How to get funded without depositing trading capital
8 min read
The phrase "funded without a deposit" is used loosely enough to be misleading, so it is worth being precise. You do pay something. What you do not do is hand over trading capital that the market can take from you.
That distinction is the whole product, and it is genuinely different from a brokerage account — different in what you risk, different in what happens when you are wrong, and different in what you are buying.
A fee is not a deposit
When you deposit at a broker, that money is your trading capital. It sits in the market, and a bad run consumes it. There is no floor on how much of it you can lose short of the whole balance, and a leveraged account can lose it startlingly fast.
An evaluation fee is a purchase, not a balance. It buys an assessment against a published rulebook, and the capital you then trade is simulated — so a losing streak ends the evaluation. It does not drain an account you funded, because there is no such account.
Your downside is fixed on the day you pay. Nothing that happens afterwards can increase it.
| Broker deposit | Evaluation fee | |
|---|---|---|
| What the money is | Your trading capital | The price of an assessment |
| Maximum loss | The entire balance | The fee, fixed in advance |
| What you trade with | Your own money | Simulated capital |
| Outcome of a bad run | Your capital is gone | The evaluation ends |
| Upside | Your own profit | A share of profit once funded |
What the fee actually buys
Being concrete about this matters, because vagueness here is how the less reputable end of the industry operates. The fee buys an evaluation against a specific rulebook: a capital figure, a profit target, two drawdown limits, and a minimum number of trading days.
Entry starts at $129 for the Starter 2-Step tier. Meet the rulebook's terms and you are funded; from that point you keep 80% of the profit you generate, settled on chain.
What to check before paying anyone
- Where is the drawdown anchored? A static and a trailing floor are different products at the same percentage.
- Can a verdict be checked independently, or does the firm alone hold the data that decides it?
- Is the payout mechanism specified, or merely promised in marketing copy?
- Does the rulebook you read before paying come from the same source the engine judges against?
- What happens to a funded account after a payout — does it continue, and on what terms?
The second question is the one most firms answer badly. In the conventional model the company taking your fee also decides whether you passed, using data only it holds. That conflict is structural, not a question of good faith — which is why verdicts here are anchored on chain against recorded prices anyone can replay.
Common questions
- Do I need to deposit money to get a funded trading account?
- No trading capital is deposited. You pay a one-time evaluation fee, which buys an assessment against a published rulebook. The capital you trade during the evaluation is simulated, so your maximum loss is the fee itself rather than a balance the market can drain.
- What is the difference between an evaluation fee and a broker deposit?
- A broker deposit is your trading capital and can be lost entirely. An evaluation fee is the price of an assessment: it is fixed on the day you pay, and nothing that happens during the evaluation can increase it. Failing costs the fee and no more.
- Can I lose more than the evaluation fee?
- No. The trading is simulated against recorded prices, so there is no balance of yours for the market to take. The fee is the entire downside, known in advance.
- What do I keep once I am funded?
- Funded traders keep 80% of the profit they generate. The split is the same across every tier, so choosing a more expensive evaluation buys more drawdown room rather than a better share of profit.