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Prop firm challenge calculator
The profit target and the drawdown limit pull in opposite directions on the same dial. Risk enough to reach the target in a sensible number of trades and an ordinary losing streak ends the account; risk little enough to survive the streak and the target needs more trades than the time allows. This is that arithmetic, before the fee.
The formula
Net profit needed, in R = target % ÷ risk %
Expectancy per trade, in R = (win% × R) − ((1 − win%) × 1)
Trades to target = net R needed ÷ expectancy
Losses to breach = limit % ÷ risk %
Largest safe risk = overall limit % ÷ streak to survive
Room at the target = overall limit, plus the target if the floor is static
- risk % — a constant percentage of the starting balance, which is how challenge rules are written and how most people size. Risking a percentage of current equity shrinks each loss as the account falls, so the streak figures here are the conservative direction.
- R — the average win divided by the average loss, measured across your exits rather than taken from the plan.
- streak to survive — losing runs are not rare. At a 45% win rate a run of six is an ordinary month; ten is uncomfortable but entirely normal over a few hundred trades.
There is no pass probability here on purpose. It would need the order the wins and losses arrive in, which nobody knows in advance, and any number offered for it is decoration.
Worked: the same rules and the same edge, at seven risk settings
A 100,000.00 USD account, 8% target, 5% daily limit, 10% overall, static floor. The trader wins 45% of the time at 2R, an expectancy of 0.35R a trade.
| Risk per trade | Target, in R | Trades to target | Losses to daily breach | Losses to account breach | Reading |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0.25% | 32.0R | 92 | 20 | 40 | Very hard to breach; very slow to pass. |
| 0.50% | 16.0R | 46 | 10 | 20 | Very hard to breach; very slow to pass. |
| 0.75% | 10.7R | 31 | 6 | 13 | Survives a normal bad run. |
| 1.00% | 8.0R | 23 | 5 | 10 | Survives a normal bad run. |
| 1.50% | 5.3R | 16 | 3 | 6 | A bad fortnight ends it. |
| 2.00% | 4.0R | 12 | 2 | 5 | A single ordinary losing streak ends the account. |
| 3.00% | 2.7R | 8 | 1 | 3 | A single ordinary losing streak ends the account. |
The 3% row is the one most challenge accounts actually die on. It reaches the target in 8 trades, which is why it is tempting, and it dies on 3 consecutive losses, which at a 45% win rate is an event that happens to everyone eventually. The 0.25% row survives 40 losses in a row and needs 92 trades — safe, and slower than most time limits allow. Neither end of that table is the answer, and that is the honest finding: the comfortable middle is narrow.
Notice also that the daily limit binds before the overall one at every risk setting here. A 5% daily limit against a 10% overall one means half your total allowance can be spent in a single session — so the rule that ends most accounts is not the one people plan around.
What the number is actually for: the two trade counts, side by side
The output worth acting on is the pair — trades to target at the risk you intend, and trades to target at the risk that survives your losing streak. When those are close, the challenge is compatible with how you trade. When they are far apart, you are being asked to choose between failing slowly and failing quickly, and no amount of discipline reconciles them.
At the defaults above they happen to coincide: surviving ten losses in a row allows 1.00% a trade, which is exactly the 1% the trader intended, and both routes need 23 trades. That is a challenge whose rules and whose trader fit. Raise the risk to 2% and the target arrives in 12 trades while the account now dies on 5 consecutive losses — faster, and materially more likely to end at zero.
The static and trailing floors, priced
| Model | Room at the target | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Static | 18.0% | The floor never moves from the starting balance. Most FX two-step challenges. |
| Trailing | 10.0% | The floor follows your highest balance. Your profit buys no room. |
Under a static floor the 8% you earned is 8% of extra buffer, so you finish the challenge with 18% of room. Under a trailing one the floor climbed with you and you finish with the 10% you started with. The work was identical; the safety margin is not.
Firms use more variations than these two. Some trail on the highest balance after every closed trade, some only on the highest end-of-day close — a distinction that decides whether a position that dipped and recovered inside one session cost you anything — and some trail and then lock at a fixed level and never move again. TapeSheet's own prop tracker implements all four for exactly that reason, because running the same account through them produces different verdicts.
Two things this page cannot see, both of which make real challenges harder than the arithmetic. First, the limits are usually measured on equity rather than balance, so floating losses on open positions count the moment they exist and a trade that never closed at a bad price can still breach you. Second, consistency rules, minimum trading days and time limits are constraints this calculator does not model at all. Read the rules document; the numbers here are a floor on the difficulty, not a ceiling.
Questions
Does this tell me whether I will pass?
No, and be suspicious of anything that claims to. A pass probability would need the order your wins and losses arrive in, not just how many of each — the same 45% win rate passes comfortably if the losses are spread out and breaches on day three if six of them arrive together. What this page gives you instead is the arithmetic that is knowable in advance: how many trades the target needs, how many consecutive losses each limit allows, and whether the risk you intend is compatible with both. If those numbers do not work, no sequence saves you.
Why does risking less make the challenge harder?
Because the profit target is fixed in percent while your risk sets the size of each step towards it. At 0.5% a trade an 8% target is 16R of net profit; at 2% it is 4R. Smaller risk means more trades, and more trades means more time — which collides with any time limit and with the fact that most people trading a challenge are also trying not to overtrade. That tension is real and it does not have a clever solution. It is the reason the fee is priced the way it is.
What is the difference between a static and a trailing drawdown?
A static floor sits at your starting balance minus the limit and never moves, so every dollar of profit you bank becomes an extra dollar of buffer. A trailing floor follows your highest balance up, so the room between you and failure stays exactly the same no matter how well you have done. On this page’s default rules a static account has 18% of room once the target is hit and a trailing one still has 10%. Firms use both, and some trail and then lock at a fixed level. Read your own rules — this is the single most expensive thing to get wrong.
Is the daily loss limit measured on balance or on equity?
Usually equity, which is stricter, and it is why traders breach limits they thought they were nowhere near. A floating loss on an open position counts against an equity-based daily limit the moment it exists, so a position that dips and recovers can fail you at a price it never closed at. A balance-based limit only registers closed trades. The rules document will say which; if it says equity, the limit is tighter than any arithmetic on closed trades suggests.
Where do the win rate and R come from?
Your own record, ideally, and not your intentions. The single most common way this calculation goes wrong is entering the reward-to-risk of the plan rather than the one the exits actually achieve — targets get taken early and trailing stops catch retracements, so a 3R plan commonly delivers an average nearer 1.5R. If you do not have a measured figure yet, that is the thing to get before paying a challenge fee, not after.
Your real win rate and R, before you pay the fee
Every figure on this page is only as good as the two numbers you typed into it, and most traders do not have measured versions of either. TapeSheet reads your win rate, your average win-to-loss ratio and your worst losing streak straight off your MT4 or MT5 statement, and its prop tracker runs the account against all four drawdown models to show which rules you would have survived. Free, no signup, and the file never leaves your device.
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