What a funded account actually costs

The arithmetic, in one line

An attempt is ended by a losing streak with probability p, computed for each programme from its own published caps and a fixed reference trader: 1% risk per trade, a 40% win rate and 2R winners. It survives with probability 1 − p. Treat attempts as independent and the number needed to get one through is geometric, with mean 1 / (1 − p). Multiply by the fee. Subtract the fee once where the firm returns it, because it is returned on the attempt that works and on no other.

City Traders Imperium's 1-Step Challenge computes at 54%, so 2.2 attempts at $159 — $345, with nothing coming back. FundedNext's Stellar 2-Step computes at 73%: 3.7 attempts at $149.99 is $556, less the one fee that returns on passing — $406.

That is the whole model, and its limits are worth stating before the table rather than after it. p counts one way of failing: a run of losers long enough to breach the cap that ends the attempt first. Missing the target, running out of time, breaching a consistency rule or a news rule are all real and none is in the figure, so every cost below is a floor. The independence assumption pushes the same way: attempts made by the same person in the same market are not independent draws, and nothing here credits a trader with improving between them.

Where a funded account costs less than one fee

Lux Trading Firm's 1-Step Evaluation — $100K and Lux Trading Firm's 1-Step Evaluation — $400K are the only 2 programmes this page can cost whose expected cost per funded account comes out below a single sticker price: £147 against £199 at $100K and £435 against £449 at $400K. The condition for it is exact and it is not close: the fee must come back on passing, and an attempt must be more likely than not to survive the streak test. Below that halfway mark the one refunded fee is worth more than all the extra attempts cost; at or above it, never.

The list is exhaustive over the programmes with a published answer, and that is the whole of the claim. The5ers' Hyper Growth at 43% per attempt, Fidelcrest's Pro Trader — Aggressive at 25% per attempt and Fidelcrest's Micro Trader — Aggressive at 19% per attempt clear the odds half of the condition and would join the list if the fee came back. Whether it does is the field those firms do not publish, so this page neither counts them in nor rules them out.

That is a statement about the fee, and only the fee. It is not a claim that these are easy, or that the account is worth having — the profit split, the payout terms and whether the firm pays at all are outside every figure on this page.

Questions

How much does it cost to get funded by a prop firm?

More than the fee, and by a multiple that depends on the programme rather than on the price. Taking each dollar-priced evaluation at the $25K size, multiplying its fee by the attempts this model expects — 1/(1-p), where p is the computed chance a losing streak ends one attempt — and subtracting the fee once where it comes back on passing, the 11 programmes we can cost run from $345 to $3,052 per funded account. Their stickers span a factor of 2.8; their expected costs span a factor of 8.9. A further 7 priced programmes, across every currency here, are not costed at all, because their computed odds put them past 20 expected attempts, where the arithmetic stops meaning anything.

What is the real cost of a prop firm challenge?

Three numbers, and they disagree. The sticker is one attempt. 3 attempts with the refund netted — $209.98 to $598 across this field — is a flat assumption applied equally to a programme this model puts at 54% per attempt and one it puts at 95%. The expected cost prices each at its own odds, and the list reorders: City Traders Imperium's 1-Step Challenge, Funding Pips' 2 Step Standard and City Traders Imperium's 2-Step Challenge come out at least 3 places cheaper than the 3-attempt figure implies, FundedNext's Stellar Lite, Alpha Capital Group's Alpha Three and Funding Pips' 2 Step Flex at least 3 places dearer. None of the three counts the discounted resets, the add-ons sold at checkout, or the profit the funded account then has to make.

Why is the cheapest challenge not the cheapest per funded account?

Because the fee is charged per attempt and the odds decide how many attempts there are. FundedNext's Stellar Lite has the cheapest sticker among the rows this page can cost at $104.99 and computes at 89% per attempt, so it is fifth-cheapest per funded account at $830. City Traders Imperium's 1-Step Challenge costs $159 on the sticker — fourth-cheapest of the 11 — and $345 per funded account, because 54% of attempts ending in a streak means about 2.2 of them rather than 8.9. A refunded fee widens the same gap again: it comes back once, on the attempt that works, so it cancels one fee out of however many were bought.

How many attempts does it take to pass a prop firm challenge?

Nobody publishes an answer, and this page does not have one either — what it has is the number of attempts implied by one failure mode. Over the trades a target needs, at 1% risk per trade, a 40% win rate and 2R winners, the chance of a losing run long enough to breach the tightest cap runs from 19% to >99% across the priced field. Inverted, that is 1.2 expected attempts at the good end and more than 20 at the bad. It is a floor, not a forecast: a streak is only one way to fail an evaluation, and the model assumes attempts are independent and that you learn nothing between them.