Futures · open dataset · verified 2026-01-15
Topstep Trading Combine 50K pass rate: simulated odds
10,000 Monte Carlo paths per profile at seed 42, on the challenge’s exact published rules. Distributions under stated assumptions, never promises.
Developing trader
45% win rate, 1.4R average winner, 4 trades/day, risking 1% per trade
38.1%
pass per attempt · 95% CI 37.6%–38.7%
Consistent trader
48% win rate, 1.6R average winner, 4 trades/day, risking 0.75% per trade
71.0%
pass per attempt · 95% CI 70.3%–71.8%
Proven edge
52% win rate, 1.8R average winner, 3 trades/day, risking 0.5% per trade
95.6%
pass per attempt · 95% CI 95.2%–96.0%
Seed 42 · 10,000 paths per profile · engine v1.1.2. EV is net of every fee across a full journey (attempts, resets, activation, then 90 funded trading days of gated payouts); payout probability is the chance a funded account collects at least once. Assumptions and unsimulated rules: soft-daily-lockout, scaling-plan, trades-resolve-same-day, consistency-stop-rule, attempts-iid, monthly-billing-approximation, funded-withdrawal-model, calendar-days-approximated, trading-constraints-not-simulated. Details reproduce in the simulator run.
Precomputed odds
Not a ranking: simulated odds for three reference profiles.| Challenge | Developing trader | Consistent trader | Proven edge | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pass % | EV | Payout | Pass % | EV | Payout | Pass % | EV | Payout | |
Topstep · Trading Combine 50K Futures | 38.1% | +$2,429 | 40.5% | 71.0% | +$13,702 | 72.3% | 95.6% | +$21,405 | 96.4% |
Seed 42 · 10,000 paths per cell · engine v1.1.2. Deterministic Monte Carlo: same seed, same numbers. Pass % is per attempt, with its 95% CI on hover; EV is net of every fee. Assumptions and unsimulated rules are listed in each challenge’s simulator view.
What the numbers say
Simulated at seed 42, 10,000 paths per archetype: reproduce every number in the simulator on this page. The developing trader (45% win rate, 1.4R average winner, four trades a day at 1% risk) passes 38.1% of Combine attempts (CI 37.6–38.7%); every one of its 16,219 failed attempts died at the trailing Maximum Loss Limit, because no other hard rule exists. The consistent trader (48%, 1.6R, 0.75% risk) passes 71.0%; the proven-edge trader (52%, 1.8R, three trades a day at 0.5% risk) passes 95.6%. Expected journey value (subscription months, resets, the $149 activation, then 90 funded trading days of gated payouts at 90/10) comes to +$2,429, +$13,702, and +$21,405 respectively, with 40.2%, 72.2%, and 96.3% of paths finishing net-positive.
The honest framing of those EVs: the Combine is inexpensive to attempt and disciplined to collect from. A marginal trader clears the evaluation in 2.62 attempts for around $290, but only 40.5% of those funded accounts ever satisfy five $150+ winning days before breaching the trail that follows them into funding: the pass rate is not the bottleneck, the payout gate is. Numbers are Monte Carlo distributions under stated assumptions (monthly billing approximated, soft daily lockout and scaling plan not simulated), seed shown, no promises.
The rules, worked through
The $2,000 EOD trailing loss, worked through
The Maximum Loss Limit starts at $48,000 and ratchets with your highest end-of-day balance: floor equals best close minus $2,000. Intraday highs do not move it: spike to $52,500 during day one but close at $49,600, and the floor is still $48,000; close day two at $50,900 and it ratchets to $48,900. Breach, however, is checked in real time against equity including open positions: touching the current floor mid-trade ends the account even though the floor itself only moves at closes. The rule stops trailing permanently once the floor reaches $50,000 (a close at $52,000 or better), after which the worst case is breakeven-and-out. Two consequences worth internalizing: giving back a strong day’s close costs you twice (the floor already ratcheted on it), and until you have banked $2,000 of closed profit, a single $2,000 adverse excursion from your best close is always fatal.
The 50% consistency target is a moving profit target
No single day may exceed 50% of your total profit when you finish, which algebraically means your requirement is max($3,000, best day ÷ 0.5). Print $1,900 on day one and you no longer owe $3,000; you owe $3,800, because $1,900 must be no more than half the total. The engine simulates this with a rational stopping rule (a trader who quits a day rather than inflate their best day further) and still finds the rule expensive: it forces additional days at risk under a trail that ratchets on every good close. The cleanest read of its cost in this dataset: the same developing profile passes 44.3% at an otherwise-similar $2,000-EOD-trail evaluation with no consistency rule, and 38.1% here.
Subscription pricing changes what a failure costs
The Combine bills $49 per month (approximated in simulation as one charge per 21 trading days), resets cost $49, and activating the funded account costs $149 on the encoded Standard path. Expected all-in cost to reach funding: $290 for the developing profile (2.62 average attempts), $222 consistent, $202 proven-edge (a fraction of what the CFD programs in this dataset cost the same marginal trader, though unlike several of them nothing refunds on passing). The flip side of cheap attempts is the payout gate on the other end, which is where Topstep actually filters.
Payout gating on the Express Funded Account, simulated
The encoded payout rules: each payout window requires five winning days of $150 or more, each request is capped at 50% of profit and $5,000, and the split is 90/10 under the 2025–26 policy (the dataset flags that the payout matrix changed between November 2025 and February 2026: verify the current version). These gates are simulated, not summarized: 40.5% of the developing profile’s funded accounts collected at least one payout within 90 funded trading days, 72.3% of the consistent profile’s, 96.4% of the proven-edge profile’s. One structural observation from the runs: because each request leaves at least half the profit in the account, withdrawals cannot drain the balance to its floor, a fact that kept 81.3% of proven-edge funded accounts alive through the horizon, far more than at cap-free structures under our maximum-withdrawal policy. Entry last verified 2026-01-15; Topstep’s help center is authoritative as rules change.
Where these rules come from
Simulated from the open-source rules dataset entry topstep/50k-trading-combine (last verified 2026-01-15, against the firm’s published terms and cited sources), simulated with the open-source engine at github.com/LuxAlgo/prop-firm-sim. Rules change; Topstep’s own page is authoritative. Every number above is a seeded Monte Carlo estimate: re-run the same inputs and you get the same digits.
These are reference profiles. You are not one.
Open this exact challenge in the simulator (it restores the encoded rules at seed 42 and runs), then swap in your own win rate, R-multiples, and risk.
Frequent questions.
There is no universal pass rate; it is a function of the trader. Our seeded Monte Carlo runs (seed 42, 10,000 paths per profile) put a 45% win-rate 1.4R trader risking 1% at 38.1% per attempt, a 48% win-rate 1.6R trader risking 0.75% at 71.0%, and a 52% win-rate 1.8R trader risking 0.5% at 95.6%. Every simulated failure came from the trailing Maximum Loss Limit. The on-page simulator will run your numbers under the same encoded rules.