Prop firm consistency rule calculator

Check whether your best trading day breaks the consistency rule before you request a payout, and exactly what closes the gap if it does.

Max allowed for one day
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Your best day
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Share of basis
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Status
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Three ways firms measure "too big a day", and why it matters

Every consistency rule asks the same question — was one day too large a share of the whole? — but firms disagree on what "the whole" means. Get the basis wrong and the percentage you compute is meaningless.

Fixed profit target

The best day is measured against the account’s profit target, not against what you have actually earned. Topstep works this way during the Trading Combine — breaking it raises the target instead of failing the account outright.

Total profit since last payout

The best day is measured against real profit made, checked at payout request time. Apex works this way: no single day may be 50% or more of your total net profit since your last payout.

Profit from winning days only

The best day is measured against the sum of your profitable days, ignoring losing days entirely. FTMO’s Best Day Rule works this way, and only on the 1-Step Challenge.

How to use this calculator

01

Pick your firm

The dropdown loads that firm’s real consistency rule, including what your best day actually gets measured against. Choose Custom rules if your firm is not listed yet.

02

Check the basis field

For Topstep this prefills from your account’s profit target and rarely needs editing. For Apex and FTMO, enter your own total profit — the field label tells you exactly which figure the firm wants.

03

Enter your best day’s profit

The single largest profit day over the period the rule covers. Use your trading platform’s daily P&L, not an intraday high that gave some back before the close.

04

Press Calculate

The result dims when your inputs no longer match what is on screen, so you always know whether you are looking at a stale number.

Understanding your results

Max allowed for one day
The dollar ceiling your best day cannot cross. Above it, the firm treats the day as too large a share of the basis it is checking against.
Share of basis
Your best day as a percent of the basis. At 50% you are exactly at a typical threshold; over it and you are out of compliance.
Status
Compliant, or over the limit. This does not mean you failed an evaluation — at most firms a broken consistency rule blocks or delays a payout, or raises what you still need to earn, rather than closing the account.
Gap to compliant
How much the basis would need to grow for today’s best day to fall back under the threshold. At Apex or FTMO that means more total profit from other days; at Topstep it is roughly what the firm raises your target to instead.

A worked example

Say you are trading a $50,000 Topstep Combine, with a $3,000 profit target. Your best single day made $1,800. The 50% consistency rule caps a single day at $1,500 — half of the $3,000 target — so that day is over the limit even though the account is otherwise healthy.

The calculator's "gap to compliant" here reads $600: the target would need to reach $3,600 before an $1,800 day sits at exactly 50%. In practice that is close to what Topstep does — it raises your target rather than failing the account, and the extra trading days you take to close that gap are what bring the ratio back into line.

Run the same $1,800 day through Apex or FTMO and the number means something different. There, the basis is real profit you have already made, not a fixed target — so closing the gap means booking more profitable days elsewhere, not waiting for the firm to move a number.

How each firm applies its consistency rule

Firm Max day share Measured against Applies to
Topstep 50% Profit target Trading Combine
Apex Trader Funding 50% Total net profit since last payout Funded (PA) payouts
FTMO 50% Total profit from winning days 1-Step Challenge only

Rules last checked July 2026. Always confirm against the firm's official documentation before trading — firms change consistency thresholds without much notice, as Apex did in March 2026.

Where this calculator stops

It checks a single best day against a single basis figure you supply. It does not read your trade history, so if you are not sure which day was actually your largest, or whether a firm counts a "day" in your local time zone or the platform's, the number is only as good as what you enter.

It does not model every payout path a firm offers — Topstep's Express Funded Account Consistency Path, for example, uses a different percentage and basis than the Combine rule this calculator defaults to. Where a firm publishes more than one version of the rule, check which stage you are actually in before relying on the result.

It also assumes the firm's published threshold is current. Apex moved its cap from 30% to 50% in March 2026 with limited notice, so treat every percentage here as something to confirm against the firm's own help center before a payout request depends on it.

Frequently asked questions

What is a prop firm consistency rule?

A rule that stops a single trading day from making up too large a share of your profit. It exists so a payout, or a passed evaluation, reflects steady trading rather than one oversized or lucky day. The exact percentage and what it is measured against — a profit target, total profit, or profit from winning days only — varies by firm.

What is Topstep’s consistency rule?

During the Trading Combine, your best single day cannot exceed 50% of your profit target. Breaking it does not fail the account — it raises the profit target you still need to reach. On the Express Funded Account, a separate Consistency Path swaps the standard 5-winning-day payout requirement for a 40% cap on total profit instead.

What is Apex Trader Funding’s 50% consistency rule?

No single trading day may account for 50% or more of your total net profit since your last payout, checked when you request one. Apex raised this from a legacy 30% cap in March 2026. Fixing it means trading more days profitably, not undoing your best day.

Does FTMO have a consistency rule?

Not in the traditional sense — FTMO relies on its daily and total loss limits instead. The one exception is the 1-Step Challenge’s Best Day Rule: your best day cannot exceed 50% of your total profit from winning days. The 2-Step Challenge, Verification, and the funded stage carry no such rule.

What happens if I break the consistency rule?

It depends on the firm and the stage. Some raise the profit target you still need to hit (Topstep, during evaluation). Most hold the payout until you trade more and bring the ratio back under the threshold, rather than failing the account. Always check your specific firm’s current policy before assuming either outcome.

Djosa

Founder, QuantPropTrader

I've been trading CFDs for about 18 months, and most of that was losing. What turned it around wasn't a better setup — it was measuring one simple strategy until the numbers stopped being an opinion: 20,000+ trades back-tested by script, ~2,000 by hand, and 500-1,000 forward-tested live. That's what makes a calculator like this useful instead of decorative, because it only works if the win rate and R:R you type in are numbers you've actually measured. I built these tools because the odds of passing a challenge are the one number nobody hands you before you pay for it.