How many contracts can you trade on a funded futures account, and how does scaling work?

How many contracts you can trade is set by your account type and its size, and every limit is published as two alternatives: a number of mini contracts, or a larger number of micro contracts. You pick one of the two, never both. Some account families give you that full size on your first day, and others open smaller and add contracts as the account's profit passes set thresholds.

Minis and micros are alternatives, not a total

Every contract limit at Phoenix Trader Funding is written twice, once as a number of minis and once as a number of micros. A mini is the standard contract size most futures traders deal in, and a micro is the smaller version of the same instrument, worth a fraction of a mini per tick.

The two figures are alternatives, not a sum. An account allowed one mini or fifteen micros may trade one mini, or it may trade fifteen micros. It may not trade one mini plus fifteen micros. This is the most common misreading of the rule, and it is the one that quietly puts an account over its ceiling while the trader believes they are inside it.

The micro allowance is also not a fixed multiple of the mini allowance, which is why the figure has to be read off your own account rather than assumed. A Spark Seed evaluation allows one mini or ten micros. A Classic Starter reaches one mini or fifteen micros. Both stop at one mini, and the micro figures are different.

Two models: full size on day one, or a scaling plan

There are two different models here, and which one you are on decides whether your size changes as the account makes money.

Spark and Daily accounts have no scaling plan. They trade their full size from the first day, with no half size phase to work through first. A Spark Seed allows one mini or ten micros and a Spark Starter allows two minis or twenty micros, from the opening trade onward.

Daily follows the same model, with one exception worth knowing before you place an order. Daily Seed is a micros only account: it allows six micros and carries no mini allowance at all. Daily Starter allows one mini or fifteen micros, and Daily Growth allows three minis or thirty micros.

Merit sits outside both models. It allows two minis or twenty micros, and because a Merit evaluation carries no profit goal, there is nothing for a scaling schedule to measure against.

Classic is the family that scales, and it is the one where the number in front of you on day one is not the number you finish with.

How a Classic account adds contracts

A scaling plan is a schedule that raises the number of contracts an account may trade as its profit passes set thresholds. On a Classic account that plan runs through the evaluation and continues into the funded stage, so it is not something that only starts once you are paid.

A Classic Starter opens at one mini or ten micros and moves to one mini or fifteen micros once profit clears its first threshold. A Classic Growth opens at one mini or ten micros and steps up twice, first to two minis or twenty micros and then to three minis or thirty micros. A Classic Scale opens at two minis or twenty micros and steps up three times, finishing at six minis or sixty micros.

The profit thresholds that trigger each step are not the same across the three tiers, so they have to be read against the exact account you hold rather than carried across from another one. They are published per tier on the Phoenix evaluations page alongside the rest of that account's rule card.

Going above the published plan

Trading above the published plan is possible, but it is neither automatic nor bought. At Phoenix Trader Funding additional size is available on request, and the request is answered after the team has reviewed how the account has actually been traded.

That is the entire route to a larger ceiling. There is no setting that lifts it on demand, and going over the limit without asking is a rule breach rather than an upgrade.

What a contract limit does not do

A contract limit caps the size of the position. It does not cap the loss, and the two are routinely conflated by traders new to funded accounts.

The loss floor is a separate rule running underneath the account on its own schedule. An account can stay comfortably inside its contract ceiling all session and still fail on the drawdown, because the two limits measure different things. How that floor behaves, and the point at which it stops moving, is set out in our answer on what a breached account is.

Three further limits sit alongside the contract ceiling and are worth stating plainly, because none of them is visible in the contract figure. Positions may not be held overnight or over a weekend on any account type. Hedging one account against another is prohibited, which matters precisely because a trader holding several accounts is the one most likely to attempt it. High frequency and automated bot execution are prohibited across the board.

Why stacking accounts is not a way around the ceiling

Each account carries its own limit, so a trader holding several of them is working to several separate ceilings rather than one combined allowance. The number of funded accounts a trader may hold at once is itself capped, which puts a hard end to that arithmetic.

The last stage closes it further. When a trader reaches a Live account, meaning one that trades at a broker rather than in simulation, the other funded accounts go dormant on transfer. The Live account then adds size on its own schedule as Live profit accumulates, so it replaces the set rather than being added to it.

The practical answer for most traders is therefore the unglamorous one: the ceiling on your own card, read as minis or micros and not as both, is the number that matters, and it moves on a published schedule or not at all. The wider rule questions, including how many accounts may be held at once, are answered in the Phoenix support FAQ.

Common follow-up questions

Does a Spark account get bigger as it makes profit?

No. Spark has no scaling plan and trades its full size from the first day, so the allowance you start with is the allowance you keep through the evaluation and into the funded stage.

Why does a Daily Seed account not allow a mini contract?

Daily Seed is a micros only account. It allows six micros and carries no mini allowance at all, which makes it the one account where the mini figure does not exist rather than simply being small.

Can I raise my contract limit by paying for a larger allowance?

No. Size above the published plan is available only by request, and that request is answered after the team has reviewed how the account has been traded. It is not something added at checkout.

Does staying inside the contract limit stop me failing the account?

No. The contract limit caps position size only. The loss floor underneath the account is a separate rule, and an account trading well inside its contract ceiling can still fail on the drawdown.

Do my contract limits add up across several funded accounts?

No. Each account carries its own separate ceiling, and the number of funded accounts a trader may hold at once is capped. Hedging one account against another is also prohibited on every account type.

What happens to my other funded accounts when I reach a Live account?

The other funded accounts go dormant on transfer. The Live account becomes the one that trades, adding size on its own schedule as Live profit accumulates, rather than sitting alongside the accounts you already held.