How to pass the evaluation without breaking a rule
Passing the evaluation means hitting the target without breaching the daily limit, the overall limit or the minimum days. The failure that disqualifies most people is blowing the daily limit in one bad session. Treating 60% to 70% of the limit as the real ceiling, and stopping there, removes the number one cause.
Most challenge failures do not come from losses: they come from a rule breached carelessly on a profitable account. This guide treats the challenge as an execution plan rather than a race for the target.
To go deeper into each part of this calculation: Drawdown calculator · Lot size and position size calculator · Prop firm target calculator · Valid trading days calculator · Consistency rule calculator · Funded account
Before the first trade
Write down, for that specific account, six numbers: target in percent and in cash, daily limit and its calculation base, total limit and whether it is static or trailing, minimum valid days, consistency cap and the firm's day rollover time.
Those six numbers are not in the trading platform. They are in the contract, and it is normal for two challenges bought in the same month at different firms to have six different values. Trading from memory is where the breach is born.
If you read about this in Portuguese, the plan has other names: the firm is a mesa proprietária, clearing the evaluation is passar na mesa, the funding process is fundeamento and the account you end up with is a conta fundeada. The six numbers are the same either way.
Setting the pace
Divide what is left of the target by the valid days still missing and compare with the daily limit. Needing 0.8% a day against a 5% limit is comfortable; needing 3% a day against a 4% limit is a plan that only works with zero mistakes — which is to say, not a plan.
When the required pace gets too high, the right correction is to accept more days, not more risk. At most firms today the deadline is unlimited; the daily limit is not.
During the challenge
Treat 60% to 70% of the daily limit as your real ceiling and end the day when you touch it. Do not open positions inside a high-impact news window, and cancel pending orders that could trigger inside it. Check the server clock, not your computer's.
If one day ran far above average, start watching the consistency cap: with a 40% cap, a 2,000 day requires 5,000 of total profit before payout. The correction is to accumulate moderate days, never to raise risk.
The breaches that fail most accounts
In order of frequency: breaching the daily limit on one bad day; holding a position through forbidden news; valid days below the minimum at payout request; a strategy banned by contract such as martingale, latency arbitrage or copy trading across accounts; and lot size above the per-trade cap.
None of them depends on calling market direction. All of them depend on record-keeping and attention — exactly what is lost when running three challenges at once.
Doing it without a spreadsheet
TCC stores the six numbers per account, computes the remaining pace, counts valid days by calendar date, measures the best day's weight against the total and warns before the limit is touched — in the browser and on the phone. Same work, without the risk of a stale spreadsheet on the day that matters.
FAQ
What is funding in practice?
Funding is receiving the prop firm's capital after passing the evaluation. The plan in this guide is exactly the road to get there without breaching a rule.
How long does it take to pass a prop firm challenge?
The floor is the contract's minimum valid days — usually 3 to 10 per step. Beyond that, the safe pace is whatever fits inside the daily limit; an unlimited deadline is not a hurry.
Can I trade the news during the evaluation?
It depends on each firm's contract: many ban opening or holding positions inside a high-impact news window, and the breach fails even a profitable account.
Which mistake fails the most accounts?
Breaching the daily limit on a single bad day. Treating 60% to 70% of the limit as the real ceiling and ending the day when you touch it removes the number one cause.