Passing the eval is the part everyone plans for. Getting paid is the part that decides whether the whole prop firm exercise was worth anything, and the payout rules are where firms actually differ the most. Here is how prop firm payouts really work, and the terms to check before you ever pay for an eval.
Once funded, you trade the firm’s simulated capital and split the profits. Advertised splits commonly run high, often 80 to 90 percent in your favor, and some firms sweeten the first chunk of profit at 100 percent. The split is the headline number, and it is also the least important one: a generous split behind restrictive withdrawal rules pays worse than a modest split you can actually collect.
This is the detail that surprises funded traders most: on many account types, withdrawing profit lowers your balance while the drawdown floor stays where it is, shrinking your working cushion. Take a full payout and you may be trading a nearly minimum-cushion account the next morning, one normal losing day from termination. The standard approach is to withdraw a portion and deliberately leave cushion, treating the account as the income-producing asset it is. Traders who strip every account to the floor end up back in eval world on repeat.
Read the payout page before the pricing page: minimum days, caps per cycle, buffer rules, consistency rules, processing time, and the activation or monthly fees that quietly eat the first payout. Search for real payout proof from traders who are not affiliates. And weigh all of it together with the survival rules the way the prop firm guide lays out: the right question is never which firm advertises the biggest split, it is which firm’s full ruleset your actual trading style can survive and collect from. A firm you can get paid by at 80 percent beats a firm you cannot get paid by at 90.
Whatever firm holds the account, the trades still come from the same map: free NQ levels three times every trading day on the levels page, full profile in Pro.
Reading about levels is one thing. Watching them trade in real time is another. STS4x members get the full daily key levels for NQ, ES, and GC, plus live trading sessions every weekday at 9:30 AM ET where the systems run out loud.
See what Pro includes Free daily NQ levels