Max drawdown is the line that ends the account if you touch it. The only question that matters is whether that line stays put or follows you up.
Static means the floor is set on day one and never moves: start at $100,000 with a 6% limit and your floor is $94,000 on the first day and the last. Trailing means the floor climbs behind your best moment. Make $3,000 and the floor rises $3,000 with you — so you can be up overall and still be one bad day from losing the account.
Two details decide how aggressive a trailing rule really is, and almost no marketing page mentions either: whether it counts open (unrealized) positions, and whether the floor ever stops climbing.
If they count, your drawdown is measured against floating equity: one candle against you can break the account before you close anything. It's the difference between being able to breathe inside a trade and not.
A trailing rule that freezes once it reaches your starting balance is manageable: from there you only risk profit. One that keeps climbing with no stop forces you to trade on the same cushion forever, no matter how much you make.
What each firm says, with the link to its own page and the date we read it. If a rule changes, it changes here.
| Firm | Verified rule | Verified | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alpha Capital Group | Alpha One uses a 6% trail off the balance high-water mark that locks at breakeven after +6%; all other programs use static 6–10% floors, always breached on live equity. | 2026-07-21 | Source |
| Apex Trader Funding | Trailing drawdown of $1,000–$4,000 by size (EOD or intraday line) that locks at starting balance + $100 in the PA, with unrealized P&L counting toward a breach even on the EOD line. | 2026-07-21 | Source |
| Bulenox | Each size sells with two drawdown engines ($1,500–$5,500): Option 1 is a real-time intraday trail that counts floating P&L and documents no stop, while Option 2 is EOD with a daily limit that locks at initial balance + $100. | 2026-07-21 | Source |
| E8 Markets | The trailing drawdown rises only on CLOSED profits (equity never moves it) and locks at the initial balance once you gain the drawdown amount; Pro uses a static 8% and Signature an EOD trail of $1,000–$4,500 by size. | 2026-07-21 | Source |
| Earn2Trade | In the Gauntlet Mini and Trader Career Path evaluations, an end-of-day trailing drawdown that adjusts at close, is breached intraday against open equity, and freezes at the starting balance (GAU50 = $2,000). Funded Live accounts switch to a continuous intraday trailing drawdown, and the largest Trader Career Path funded accounts use a FIXED minimum balance ($194,000 on the $200K, $388,000 on the $400K) that never trails. | 2026-07-23 | Source |
| Elite Trader Funding | Multiple drawdown engines by plan: 1-Step uses live intraday trailing where unrealized peaks raise the floor (the firm does not publish a lock level for it); EOD plans move the floor only at close and lock at starting balance + $100; static plans never move. | 2026-07-23 | Source |
| FTMO | Max loss is 10% of initial balance — static on the 2-Step and end-of-day trailing on the 1-Step — measured on equity, so floating losses count. | 2026-07-21 | Source |
| Funded Trading Plus | Express and Instant use a 6% relative drawdown trailing the CLOSED balance high (floating equity never moves it) that locks at the starting balance; the 2-Step Classic uses a static 8% on both phases. | 2026-07-21 | Source |
| FundedNext | The daily limit (3–5% by model) is anchored to the INITIAL balance, not the day's, and max loss is a static 6–10% floor; only Stellar Instant uses a 6% trailing equity line. | 2026-07-21 | Source |
| FundingPips | The daily limit is a % of the HIGHER of the day's opening balance or equity (a big overnight floating gain raises your floor), and max loss is static except on Zero, whose 5% trailing line locks at breakeven. | 2026-07-21 | Source |
| FXIFY | A 4–10% trailing drawdown by program off the closed-balance high that locks at the starting balance once you gain that percentage or request your first payout — withdrawing all profit leaves you with zero buffer. | 2026-07-21 | Source |
| Instant Funding | Both the flagship program and the GO program use Smart Drawdown — a -10% floor that tightens to a fixed -5%-of-starting-balance floor after a 5% gain; only the One/Two-Phase and Micro challenge programs use static 4-10% floors. | 2026-07-24 | Source |
| Lucid Trading | All plans use an end-of-day trailing drawdown ($1,000–$5,000 by plan and size) that moves only at session close and locks permanently at initial balance + $100 once you clear the initial trail. | 2026-07-21 | Source |
| Maven Trading | A mix of static floors (8% Two-Step, 3% Three-Step, 10% BNPL eval) and trailing ones (5% One-Step, 3% Instant, 8% funded BNPL off the floating-equity peak), with no documentation of whether the trail ever stops at breakeven. | 2026-07-21 | Source |
| MyFundedFutures | Trailing drawdown of $1,000–$4,500 by plan and size — EOD on Rapid Eval, Builder and Pro, and intraday from the equity peak on Rapid Sim Funded — locking at starting balance + $100. | 2026-07-21 | Source |
| Take Profit Trader | Trailing drawdown of $1,500–$4,500 by size — EOD in the Test (with the breach checked in real time) and intraday in PRO — locking exactly at the starting balance, without the +$100 extra other firms add. | 2026-07-21 | Source |
| The5ers | A static 10% max loss from initial balance and a 5% daily limit anchored to the higher of the previous close's balance or equity — nothing trails, but touching either terminates the account. | 2026-07-21 | Source |
| Topstep | The Maximum Loss Limit trails end-of-day ($2,000–$4,500 by size), is monitored in real time including unrealized P&L, and locks once it reaches your starting balance; in the XFA every payout re-arms the floor at $0. | 2026-07-21 | Source |
| TradeDay | Trailing drawdown of $2,000 (50K) / $3,000 (100K) / $4,500 (150K), freezing at the starting balance, breached intraday. The intraday-vs-end-of-day method is chosen per account at purchase — Quick Pay is available as either, Fast Pass is EOD-only. | 2026-07-23 | Source |
| Tradeify | All plans use an end-of-day trailing drawdown ($1,000 to $5,250 by plan and size) that updates end-of-day but is enforced in real time. On Sim Funded accounts it locks into a fixed floor $100 above start once you profit past the drawdown amount; evaluation accounts do NOT lock. | 2026-07-23 | Source |
For nearly any style, yes: a static floor doesn't punish good runs. Trailing turns every new high into a new floor, so one very good day followed by an ordinary one can break the account. The exception is that trailing usually comes with cheaper evaluations — which is why we compare true cost per $1,000 of drawdown instead of looking at price alone.
It's a trailing rule that only updates once a day, on the closing balance. It's meaningfully gentler than intraday trailing, because your floating highs during the session don't move the floor. Watch out: several firms update the floor at close but still check for a breach in real time against equity including open trades.
It depends on the rule type and your running high. The drawdown simulator computes it for trailing, EOD or static and tells you how much cushion is left right now.