Practice before you pay
Free prop firm challenge simulator
Pick a firm and BacktestingMax loads its real evaluation rules. Replay real market history, trade it your way, and watch the profit target, the daily loss and the trailing drawdown move as you go. You get a clear pass or fail, and then you go again on new dates.
Start a practice challenge. Free on every plan. No credit card.
How the prop firm simulator works, from first trade to verdict
- Pick the rules. Choose a firm and an account size and its rules load themselves, or type your own. Every rule is a percentage of the account, with the dollar amount shown beside it.
- Replay the market. Pick an instrument and a stretch of history. The chart replays bar by bar at your speed, and you trade it with market and limit orders, stops and targets.
- Watch the rules move. The profit target and the max loss sit in the chart header as live meters. The daily loss, the trading days and your best day are one hover away.
- Pass or fail, then go again. Reach the target with every rule intact and it is passed. Break a rule and it ends on the spot, with the rule and the moment it happened. Then retry on new dates.
Trailing drawdown, daily loss and profit target, tracked while you trade
Most failed challenges are not failed on the profit target. They end on a loss rule the trader understood on paper and had never actually traded under. These are the ones the simulator enforces.
Three kinds of max drawdown
A static drawdown never moves. An end-of-day trailing drawdown moves up when a trading day closes. An intraday trailing drawdown follows your highest live equity, open profit included. Where the firm says so, a trailing drawdown stops once it reaches your starting balance. Your equity is checked against that floor at every step.
Daily loss on the firm's clock
Futures firms roll the trading day at 5:00 PM New York time. FTMO rolls it at midnight Central European time. A trade held overnight lands in a different day depending on the firm, so the simulator uses the firm's clock, not your browser's.
Minimum days and profitable days
FTMO asks for 4 trading days. The5ers asks for 3 profitable days. Reach the target early and the simulator shows it as met and tells you how many days are still owed, instead of passing you early.
Consistency rule warnings
Topstep, Take Profit Trader and the FTMO 1-Step have a consistency rule: a cap on how much of your profit one day may carry, and each firm divides by something different. The simulator measures your best day the way the firm does and warns you when a single day is carrying the run.
Practice Topstep, Apex, FTMO and more prop firms
17 challenges from 10 firms are built in. Every number was checked against the firm's own published rules, and every page shows the date it was checked.
Futures firms
- Topstep Combine: Futures evaluation
- Apex Trader Funding: Futures evaluation
- Take Profit Trader: Futures evaluation
- Earn2Trade: Futures evaluation
Forex and CFD firms
- FTMO Challenge: Forex and CFD challenge
- FundedNext Stellar: Forex and CFD challenge
- The5ers High Stakes: Forex and CFD challenge
- Funding Pips 2 Step: Forex and CFD challenge
Crypto
- Breakout (crypto): Crypto evaluation
Stocks
- Trade The Pool (stocks): Stock evaluation
Not built in, set up in about a minute
BacktestingMax has no built-in rule set for these firms. Each page lays out the rules as the firm publishes them and shows exactly what to type into your own rules. Any other firm works the same way: choose your own rules and enter its numbers.
- Tradeify: Futures evaluation, your own rules
- Lucid Trading: Futures evaluation, your own rules
- MyFundedFutures: Futures evaluation, your own rules
- Alpha Futures: Futures evaluation, your own rules
Why replay beats a prop firm demo account
Months of market in one evening
A firm's free trial or a demo account runs in live market time: one trading day takes one day. Replay does not. A four-day minimum is an evening, and the week that beat you can be traded again on different dates until the rules feel automatic.
The firms' own practice options are worth using too. Topstep's practice account comes with an active Trading Combine subscription. FTMO's free trial runs on live prices. Neither lets you make ten attempts this week, and that is the gap a replay simulator fills.
Know your odds before you pay the fee
Once you have 20 or more trading days behind you, BacktestingMax replays your own daily results in many different orders under a firm's rules. It shows how often that trading would have passed, and which rule ends the runs that fail.
For two-step firms both phases are chained, because a funded account means clearing Phase 1 and then Phase 2 on a fresh account. Trading that clears each phase half the time gets through both about a quarter of the time.
These are odds from a backtest, not a prediction. A replay fills every order, charges no commission unless you set one, and costs you nothing emotionally, so real attempts usually go worse.
Retries that stay honest
When a rule breaks, trading locks, as it would at the firm, and you see the rule that ended it, the time, and your equity at that moment.
A retry keeps the firm, the account size and the instrument, and asks you for different dates. Re-running a stretch of market you have already watched is not practice, so the simulator warns you when a new attempt overlaps an old one.
Every attempt is saved with the rules it was judged under and its attempt number, so your record stays honest even if a firm changes its rules later.
Free prop firm practice, and what Premium adds
| What you get | Free | Premium |
|---|---|---|
| Prop firm challenge mode: all 17 rule sets, your own rules, verdicts and retries | Included | Included |
| Forex and metals, gold included | Included | Included |
| History you can start a session in | The last 12 months, up to 36 with earn-backs | The full history |
| Futures such as ES, NQ, YM, RTY, CL and GC, plus indices, crypto, stocks and ETFs | Not included | Included |
Practicing a futures evaluation on futures contracts needs Premium. The rules themselves are free, so running a Topstep or Apex rule set on gold or forex first is a fair way to see how the simulator behaves.
What the prop firm simulator does not do
A practice tool that overstates itself is worse than none. These are the gaps.
- News trading restrictions, weekend holding rules and flat-by-close times are not enforced. Firms differ too much here, and a wrong rule is worse than no rule.
- Contract and lot size limits are not enforced.
- Daily limits that only pause you for the day are not modelled. Where a rule set has a daily loss limit, the simulator treats it as a hard stop.
- Best-day rules warn you. They never fail a challenge or delay a pass.
- Equity is checked at every replay step, not tick by tick, so a spike inside one bar that fully recovers can go unseen.
- There is no funded stage, payout or profit split. This is the evaluation only.
- Passing here does not mean you will pass the real thing. It means your trading has survived the rules on market history, which is the cheapest place to find out that it does not.
Prop firm simulator questions
What is a prop firm challenge simulator?
A prop firm challenge simulator lets you trade a prop firm's evaluation rules without paying for an evaluation. In BacktestingMax you pick a firm, replay real historical market data at your own speed, and trade while the profit target, the daily loss and the max drawdown are tracked the way that firm defines them. The run ends in a pass or a fail, and you can retry it on different dates as often as you like.
Is there a free way to practice a prop firm challenge?
Yes. Prop firm challenge mode is free on every BacktestingMax plan: all 17 built-in rule sets, your own rules, the pass or fail verdict and unlimited retries. Forex and metals, gold included, are free instruments. Futures, indices, crypto and stocks are part of Premium.
Is this the same as a prop firm's free trial, demo or practice account?
No. A firm's free trial, demo or practice account runs on live prices in real time, so one trading day takes one day. BacktestingMax replays historical data at your speed, so you can run a full challenge in an evening and retry it on different dates as often as you like.
Can I practice futures evaluations such as Topstep or Apex?
Yes. Topstep, both Apex accounts, Take Profit Trader and Earn2Trade are built in, with end-of-day and intraday trailing drawdown and a trading day that rolls at 5:00 PM New York time. Tradeify, Lucid Trading, MyFundedFutures and Alpha Futures are not built in, and their pages show the rules to type in yourself. Futures data is part of Premium. The rule sets themselves are free and work on any instrument.
Do you simulate trailing drawdown?
Yes, both kinds. An end-of-day trailing drawdown moves only when the trading day closes. An intraday trailing drawdown follows your live equity, open profit included. Where the firm says so they stop once they reach your starting balance, and both are checked against live equity as you trade.
Does the simulator check the consistency rule?
Yes. Where a firm caps how much of your profit a single day may carry, the simulator measures your best day the way that firm does and warns you when you are over the cap. It is shown as a warning, not as a failed run.
Which prop firms are built in?
FTMO, FundedNext, The5ers and Funding Pips for forex and CFDs. Topstep, Apex Trader Funding, Take Profit Trader and Earn2Trade for futures. Breakout for crypto and Trade The Pool for stocks. That is 17 challenges across 10 firms. For any other firm you type its rules in yourself, and for Tradeify, Lucid Trading, MyFundedFutures and Alpha Futures we have laid the published rules out to make that quick.
Are the rules up to date?
Every rule set carries the date it was last checked against the firm's own published rules, and says so where a firm does not publish a figure itself. Firms change their rules, sometimes with little notice, so confirm the numbers with the firm before you buy.
Does passing here mean I will pass the real challenge?
No. A replay fills every order and costs you nothing emotionally, so real attempts usually go worse. What practice does is remove the avoidable failures: the ones caused by not knowing how a trailing floor or a daily limit behaves until it has already ended the account.
BacktestingMax is an independent trading simulator. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by any prop firm named on this page. Firm names are used only to describe which published rules a practice session follows, and they belong to their owners.
Hypothetical or simulated performance results have certain limitations. Unlike an actual performance record, simulated results do not represent actual trading. Also, since the trades have not been executed, the results may have under- or over-compensated for the impact, if any, of certain market factors, such as lack of liquidity. Simulated trading programs in general are also subject to the fact that they are designed with the benefit of hindsight. No representation is being made that any account will or is likely to achieve profit or losses similar to those shown.