One-step challenges, ranked by what actually ends them

The ranking is almost the reverse

Sort that table by difficulty ratio and you get a different order — nearly the opposite one. Three programmes here share the best ratio on this site, 0.33, meaning the profit each asks for exactly equals the drawdown it allows: For Traders' Pay After Pass (Forex). They sit at 3 of 45 — not one of them in the better half.

The ratio compares two published percentages. It cannot see the daily limit, and on 34 of these 45 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 for most of this table the ratio describes a race nobody is running.

The exceptions are the programmes where breaching the daily limit only pauses the account. There the overall drawdown is the only way to fail, which is why they sit at the top of the table: not because their published numbers are softer, but because one of their rules is not fatal.

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.

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.

Every programme we have read is here with its 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, Maven Trading's Buy Now, Pay Later, at roughly 2% chance of a losing streak ending the attempt at 1% risk per trade — against >99% for E8 Markets' E8 Pro. The difference is rarely the profit target or the drawdown — 19 of these 45 publish identical ones. 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: 19 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 12%, Alpha Capital Group's Alpha One 10%, Alpha Capital Group's Alpha One 6%, Audacity Capital's Ability 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.