One-step challenges, ranked by what actually ends them
5 single-phase programmes. 4 of them publish the same 10% profit target against the same 6% drawdown, which gives them the same difficulty ratio of 1.67 — the number that is supposed to say how hard a challenge is.
At 1% risk per trade they fail between 43% and 97% of the time. Everything that separates them is in two fields nobody puts on a pricing page.
Every one we have read
| Programme | Ratio | Daily | Breaching it | Drawdown | Losses | Fails |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The5ers Hyper Growth | 1.67 | 3% | Pauses the account | Static | 6 | 43% |
| Alpha Capital Group Alpha One | 1.67 | 4% | Not published | Trailing | 4 | 84% our reading |
| FTMO 1-Step | 1.00 | 3% | Ends the attempt | Trailing | 3 | 97% |
| FundedNext Stellar 1-Step | 1.67 | 3% | Ends the attempt | Static | 3 | 97% |
| Hola Prime 1-Step Prime | 1.67 | 3% | Not published | Static | 3 | 97% our reading |
At 1% risk per trade, a 40% win rate and 2R winners. “Losses” is how many in a row end the attempt; “fails” is the chance of a run that long over the trades the target needs. Every rule links to the firm’s page, where the source and the date it was read are recorded.
The ranking is almost the reverse
Sort that table by difficulty ratio and you get a different order — nearly the opposite one. FTMO’s 1-Step has the best ratio of any programme on this site, 1.00, meaning the profit it asks for exactly equals the drawdown it allows. It is also tied for the worst odds here.
The ratio compares two published percentages. It cannot see the daily limit, and on every programme in this table the daily limit is the cap that actually ends the attempt — the overall drawdown never comes into play, because you are out before you approach it. So the ratio describes a race you are not running.
Two fields decide it instead. What breaching the daily limit does: ending the attempt against pausing the account is the difference between three losing trades and six, and run probabilities fall away exponentially in length. And the drawdown type: a static drawdown lets banked profit buy room beneath you, a trailing one raises the floor with you so it buys nothing.
For 2 of these, the deciding rule is not published
Alpha Capital Group's Alpha One and Hola Prime's 1-Step Prime publish a daily loss limit without saying what happens when you touch it. On the evidence of the rest of this table, that one sentence moves the outcome further than any other rule they do publish.
Their figures above take the conservative reading — that the attempt ends — and are marked as ours rather than theirs. If you are considering either, that is the question to put to their support before paying, and the answer is worth more than any discount.
What this does not measure
- · 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.
- · It applies each cap at its starting level. That is accurate for a trailing drawdown and pessimistic for a static one, so the static programmes here are shown at their worst case and the trailing ones as they are.
- · Fees are not compared. They are published against account sizes on some of these pages and not others, and comparing one firm’s price against a blank is worse than not comparing.
- · Nothing here is about whether a firm pays out. It compares the chance of being stopped by a losing streak, because that is what published rules can be made to answer.
Two of these in more detail
FundedNext’s Stellar 1-Step against The5ers’ Hyper Growth — every rule that governs losing is identical, and one pauses where the other ends. That pair is the cleanest demonstration that the published numbers do not predict the outcome.
FTMO’s 1-Step against its own 2-Step — same firm, same pricing page, and the one asking half the profit is the one that fails far more often.
All thirteen programmes we have read are here with their sources and read dates, the arithmetic behind these figures is here, and the calculator takes your own risk and win rate.
Questions
- Which one-step prop firm challenge is easiest to pass?
- Of the programmes whose rules we have read, The5ers's Hyper Growth, at roughly 43% chance of a losing streak ending the attempt at 1% risk per trade — against 97% for Hola Prime's 1-Step Prime. The difference is not the profit target or the drawdown, which are the same on four of these five. It is the daily loss limit and what breaching it does.
- Are one-step challenges easier than two-step?
- Usually not, and they are priced as though they were. One phase means a lower total profit target, which is real. But firms pair it with a tighter daily limit, and on these programmes the daily limit is the cap that actually ends the attempt — the overall drawdown never comes into play. FTMO’s own 1-Step and 2-Step make the point within a single firm: the 1-Step asks half the profit and fails far more often.
- What is the difficulty ratio and why is it not enough?
- Total profit target divided by total drawdown allowance. It is computable from figures every firm publishes and advertised by none, and it is the right first number to look at. It is not sufficient: 4 of the programmes here share a ratio of 1.67 and land between 43% and 97%, because the ratio only sees the percentages and not what happens when you touch them.
- Why do some rows say the daily-limit effect is not published?
- Because it is not. Alpha Capital Group's Alpha One and Hola Prime's 1-Step Prime publish a daily loss limit without saying whether breaching it ends the attempt or pauses the account until the next session. That single sentence is worth more than any discount on these programmes, so the figures for them take the conservative reading — the attempt ends — and are marked as our assumption rather than their rule.