Every pricing page prints both
On 94 of 95 challenges the maximum drawdown never gets the chance to matter
A prop firm publishes two loss caps: how much you may lose in a day, and how much in total. Only one of them can end an attempt first, and across the 95 programmes here that publish both it is the daily one 94 times out of 95. The overall figure — the larger number, the one on the marketing page — is reached first almost never.
That is not an accident of the numbers chosen. Firms set the overall cap at a median of exactly 2.00× the daily one, and 54 of the 95 sit precisely there. Three pairs account for 51 of those 54: 3% / 6% (20), 5% / 10% (18), 4% / 8% (13).
The ratio nobody publishes
| Overall ÷ daily | Programmes | What a maximum-loss day leaves you |
|---|---|---|
| Equal, or the overall is smaller | 4 | nothing — one such day is the whole allowance |
| Between 1 and 1.5 | 15 | part of a second day |
| Between 1.5 and 2 | 64 | one more, at most |
| Between 2 and 3 | 7 | one more and part of a third |
| Above 3 | 5 | two more or better |
A prop firm publishes both caps and never the number between them, which is the one that says how much rope is behind the first rope.
4 programmes where the two caps are the same number
On these, the overall drawdown is not a second line of defence. It sits on exactly the same point as the daily one from the first trade, so a single maximum-loss day is the entire allowance and the larger figure on the page is not a larger figure.
- · Breakout — 1-Step Turbo: 3% daily inside a 3% drawdown, computing at 95%.
- · FXIFY — Three Phase: 5% daily inside a 5% drawdown, computing at 78%.
- · Funded Trading Plus — Instant: 6% daily inside a 6% drawdown (no evaluation to fail).
- · FXIFY — Instant Funding — Standard: 8% daily inside a 8% drawdown (no evaluation to fail).
And 5 where the second rope is real
| Firm | Programme | Daily | Overall | Ratio |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Funding Pips | 1 Step Flex | 3% | 12% | 4.00 |
| Blueberry Funded | Flex 1-Step | 3% | 12% | 4.00 |
| FTMO | 1-Step | 3% | 10% | 3.33 |
| Funding Traders | 1-Step Pro | 3% | 10% | 3.33 |
| E8 Markets | E8 Pro | 2.5% | 8% | 3.20 |
None of these firms advertises the ratio, and on the pricing page they look like anybody else: a daily number and an overall number in the same two boxes.
Why this holds however much you risk
Almost every figure on this site is stated at 1% risk per trade and changes if you trade differently. This one does not. The number of consecutive full-risk losses a cap allows is the cap divided by the risk, so if the overall cap is larger than the daily one it is larger at every risk. Halving your position size doubles both counts and leaves the smaller one smaller.
Which cap can end your attempt is therefore decided entirely by the ratio, and the ratio is the firm’s choice rather than yours. At the median of 2.00 it means one maximum-loss day in reserve; the overall drawdown becomes reachable only on the second such day, and by then the daily cap has already ended it.
Which is also the explanation for something every comparison on this site keeps running into. The daily loss limit turns up at the centre of one unexplained gap after another — 98 points across one price list at Maven — not because it is more important in principle, but because the industry has set the other cap out of reach.
The one exception, and what it took
The5ers' Hyper Growth is bound by its overall cap rather than its daily one, at 3% against 6%. Not because the ratio is unusual — it is exactly 2.00, the median — but because hitting the daily limit there pauses the account until the next session instead of ending the attempt. A daily cap that does not end anything is the only way the second number gets to decide, and it is worth 6 losing trades instead of 3.
What this does not measure
- · Programmes with no daily limit at all. They are excluded here because there is no ratio to take, and on those the overall drawdown is the whole answer.
- · How the overall cap is measured. A static cap and one that trails your equity behave differently once you are in profit, and the ratio says nothing about which you have.
- · Losses spread across days. The comparison counts consecutive full-risk losses, which is the worst case for the daily cap. A trader losing steadily over weeks meets the overall cap without ever touching the daily one — the ratio decides which comes first, not that only one exists.
- · 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.
- · Whether any of these firms pay. No published rule answers that.
Where these rules were read
Breakout — programme rules — read 2026-08-23
FXIFY — assessment account rules — read 2026-08-23
Funded Trading Plus — hard rules and account breaches — read 2026-08-06
FundingPips Help Centre — account models — read 2026-08-05
Blueberry Funded — help centre — read 2026-08-23
FTMO — programme comparison and pricing — read 2026-08-05
Funding Traders — account types and trading guidelines — read 2026-08-23
E8 Markets Help Center — product overview — read 2026-08-05
The5ers — challenge programmes explained — read 2026-08-05
Questions
- Which matters more, the daily loss limit or the maximum drawdown?
- The daily limit, on 94 of the 95 programmes read here that publish one. The overall drawdown is the larger number and it is reached first almost never, because firms set it at roughly twice the daily cap — a median of exactly 2.00×. The advertised figure is the one that does not bind.
- Does that change if I risk less per trade?
- No, and this is the one claim on this site that holds at any position size. The number of consecutive full-risk losses a cap allows is the cap divided by the risk, so a larger cap stays larger at every risk. Halving your size doubles both counts and leaves the smaller one smaller. Which cap can end your attempt is fixed by the ratio between them, and the ratio is set by the firm.
- Is there a challenge where the overall drawdown decides?
- 1 here, and for one reason: The5ers' Hyper Growth pauses the account when the daily limit is hit rather than failing it. A daily cap that does not end the attempt is the only way the other number gets to matter.
- What ratio should I look for?
- Higher, and it is not on any pricing page. Funding Pips' 1 Step Flex publishes 3% daily against 12% overall — a ratio of 4.00 — so a maximum-loss day leaves 3 more of them behind it. At the median of 2.00 there is exactly one such day in reserve. On 4 programmes the two caps are equal, so there is none.