, out of 300,000 prop trading accounts | FPFX Tech data, reported by Finance Magnates (2024) |
| 5–10% | Challenge pass rate at The Funded Trader | Its CEO, reported by Finance Magnates (March 2025) |
| About 4% | The average payout as a share of the funded account size | FPFX Tech data, reported by Finance Magnates (2024) |
The figures come from different firms, years and account types, so treat them as a range rather than one number. They agree on the shape: most buyers fail the challenge, and most of those who pass don’t get paid much. On a $50,000 account, an average payout of 4% is about $2,000.
How traders fail: the drawdown, almost every time
A challenge can end three ways: you hit the target, you hit a loss limit, or you stop trading. Track360, which runs affiliate tracking for prop firms, estimates that 60–70% of failed challenges end on a daily or maximum drawdown breach rather than by expiring. That is an estimate from its own platform, not an audited figure, but it matches what firms’ own rules pages and trader surveys describe.
A breach usually follows one of four patterns:
- Sizing too big for the drawdown. Risking $400 on a $2,000 limit means five losses in a row ends the account. Five losses in a row is normal for a strategy that wins 45% of the time.
- Trailing drawdown that wasn’t understood. A trailing floor rises with your best balance. Give back a good day and the room you thought you had is gone. Our drawdown guide shows it step by step.
- One bad day. Trying to win back a loss the same session turns a small red day into a daily-limit breach.
- A consistency rule nobody planned for. One big day can raise the target you need to reach (see consistency rules), which pushes traders to size up to finish.
Traders usually describe patterns 3 and 4 as emotional mistakes. On an account statement they look the same as pattern 1: too much size at the wrong moment.
The maths: what our simulation shows
We simulated 20,000 attempts at a 50K evaluation: $3,000 profit target, $2,000 end-of-day trailing drawdown, two trades a day, with costs of $5 for every $100 risked. One trader has a small edge (wins 45% of trades, winners 1.5 times the size of losers). The other has no edge at all.
Three things stand out:
- With an edge, smaller is better. Pass odds fall from 68% to 38% as risk per trade grows from $100 to $800, because big size turns a normal losing streak into a breach.
- Without an edge, bigger size only buys luck. The no-edge trader does better at $800 (23%) than at $100 (3%), but only because a few lucky streaks reach the target before the losses catch up. That isn’t a strategy you can repeat.
- Rules and costs matter too. With the same edge at $100 risk, a static drawdown passed 83% of the time against 68% for trailing, and leaving out costs would have shown 87%. Commissions and slippage are real money in a $2,000 limit.
The repurchase cycle
Failing once isn’t the expensive part. Buying again straight away is. Track360 estimates that 30–40% of traders who fail buy a reset or a new challenge within 90 days, and that referred customers buy 1.6 to 2.1 challenges in their first year. Again, these are the platform’s own estimates.
A rebuy is worth it if something has changed: smaller size, a tested set of rules, a firm whose drawdown suits your style. If nothing has changed, the second attempt has the same odds as the first.
Before your next attempt
- Test for an edge first. At least 100 trades of your written rules, after costs, on data you didn’t use to build them.
- Size from the drawdown. About 5% of the maximum loss per trade, less on a trailing account.
- Know your firm’s drawdown and consistency rules before the first trade, not after the first breach.
- Set a daily stop well inside the firm’s daily limit, and stop when you hit it.
- Pick the firm for the rules, then the price. Compare them on the compare page, and check the real cost to get funded.
Our pass-probability simulator runs the same test with your own win rate, reward-to-risk and size.