Around nine out of ten FTMO evaluation attempts fail. That number gets quoted a lot, usually to sell something, so let us be straight about what it actually means: most people walk into an evaluation with an idea they have never tested, position sizes they picked on feel, and no plan for the one metric that actually ends evaluations. This guide is about being in the other group.
What the evaluation actually measures
An FTMO Challenge is not a profit contest. It is a risk audit with a profit requirement attached. The standard two-step evaluation asks you to:
- Reach a profit target (typically 10% in step one, 5% in step two).
- Stay above the maximum daily loss (typically 5% of the initial balance).
- Stay above the maximum overall loss (typically 10%).
- Trade a minimum number of days, with no time pressure on current evaluations.
Read those again and notice the asymmetry. There is one way to pass and three ways to fail, and two of the three failure modes are about drawdown, not profit. The firm is not asking "can you make money?" so much as "can you make money without ever being down badly?" That distinction should drive every decision you make.
The maths most people skip
Say you risk 1% per trade and your strategy wins half the time. A five-trade losing streak costs you 5%: your entire daily loss buffer if it happens in one day, and half your overall buffer regardless. Five consecutive losses at 50% win rate is not bad luck, it is routine. Over 100 trades it is more likely to happen than not.
So the first question is not "how fast can I hit 10%?" but "what losing streak does my strategy produce, and does my position size survive it?" You can only answer that with data. A backtest over several years of real candles will show you the worst losing streak and the maximum drawdown the strategy has historically produced. If the historical max drawdown at your intended size is anywhere near the evaluation limits, you are not ready: either the size comes down or the strategy is not suitable.
Evaluations are lost on drawdown, not won on profit. Size for the losing streak, and the profit target takes care of itself.
A realistic plan, step by step
1. Prove the idea before you pay the fee
An evaluation fee buys you an audition, not practice. Practice is free: backtest the exact rules you intend to trade, on the instrument you intend to trade, over years, not weeks. If you trade gold, test on gold. XAU/USD behaves differently from EURUSD: bigger sessions swings, sharper breakouts, wider spreads at the wrong times of day. A strategy proven on one instrument tells you very little about another. Our guide to backtesting without fooling yourself covers how to do this honestly.
2. Size from the drawdown, not the target
Take your tested strategy's worst historical drawdown and worst losing streak. Now pick a position size where that worst case costs you no more than roughly half the evaluation's overall limit. Half, because the future is allowed to be worse than the past. If that size cannot plausibly reach the profit target in a sensible time, the honest conclusion is that the strategy edge is too small for this evaluation, and no amount of willpower changes that.
3. Respect the daily limit like a hard stop
The daily loss limit is the trap that catches otherwise disciplined traders, because it resets every day and punishes clustering. Two or three normal losses plus spread and slippage can breach it if your size is aggressive. Decide in advance how many losses you will take in a day, stop there, and make it mechanical. If your strategy fires several times a day, this matters more than any other rule in this guide.
4. Forward test before the real thing
A backtest proves the idea worked historically. A forward test, running the same rules on live prices with paper money, proves it still works now and that the execution details (spread, session timing, gaps) behave the way the backtest assumed. It costs nothing but patience, and it is the closest thing to a free evaluation rehearsal you will get. The difference between the two is worth understanding properly: see forward testing vs backtesting.
5. Change nothing during the evaluation
The evaluation is the worst possible moment to improvise. Every deviation, a doubled position after a loss, a skipped signal after two reds, an early exit out of nerves, invalidates the testing you did and reintroduces the exact human error the testing was meant to remove. The traders who pass are usually the ones who behave identically on evaluation day and on a random Tuesday. If discipline under pressure is the weak point, automation is the honest fix: let the proven rules execute exactly as tested, with no 2am second-guessing in the loop.
What passing actually earns you
A funded account is not a finish line, it is the same test with real consequences. The same drawdown rules apply, and now a breach costs you the account rather than a fee. Everything above still applies, permanently. That is also why building one strategy you genuinely trust beats collecting evaluation attempts: the skills that pass step one are the skills that keep the funded account for years.
One more practical note if you run more than one account: prop firms actively scan for accounts placing identical trades at identical times, and honest traders get flagged for it more often than you would think. Before you run the same strategy on two accounts anywhere, read our guide to prop firm copy trading rules.
This guide is education, not financial advice. Trading involves risk and past performance, tested or live, never guarantees future results. Make your own decisions and never risk money you cannot afford to lose.