FTMO 1-Step vs 2-Step
One phase instead of two. Half the total profit to make. The same 10% drawdown to make it in. By every number on the pricing page, the 1-Step is the easier of the two — and it has the better difficulty ratio to prove it, 1.00 against 1.50.
At 1% risk per trade it fails roughly 97% of the time. The 2-Step fails roughly 78%. The programme that asks less of you is the one you are far less likely to finish.
What FTMO publishes for each
| Rule | 1-Step | 2-Step |
|---|---|---|
| Phases | 1 | 2 |
| Total profit target | 10% | 15% |
| Maximum overall loss | 10% | 10% |
| Difficulty ratio | 1.00 | 1.50 |
| Maximum daily loss | 3% | 5% |
| Drawdown type | Trailing, end of day | Static |
| Minimum trading days | None | 4 |
| Profit split | 90% | 90% |
| Fee refunded on passing | Yes | Yes |
Read every row and the 1-Step wins most of them. The two that decide the outcome are the daily limit and the drawdown type.
FTMO — programme comparison and pricing — read 2026-08-02
Two rules that compound
The daily limit is the cap you actually hit. On both programmes breaching it ends the attempt, so the 10% overall drawdown never comes into play — you are out well before you approach it. At 1% risk, 3% is 3 consecutive losses on the 1-Step and 5% is 5 on the 2-Step. The probability of a run that long is not a little higher, it is much higher, because run probabilities fall away exponentially in length.
And the 1-Step's drawdown trails. A static drawdown sits at your starting balance, so profit you bank buys room beneath you. A trailing one follows your equity high — FTMO's 1-Step trails at the end of each day — so the floor rises with you and banked profit buys nothing.
That second point makes the comparison above conservative rather than generous. These figures apply each cap at its starting level, which is exactly right for a trailing drawdown and pessimistic for a static one. So the 2-Step's 78% is the worst case and the 1-Step's 97% is the real one. The true gap is wider than the numbers show.
At lower risk per trade
Cutting risk helps both, and it helps the 2-Step sooner. There is no risk level at which the 1-Step becomes the safer of the two.
| Risk per trade | Losses you survive | 1-Step | 2-Step |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1% | 3 vs 5 | 97% | 78% |
| 0.5% | 6 vs 10 | 69% | 19% |
| 0.25% | 12 vs 20 | 9% | <1% |
A 40% win rate taking 2R winners throughout. Change any of it on the challenge calculator.
What this comparison does not tell you
- · Assumes each trade is independent. Correlated positions — three majors against the dollar — lose together and count as one.
- · Assumes every trade risks the same amount. Raising size after a loss shortens the streak you can survive.
- · Uses your stated win rate. If that came from a demo account or a good month, the figure below is optimistic.
- · Cost is not compared. FTMO publish fees against five account sizes for the 2-Step on the page we read, and none for the 1-Step. Both refund the fee on passing, which matters more than the sticker: pass on the third attempt and you are out two fees rather than three.
- · It compares one thing — the chance of a losing streak ending the attempt before the target is reached — because that is what can be computed from published rules. Payout reliability, platform and instrument coverage are not in it.
The general lesson
Fewer phases and a lower target read as an easier challenge, and firms price them that way. Neither is the binding constraint. What decides whether you finish is how many consecutive losses the tightest cap allows at the size you actually trade — and on most one-step programmes that cap is tighter, because the shorter route to the target is paid for somewhere.
The same thing happens across firms, not just within one. FundedNext and The5ers publish an identical set of rules and end up more than twice apart, on a single sentence about what breaching the daily limit does. Every single-phase challenge is ranked side by side, and Every programme we have read is here, and the arithmetic is here.
Questions
- Is FTMO’s 1-Step easier than the 2-Step?
- No, and every published number says it should be. The 1-Step asks for 10% profit against a 10% drawdown where the 2-Step asks for 15% against the same 10%, giving difficulty ratios of 1.00 and 1.50. But its daily limit is 3% rather than 5%, so at 1% risk it ends after 3 consecutive losses instead of 5 — roughly a 97% chance of a fatal streak against 78%.
- Why does the daily limit matter more than the profit target?
- Because it is the cap you actually hit. On both of these the daily limit ends the attempt, so the overall drawdown never comes into play at all — you are out long before you approach it. The profit target then only decides how many trades you need, which is how long you are exposed to that daily limit. Lowering the target shortens the exposure; tightening the daily limit raises the chance of ending it on any given day, and on the 1-Step the second effect is much the larger.
- What is a trailing drawdown and why does it matter here?
- A static drawdown is measured from your starting balance and stays there, so profit you bank buys you room. A trailing drawdown follows your equity high — FTMO’s 1-Step trails at the end of each day — so banked profit raises the floor with it and buys nothing. The figures on this page apply each cap at its starting level, which is accurate for a trailing drawdown and pessimistic for a static one. That means the gap between these two programmes is wider in practice than the numbers here show.
- Which one should I take?
- This page compares one thing: the chance of being stopped by a losing streak before reaching the target, computed from published rules. On that measure the 2-Step is substantially safer at any risk per trade, and the gap is understated because its drawdown is static. It says nothing about payout reliability, platform, or whether either suits how you trade.