Tier 5 · Professional · Module 5.2
Running a 30-day live or funded evaluation
Design and run your own 30-day evaluation under professional-style rules — profit target, daily and maximum loss limits, frozen strategy, daily routine — with pass/fail criteria set before day one.
Lesson 1 of 2 · 5 min read
Everything in Tiers 1–4 prepares you for this: trading a proven, written strategy under real conditions and strict rules, for long enough to show whether you can do it consistently. A 30-day evaluation is a controlled test of you — your execution, your discipline, and your risk management under pressure. You can run it on a live account at reduced size, or use an actual prop-firm challenge. What matters is that the rules are fixed in advance and followed exactly.
What you'll learn
- How to design an evaluation with professional-style rules
- Choosing between a live account and a prop-firm challenge
- The pre-evaluation checklist
- A daily routine for the 30 days
- Pass/fail criteria — and what to do with either result
1. Designing the rules
Model the rules on common funded-account structures (see Prop-firm / funded-account rules and compliance), and write them down before you start:
(Illustrative rule set — adjust to your strategy's tested statistics.)
| Rule | Setting |
|---|---|
| Duration | 30 calendar days |
| Profit target | +6% (or a target in R — e.g. +12R at 0.5% risk) |
| Daily loss limit | 3% of the day's starting equity |
| Maximum loss | 6% from starting balance (static) |
| Risk per trade | 0.5% |
| Minimum trading days | 10 |
| Strategy | Strategy vX.X only — frozen, no rule changes |
| News rule | As written in your trading plan |
2. Live account or prop-firm challenge?
| Option | Advantages | Drawbacks |
|---|---|---|
| Live account, reduced size | Real money and real emotions; you set the rules | Your own capital at risk |
| Prop-firm challenge | Rules enforced externally; possible funded account if you pass | Evaluation fee; the firm's rules may differ from your strategy's needs |
Either works. The important thing is that real consequences are attached — demo money rarely produces the emotional pressure you need to test.
3. The pre-evaluation checklist
Before day one, confirm:
- Strategy written, versioned, and forward-tested (see Forward-testing on demo)
- Rule set written, including daily and maximum loss floors in money terms
- Pre-trade checklist printed or on screen (see Pre-trade checklist habit)
- Circuit breakers and if-then plans written (see Handling losing streaks)
- Journal template ready, with tags (see Behavioral journaling)
- Economic calendar reviewed for the first week
- Pass/fail criteria written (section 5)
4. The daily routine
| When | What |
|---|---|
| Before the session | Calendar check · higher-timeframe levels · today's loss floor written down · state check (sleep, stress, focus) |
| During | Checklist on every trade · journal every trade immediately · circuit breakers active |
| After | Update equity, drawdown, and R totals · one-line reflection · screenshots saved |
| Weekly | Full review (see Full journal with equity curve, drawdown, and expectancy tracking) — no rule changes mid-evaluation |
Worked example: tracking the floors
(Illustrative $20,000 account.)
- Maximum loss floor: $20,000 × (1 − 6%) = $18,800, fixed for the evaluation
- Day 9 starts with equity of $20,640 → today's daily floor: $20,640 × (1 − 3%) = $20,020.80
- Risk per trade at 0.5% of starting balance = $100
Writing both numbers down each morning means you always know exactly how much room you have.
5. Pass/fail criteria
Decide these before you start:
Pass requires all of:
- Profit target reached or positive result in R with at least the minimum trading days
- Never breached the daily or maximum loss limit
- Rule adherence of at least 90%
- Results within a reasonable range of your forward-test benchmark
Fail if any limit is breached, or rule adherence falls below the threshold.
After a pass
Scale up gradually under your scaling rules (see Realistic income expectations and scaling rules), or proceed with the funded account under its rules.
After a fail
Diagnose before retrying:
- Rule breach or low adherence? → A discipline problem. Work on circuit breakers and the reset routine, and retry at even smaller size.
- Rules followed, but results poor? → Compare with the forward test. Normal variance, or has the market changed? A 30-day sample is small, so one failed month may just be variance.
- Limits breached by one oversized trade? → Review the risk layer. Sizing should never be discretionary.
Common beginner mistakes
- Starting without written pass/fail criteria.
- Changing rules halfway through the evaluation.
- Setting an unrealistic profit target and forcing trades to reach it.
- Not knowing today's loss floor in money terms.
- Blaming the strategy for failures caused by rule-breaking.
Key terms
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Evaluation | A fixed-period test of trading under pre-set rules |
| Profit target | The gain required to pass |
| Loss floor | The equity level at which a loss limit is breached |
| Frozen strategy | A strategy whose rules can't change during the test |
| Pass/fail criteria | Conditions, set in advance, that decide the result |
Practice
- Write your full evaluation rule set, including loss floors in money terms.
- Set your profit target from your forward-test expectancy.
- Complete the pre-evaluation checklist.
- Run the 30-day evaluation, then complete the pass/fail assessment honestly.
Quick recap
- Design the evaluation like a funded account: target, daily loss, maximum loss, minimum days.
- Use real consequences — live at reduced size, or a prop-firm challenge.
- Freeze the strategy and follow a daily routine with written loss floors.
- Decide pass/fail criteria before day one, including rule adherence.
- After a fail, diagnose before changing — discipline first, strategy last.
Educational content only — not financial advice. Trading involves substantial risk of loss. Practise on a demo account before risking real money.
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