Passing swaps the rule set: what changes the day you get funded

A firm publishes one set of terms for the account you buy and a second for the account you earn. The second is written for a product the firm now stands behind with its own money, so it tightens where the firm carries the risk and can loosen where you have already demonstrated something. Reading one and assuming the other is how a trader arrives at a funded account holding the wrong operating envelope.

Six facts are stored per phase in NANO's data because they are the ones firms most often split. Each of the six is either split by phase at one or more covered firms, or exists only once you are funded, which is why a single firm-level badge cannot answer any of them.

• Drawdown model, which trailing model governs the loss line in this phase.
• Floor lock, whether the loss line ever stops ratcheting upward, and at what level it rests.
• Consistency percentage, the number itself, and which phase it gates.
• Daily loss limit, whether one exists in this phase, and whether breaching it pauses the day or ends the account.
• Payout conditions, a buffer to clear, a minimum withdrawal amount, a fixed cycle length, a minimum count of qualifying winning days.
• A fee due between the phases, charged once per funded account rather than once per trader.

News restrictions are the first. At more than one covered firm the evaluation carries no news rule at all while some of its funded accounts require you to be flat either side of scheduled high-impact releases, with a window measured in minutes. A trader whose edge is the release itself can pass an evaluation on a strategy the funded account forbids.

Automation is the second, and it moves in the same direction. Bots permitted on an evaluation platform can be barred outright on the real-capital account further up the ladder, so an automated path can clear two phases and stop at the third.

Account caps are the third, and they are two counters at most covered firms: evaluations counted one way and funded seats another, with the funded counter the tighter of the two at every covered firm that publishes both. That distinction decides whether a stack of passed evaluations can all be opened, and it is the cap that binds a group of accounts copying one strategy.

End-of-day trailing moves the loss line only when a higher balance settles at the daily close, so an intraday spike does not tighten it. Intraday trailing follows your live peak including open profit, so the line moves inside the session and can pass through your equity before you close the trade. Identical trades produce different envelopes under the two models, which is what the worked example below prices at $100.

Where the floor stops trailing is a separate cell from the model, and it is also phase-split. At one covered firm the split is published in both directions on the same page: its evaluations do not lock at all, while its funded accounts stop ratcheting once the floor reaches $100 above the starting balance. Extend the example account and the arithmetic is plain. A plan whose floor locks at the start line moves the line to $50,000 as soon as a close of $52,000 has settled, and it rests there for the account's life. A plan that never locks keeps taking the room back.

When a breach is detected is a third fact again, and it is not answered by the word end-of-day. The covered firms that state their enforcement timing check the loss line live against equity that includes your open position, so an end-of-day model does not make an intraday dip safe.

The trap here is the firm-level answer. At several firms the funded drawdown model is a per-plan fact: one firm sells four plans where three run end-of-day through both phases and the fourth flips to intraday once sim-funded. Read the model off the plan you bought, in the phase you are in.

The consistency percentage does not sit in one phase across the industry, and it does not even sit in one phase across a single firm's product line. Some plans publish a percentage on the evaluation that lifts entirely on the pass; some publish none on the evaluation and apply one once funded; at least one firm sells both arrangements side by side under its own name. Nothing about the evaluation figure predicts the funded figure.

The consequence changes with the phase too. On an evaluation, the firms that publish their consequence describe a raised profit target: the pass waits until the ratio comes back inside the limit. Once funded, the same ratio holds a payout request instead. Where a firm does not publish the consequence, it has not promised the softer of the two, so treat that cell as unresolved.

The profit target itself has no funded equivalent. What replaces it is payout eligibility, and that is a cluster of conditions rather than one number: a profit buffer to clear before a withdrawal (at one covered firm before every withdrawal rather than only the first) a minimum withdrawal amount, a fixed cycle length between requests, a minimum count of winning days each above a stated dollar figure, and at some firms a cap on how many payouts the account makes before it concludes.

A daily loss limit can also appear only once funded. One covered firm's evaluation family publishes none while its funded accounts carry a limit that scales upward as profit accumulates, which means the number you looked up before buying is not the number governing your funded sessions.

Passing is an event; opening the funded account is a separate action with its own invoice at some firms. The fee is charged once per funded account, so it recurs on every future pass, and it lands after the evaluation money is already spent. One covered firm publishes a seven-day window from the pass to complete it.

A single firm-level figure is wrong here more often than not. Several covered firms publish $0. One sells a costlier variant of each plan precisely so that activation is $0. One publishes the fee per drawdown family and again per account size, which is four or more numbers under one firm name, read it off the plan and size you are buying.

Then check whether your firm has three phases rather than two. At some firms the account you earn is still simulated and a later, discretionary promotion moves you to real capital under a third rule set: a different loss model, a different profit split, and automation permissions that can reverse. The session that closed up $400 in the example was measured against two rule sets. On those firms there is a third, and none of the three is inferable from the others.