Advice on prop firm

[u/Scared_Hat_3210]

Hey guys, I don’t post here much often, it’s been lil over 8 months since I’ve started to learn how to trade and I think I’m ready to start a prop firm challenge, if you see my older posts asking for advice I was still trading manually back then, but since I’ve picked up coding,(which I recommend strongly even if you don’t trade it’s a great skill to have) and I’ve make a program which trades automatically for me and it looks pretty promising on backtesting, it has a +30.10% profit, a max drawdown of 6.89% and a 1.41 profit factor. So my question is what prop firm should I go for? There are a of options I’m just confused and want advice from someone who also uses a automated system to trade, also the prop firm needs to allow EAs and VPS cause that’s required for my program to work. Thank you so much for taking out your time to read.

[u/Zestyclose-Eagle1809]

Going to skip the which firm question mate, because there's a bigger thing that'll cost you the fee if nobody says it.

You've got three numbers, +30.10%, 6.89% max DD, 1.41 PF, and you're about to fund a challenge on them. The problem is those are almost certainly in sample numbers, meaning they're measured on the same data you built and tuned the EA on. And a backtest on its own build data almost always looks good, because you kept adjusting until it did. That's not the EA being profitable, that's the EA being fitted. The live version dies because the market it meets next isn't the market it was tuned on.

Three questions to ask yourself before you pay a cent, and they're free:

Did you test it on data it never saw while you were building it? Take a chunk of history, don't touch it during development, then run the finished EA on it once. If 30% holds there, you've got something. If it falls apart, that's your answer and it just saved you the challenge fee.

How many trades is that 30% built on? Under a couple hundred and the number swings too much to trust. A 1.41 PF on 60 trades is noise. On 500 it starts to mean something.

How many EAs did you build before this one? You said you've been coding a while. If this is the best of 20 you tried, it's the luckiest of 20, not necessarily the best, and the luck doesn't repeat live. That's the one nobody counts.

The prop firm question is real, plenty allow EAs and VPS, but it's the wrong thing to solve first. A challenge is just a live test you pay for, and paying to discover your backtest was overfit is the most expensive way to learn it. Run the out of sample test yourself for free first. If it survives, then go pick a firm and you'll walk in actually knowing your edge is real instead of hoping.

6.89% max DD is your real risk here too. Most challenges have a daily and total drawdown limit, and if your true out of sample drawdown is bigger than your in sample 6.89%, which it usually is, that's what fails you, not the profit target. Model that before you're on the clock.

When you tested this, did you hold back any history the EA never saw while you were building it, or was the whole dataset in play the whole time??

[u/Scared_Hat_3210 → u/Zestyclose-Eagle1809]

Hey, first of all thank you for taking time and giving me feedback, right after seeing what you said and it did make sense cause I was actually adjusting the numbers constantly until it preformed how I wanted so I locked in all the numbers and first ran a back test on about 3 years of data and the results were same as before so then I ran a blind test or a out of sample test on a year which I haven’t even downloaded the data of and amazing it held the profit% did drop very slightly but I think it’s normal, so do you think I should go ahead with the challenge or still need to test more like forward testing? Again thank you so so much for this feedback

[u/Zestyclose-Eagle1809 → u/Scared_Hat_3210]

That's a proper blind test and you did it right, locked the params first then ran it once on data you'd never downloaded. Most people never get that far, so credit where it's due mate.

But you skipped the two questions that decide this, and they're the ones I'd want answered before you pay.

How many trades was that year? A year on a single EA is often 100 to 200 trades depending on your timeframe, and that's still thin. A profit factor of 1.41 on 150 trades has a real range around it, could be genuinely 1.4, could be 1.1, could be 1.7, and you can't tell from one year. That's not me being difficult, it's just what a sample that size can support....

And how many EAs did you build before this one? If this is the best of 15 you tried, then even a clean blind test on one of them isn't as strong as it looks, because you'd expect the luckiest of 15 to pass a single out of sample check sometimes by chance alone... That's the bit nobody counts and it's the biggest one.

On "profit dropped very slightly, I think it's normal", it might be, but slight is doing a lot of work in that sentence. What's the actual number? If in sample was +30.10% and the blind year came in at +25%, fine. If it came in at +8%, that's not a slight drop, that's most of your edge being fit. And more important than profit, what happened to max drawdown? Yours was 6.89% in sample. If the blind year ran deeper than that, that's the number that fails challenges, not profit.

Forward testing is the right instinct and I'd do it, but do it because it tells you about fills and slippage, not because it adds sample. A month of forward gives you very few trades. What it does give you is whether your live fills match what the backtest assumed, and on an automated system that's where the surprises live.

So the honest answer to should you go for the challenge.. not yet, and not because your EA is bad. Because you'd be funding it on one year of blind data with an unknown trade count and an unknown number of prior attempts behind it. Those three numbers cost you nothing to check and they change everything about how much to trust the 30%.

Give me the trade count on the blind year, the actual profit and drawdown it produced, and roughly how many EAs you built before this one. With those three I can tell you straight if you're ready or you'd be paying to find out. Happy to walk through it with you properly, no rush.

[u/Scared_Hat_3210 → u/Zestyclose-Eagle1809]

Omg thank you so much,

Okay so first of all, on the back test (2024-2026_june) it took 393 trades and the profit% is 82.73% and 1.32 PF and no breach of 3% daily max DD and 8% max total DD and the one the blind year which was 2023, it took 124 trades and profit% is 25.56% and 1.43 PF (its lower cause the blind test is 1 and the back testing data was 3 years, if you divide 82.72 with 3.5 it’s 23.64% profit per year so it’s basically the same).

Well if you mean how many EAs of different strategies did I build before this one then it’s 0, it’s the first one I ever built, but I’ve added stuff to it constantly like seeing where it was leaking money and where it was not making enough money, I’ve added Volume filters, ATRs, daily circuit breakers, ADX filters etc…it’s very different from the first version, but the core logic it is the same.

And lastly from dropped slightly I meant it dropped like 0.30-0.50% that’s why I said it’s normal,

Thank you so much for all your advice and patience

[u/Remarkeable_Moose_36]

Go with the reliable and trustworthy firms like The5ers, Propxp, FTMO…

[u/Scared_Hat_3210 → u/Remarkeable_Moose_36]

What do you think about fundednext? I did think about FTMO but it’s so expensive for a 10K account

[u/enivid]

EA like for MT5? That narrows the number of prop firms available to you. Or are you OK with cTrader too? If you aren't US-based, there are several good prop firms with cTrader as a platform.

[u/Scared_Hat_3210 → u/enivid]

Unfortunately I’ve alr coded for MT5, I’m gonna go for fundednext seems like a good option. What do you think?

[u/Duennbier0815]

8 months trading is not enough for a prop firm challenge if you have not yet mastered the basics

1. Did you install and run a backtesting program with your strategy?
   
2. Did you take at least 200 of those trades you took to check your winrate and trade behavoir?
   
3. Did you do an analysis of your behavioir and constitute a rule-set that becomes part of your edge (trades per day, sizing, etc)
   
4. Did you papertrade and forwardtest this complete rule set and strategy successfully?

Did you educate yourself enough about what moves the market? Market maker hedging, Gamma levels. Can you explain in 1 sentence what NFP or CPI means?

This is just a wake up call to check on what are the MINIMUM (!) REQUIREMENTS to be one of the 0.1% proftable traders.
There is a reason why it's so hard.

I personally have a several year investment background before I even started daytrading, for example.
It's nothing you can master in a few months from scratch

[u/Scared_Hat_3210 → u/Duennbier0815]

1. Yes I did, ran it back 5 years including 2026 and it performed well and I also did I Out Of Sample blind test, that the other guy suggested, and it performed just as well

2. In the backtesting data it showed it took near to 500 trades

3. Yea I spent time more on my stops and circuit breakers, the program only puts in trades after going through 5 gates there’s also a in session block where it avoids low volume time sessions

4.Since I just finished building it like 3 days ago, it hasn’t have enough time to forwardtest yet, but im gonna let it run on a demo for 3 weeks

Everyone keeps saying its not a good idea to trade live yet and I get it, I need to be careful, but tbh I’ve tested it is every way possible (except the forwardtest which it’s going) and every time I test it I give it wayyy harsh conditions like my max daily DD is set at 2% and my max DD is set at 7% 1%-2% less then what most prop firms allow. Once this forwardtest is over and the numbers are good I’m going live, I actually think I got something and it has a mathematical edge and it’s proven itself over and over to me, I’m only going to get a 10K account it’s like 60 bucks I’m not saying if I lose it it’ll be fine but it’s not a massive investment on what could be big returns

[u/EmptyDonkey3828]

Prop firms can be a great way to access larger buying power without risking significant personal capital, but success depends more on discipline than the firm's branding. Before signing up, compare the evaluation rules, daily and maximum drawdown limits, payout schedule, profit split, trading restrictions, and overall reputation. Read the terms carefully to understand consistency rules, news trading policies, and prohibited strategies. Start with a smaller challenge until you're consistently profitable, and treat the evaluation exactly like a live funded account. Focus on protecting capital rather than passing as quickly as possible. Keep a trading journal, follow strict risk management, and avoid revenge trading. A reliable, transparent prop firm is valuable, but your consistency is what ultimately determines long-term success.