Prop firm drawdown: where the trail actually stops
Comparison sites sort futures prop firms into “static” and “trailing”. That split is wrong, and it is wrong in the direction that costs money. No major futures firm offers a fixed loss line from day one. What differs between firms is where the trail stops and how long it takes to get there.
We got this wrong too. We published a “TRUE STATIC drawdown” claim about Alpha Futures in fifteen places, and our own drawdown calculator computed a fixed floor for Tradeify Advanced — reporting $4,000 of headroom on an account that was already $1,000 past its real trailing floor. Both are corrected, and a check now compares every published sentence against the rule data rather than trusting a manual sweep. The figures below are read from each firm's own documentation.
Where the trail stops, by firm and phase
Phase matters: a firm does not have one drawdown rule, it has one per phase — and at least one firm changes it between them.
| Firm / plan | Phase | Type | Where it stops |
|---|---|---|---|
Apex Trader Funding Intraday plans | evaluation | Intraday trail | Never stops |
My Funded Futures Rapid | funded | Intraday trail | Locks at a set level |
Alpha Futures All plans (Zero included) | funded | EOD trail | Locks at your starting balance |
Blue Guardian Futures Challenge | evaluation | EOD trail | Locks at your starting balance |
Take Profit Trader PRO | funded | Intraday trail | Locks at your starting balance |
Traders Launch Performance | funded | EOD trail | Locks at your starting balance |
Earn2Trade Trader Career Path — TCP25 terminal | funded | Static | Fixed from day one |
Take Profit Trader Evaluation | evaluation | EOD trail | Not checked |
Top One Futures S2F Sim PRO | funded | Intraday trail | Not checked |
Tradeify Growth, Select and Lightning (all current plans) | funded | EOD trail | Not checked |
“Not checked” means exactly that — we have not read that firm's documentation for this field. It does not mean the trail does not stop. 7 of 10 rows are verified.
What each row means for sizing
Never stops trailing during an evaluation. Every new equity peak — including unrealised — raises the floor behind you, for the whole evaluation.
Apex plan configurator, re-verified 2026-09-11.
Switches to intraday trailing when sim-funded, follows the equity high-water mark, and locks permanently once it reaches $100.
MFFU Rapid plan documentation, read 2026-07-31.
The floor moves at end of day until it reaches your starting balance — roughly a 4% gain — then locks there permanently. You carry a moving floor through the first 4%, which is when a new account is most fragile, and a fixed one after.
Alpha Futures documentation, read 2026-07-31. Alpha's own wording is “(end of day) trailing on ALL of our accounts”.
A 3% end-of-day dynamic drawdown that locks permanently at the starting balance. Payouts are capped at five per account.
Blue Guardian Futures plan documentation, read 2026-07-31.
Calculated intraday from peak balance including unrealised gains — so an open winner that gives back moves your floor — and stops once it reaches the starting balance.
Take Profit Trader plan documentation, read 2026-07-31.
End-of-day dynamic drawdown that becomes static once it reaches the starting balance — the same trail-then-lock shape as Alpha.
Traders Launch plan documentation, read 2026-07-31.
The only genuinely fixed drawdown in futures, and only at the TOP of the ladder: a $200,000 live account with the minimum balance fixed at $194,000. You do not start here — you arrive.
Earn2Trade Trader Career Path page, verified 2026-08-04. ⚠️ The TCP50/TCP100 $400K/$388K terminal is not yet modelled — its daily loss limit is unpublished.
End-of-day trailing during the evaluation — then it switches to intraday once funded. The phase you are in changes the rule.
Take Profit Trader plan documentation, read 2026-07-31.
The only Top One plan using intraday trailing — the rest of the lineup is end-of-day. Worth checking which one you bought.
Top One Futures plan documentation, read 2026-07-31.
Every current Tradeify plan is end-of-day trailing. The firm has no static plan and never has had one, despite the claim being widely repeated — including, for months, by us. The retired Advanced plan was end-of-day trailing too.
help.tradeify.co/en/articles/14369021-tradeify-pricing-reference, read 2026-09-17 ("Tradeify offers three account types"); type confirmed with Tradeify 2026-08-04.
Common questions
Do any futures prop firms have a truly static drawdown?
Effectively one, and not from day one. Earn2Trade’s Trader Career Path terminates in a $200,000 live account whose minimum balance is fixed at $194,000 — but you arrive there at the top of a ladder rather than starting on it. Every other major futures firm trails at some point, including ones widely listed as static.
What is the difference between intraday and end-of-day trailing drawdown?
An intraday trail follows your equity peak as it happens, including unrealised profit — an open winner that gives back can raise the floor behind you. An end-of-day trail only moves when the session closes, so intraday give-back does not count against you. The intraday version is materially tighter for the same headline number.
Does the drawdown rule change once you are funded?
It can, and this is the trap. Take Profit Trader uses end-of-day trailing during the evaluation and switches to intraday once funded — the phase you are in changes the rule. Comparing firms without naming the phase produces a table that is wrong for whichever phase you are actually in.
What does it mean when a trail "locks"?
On several firms the floor stops moving once it reaches your starting balance — roughly a 4% gain on Alpha. Before that point you carry a moving floor; after it, a fixed one at breakeven. That is the period a new account is most fragile, and it is invisible if you only read "trailing" or "static".
If you want to see where your own floor sits right now, the drawdown calculator models these rules per plan, and the firm reviews carry the full rule set for each.