How do you get funded as a trader, and what happens at each stage?

Getting funded means passing an evaluation account under a published set of rules, clearing a short review, and then trading a funded account that pays out before any live capital is involved. At Phoenix Trader Funding the path runs in three stages, the evaluation, the Pre-Funded simulated stage, and the Live account, and each one is reached only by finishing the one before it. There is no application to write and no track record to submit: you either reach the target inside the loss floor or you do not.

What an evaluation actually tests

An evaluation is a simulated trading account with a profit target and a loss limit, where reaching the target without hitting the limit is what qualifies you for a funded account. It tests whether you can produce a gain without taking on a loss the firm would not want to carry, and almost everything else about it follows from those two numbers.

The loss limit is a trailing drawdown. A trailing drawdown is a loss floor that follows your balance upward as you make profit, so what you are allowed to lose is measured from your highest balance rather than from where you started. Every Phoenix Trader Funding evaluation calculates it at the end of the day, which means the floor moves once, on the closing balance, and an intraday swing that recovers before the close never touches it. It also stops climbing once it reaches your starting balance, so past that point the worst case is the balance you began with.

The profit target is fixed for the size of account you took, and Merit is the exception that carries none at all. Alongside it sits a minimum number of days on which you actually trade, and it is short: a Classic or Daily evaluation can be passed in as little as two trading days, a Spark in one. Classic and Spark challenges carry no time limit in the other direction either, so a slow month is not itself a failure.

Two rules vary by family rather than applying everywhere. Classic and Daily evaluations carry a consistency requirement, which limits how much of your total profit any single day may account for, and there is a fuller explanation in our answer on consistency rules. Daily loss limits work the other way round: Classic, Daily and Spark evaluations impose none, and Merit is the single line that carries a dynamic daily drawdown.

Passing is a handover, not a payday

Reaching the target does not move money. It starts a review, which runs up to 72 hours, and once that review clears you have 48 hours to complete identity verification and sign the contract that governs the funded account.

Spark is the line that carries an activation step, and it falls due inside that same window; if it is not settled there, the evaluation is void. Whatever profit sits above the target when you pass stays behind, because surplus does not carry into the funded account, so trading well past the target buys nothing but more exposure to the floor.

If the floor is what you hit instead, the account is breached and the run ends there. What that means in practice, and which of the two floors ended it, is covered in our answer on breached accounts.

The funded stage is simulated, and it pays

Pre-Funded is what Phoenix Trader Funding calls the stage most traders mean when they say funded: a simulated account, traded under the same rule set, from which real payouts are made. It is where a funded track record is actually built, and it is where every family starts paying.

How often it pays is the clearest difference between the lines. A Classic pays weekly. A Daily account pays at the end of every day you trade, once the first green day has matured across the three trading days that follow it, and that clock only advances on days you actually trade. A Spark pays bi-weekly. Merit does not pay at this stage at all, because it goes straight to Live. What counts as a qualifying day, and what caps a single payout, are set out in our answer on funded payouts.

Two things here catch traders out. Classic and Daily accounts carry a buffer, which is a locked portion of profit that stays in the account rather than being available to withdraw, where Spark and Merit carry none. And a Pre-Funded account has to be traded at least once every seven calendar days to stay open.

What turns a funded account into a Live one

A Live account is the stage where the trading itself moves off the simulated venue to an outside broker, EdgeClear on Rithmic. What unlocks it depends on the family. Classic and Spark unlock after four payouts plus risk approval. Daily unlocks on the lifetime amount already paid out to you rather than on a count of payouts. Merit skips the queue and goes live as soon as it clears review.

The rules change when you get there, mostly in your favour. The drawdown stops trailing and becomes static, the daily limit is a scalable figure set with you rather than imposed, and position size grows as live profit accumulates. Every rule except holding a position overnight or over the weekend is waived. The tradeoff is that your other funded accounts go dormant when the transfer happens, and the theoretical ceiling is five Live accounts.

The shape is identical, the detail is not

Every line runs the same three stages, so choosing between them is a question of which rules you want to trade under rather than which path you want to walk. A Classic keeps end of day drawdown throughout and pays weekly. A Daily keeps end of day drawdown through both the challenge and the funded account, so nothing tightens the day you pass, and it exists on TFeed only. A Spark trails at the end of the day during the evaluation and in real time once funded, and carries its consistency requirement in the funded stage rather than the evaluation. Merit has no profit target and one attempt, with no reset, and produces a Performance Review if it does not fund.

Those same mechanics are what Phoenix Labs runs experiments on, one variable at a time. The rules each experiment traded under, and what became of it, are kept permanently in the Phoenix Labs experiment archive.

Common follow-up questions

Do you have to trade every day to keep an evaluation alive?

No. There is a minimum number of days you have to trade before a pass counts, but they do not have to be consecutive and nothing asks you to show up daily. Spark is the one line whose challenge closes itself after 90 calendar days without a single trade.

What happens to profit above the target when you pass?

It stays behind. Surplus above the evaluation target does not carry into the funded account, so grinding well past the number buys nothing except more time exposed to the drawdown floor. The target is a threshold, not a scoreboard.

Is a funded account real money or a simulation?

The Pre-Funded stage is a simulated account, and the payouts it produces are real money paid to the trader. Live is the stage where the trading itself moves to an outside broker, EdgeClear on Rithmic, rather than a simulated venue.

How long does the handover take once you pass?

The review runs up to 72 hours. Once it clears you have 48 hours to finish identity verification and sign the contract, and on a Spark the activation step falls due inside that same window or the evaluation is void.

Can you hold more than one funded account at a time?

Yes, within limits. Pre-Funded accounts cap at three on dxFeed and five on TFeed, with sub limits by family, and the theoretical ceiling on Live accounts is five. Moving to Live puts your other funded accounts dormant.

Do the evaluation and the funded account run the same rules?

Close, and the differences are worth knowing. A consistency requirement applies to Classic and Daily evaluations and drops away once funded, while Spark runs the opposite way round, with none in the evaluation and 30 percent once funded.