Tradeify Rules Explained: What Every Trader Should Know

Understanding Tradeify rules before you start trading can save you from blown accounts and denied payouts. Tradeify is a futures prop firm that offers three paths to simulated funded trading, each with its own rule set. Some rules apply everywhere, some only kick in once you're funded, and a few change depending on which plan you choose.

This guide covers the rules for all three Tradeify account types, how those rules shift between the evaluation and funded phases, and the trading restrictions that apply across the board.

How Tradeify's Three Account Types Work

Tradeify offers three account types, each with a different path to funded trading:

• Growth: A one-phase evaluation with a profit target. No consistency rule during the evaluation. You can pass in as little as one trading day. Available in 50K, 100K, and 150K sizes.

• Select: A one-phase evaluation with a 40% consistency rule and no daily loss limit. Requires a minimum of three trading days to pass. After passing, you choose between two funded payout paths (Daily or Flex). Available in 50K, 100K, and 150K sizes.

• Lightning: No evaluation. You're funded instantly on a Simulated Funded Account. Available in 25K, 50K, 100K, and 150K sizes.

All accounts trade CME Group futures (CME, COMEX, NYMEX, and CBOT exchanges) through Tradovate or WealthCharts.

"Funded" at Tradeify means a Simulated Funded Account. Your trades mirror live markets, but profits and losses are not real capital. Profits on Simulated Funded Accounts can still lead to actual payouts. Traders who reach five total payouts across all accounts become eligible for a Tradeify Elite Live account, where you trade with real capital.

Tradeify Evaluation Rules: Growth vs. Select

The evaluation phase is where the Tradeify rules for Growth and Select diverge most. Here's what each evaluation requires:

Growth Evaluation

Growth has no consistency requirement during the evaluation, which means you can hit the profit target in a single day. The tradeoff: you do have a daily loss limit. That daily loss limit is a soft breach. Hitting it pauses your trading for the session, but it does not fail your account. Growth comes with a fixed payout policy once funded.

Growth evaluations are monthly subscriptions with no time limit to pass. Your account stays active as long as you maintain the subscription and don't breach the trailing drawdown. If you fail, resets are available for a fee (up to 10 resets per 30-day period). A failed account also resets automatically when your subscription renews.

Select Evaluation

Select flips the Growth tradeoffs. There's no daily loss limit during the evaluation, so the EOD trailing drawdown is your only loss limit. But you do have a 40% consistency rule: no single trading day can account for more than 40% of your total profit. That means you need at least three profitable trading days to pass.

After passing, you choose between two payout paths for your funded account: Daily or Flex. That choice is permanent.

Select evaluations are also monthly subscriptions with no activation fee. Resets are available for a fee if you fail, with the same 10-reset-per-30-day limit as Growth.

Tradeify Drawdown Rules and Daily Loss Limits

The trailing max drawdown is the most important rule to understand across all Tradeify account types. It's an End-of-Day (EOD) trailing drawdown, and it works the same way on evaluations, Simulated Funded Accounts, and Lightning accounts.

How the EOD Trailing Drawdown Works

The drawdown limit recalculates at the end of each trading session based on your closing balance. If your EOD balance sets a new high, the drawdown limit moves up. If your balance drops, the drawdown limit stays where it was. It never moves down.

Here's the part that catches people off guard: even though the drawdown only updates at end of day, it is enforced in real time. If your balance hits the current drawdown limit at any point during the session, your account fails immediately. You don't get to wait for end of day.

For example, say you have a 50K Growth funded account with a $2,000 drawdown. You ended yesterday at $52,000, so your drawdown limit is now $50,000. During today's session, if your balance touches $50,000, even for a moment, the account is done. Hitting the trailing max drawdown is a hard breach.

Drawdown Locking on Funded Accounts

On Simulated Funded Accounts (not evaluations), the drawdown locks once your EOD balance exceeds the drawdown amount by $100. For a 50K account, that means reaching an EOD balance of $52,100. At that point, the drawdown floor locks permanently at $50,100 and never moves again.

This is a meaningful milestone. Once the drawdown locks, you're working with a fixed safety floor instead of a trailing target.

Daily Loss Limit: Soft Breach, Not Account Failure

The daily loss limit (DLL) applies to Growth accounts (evaluation and funded), most Lightning accounts, and Select Daily funded accounts. Select Flex funded accounts do not have a DLL.

The DLL is a soft breach. When your daily losses hit the limit, trading pauses for that session. You resume trading the next session (after 6:00 PM ET). Your account remains active.

One thing to watch: never rely on the DLL as a stop loss. The DLL is not a hard stop. In fast-moving markets, slippage can push your losses past the DLL and into your trailing drawdown, which is a hard breach that fails your account permanently.

The DLL resets each trading session. Once your account reaches a 6% profit threshold, the DLL increases to match your drawdown amount starting the next session.

Tools like Tanto can help you track your performance across Tradeify accounts by auto-syncing your trades from Tradovate, so you can monitor your consistency and drawdown proximity without manual logging.

Tradeify Funded Account Rules and Payout Paths

Once you pass a Growth or Select evaluation, or purchase a Lightning account, a new set of rules applies. The Tradeify rules for funded accounts include consistency requirements, payout structures, and in some cases, contract scaling. All funded accounts have no activation fee, a 90/10 profit split, and a maximum of 5 Simulated Funded Accounts at a time, across any combination of Growth, Select, and Lightning.

Growth Funded

Growth funded accounts have a fixed payout policy. Your max drawdown (EOD), daily loss limit, and max contracts all carry over from the evaluation at the same values.

The main change from evaluation to funded is the addition of a 35% consistency rule: no single day's profit can exceed 35% of your total profits when you request a payout.

To request a payout, your account must meet all of these conditions:

• At least 5 of your trading days must show a profit of $150+ (50K), $200+ (100K), or $250+ (150K). The trading day count resets to zero after each successful payout.

• Your account balance must reach at least $53,000 (50K), $104,500 (100K), or $156,500 (150K).

• Meet the 35% consistency rule.

• At least 5 trading days between each payout request.

Maximum payout per request:

Select Funded: Daily vs. Flex

After passing Select, you choose one of two payout paths. This choice is permanent for that account. Both paths have no consistency rule once funded (the 40% rule from the evaluation is removed). Your EOD trailing drawdown carries over from the evaluation.

One change to watch for: contract limits start reduced once funded and scale up as your EOD equity grows. During the evaluation you had access to full contract limits, but on a funded account you start lower and work your way back up.

The key differences between the two paths are in payout frequency, loss limits, and withdrawal mechanics.

Select Flex (5-Day): No daily loss limit, no buffer system, and no minimum balance requirement. Payouts require 5 winning days, each with a profit of at least $150 (50K), $200 (100K), or $250 (150K). You can withdraw up to 50% of your total profits (current balance minus starting balance), capped per account size.

Select Daily: Includes a daily loss limit and a buffer system. The buffer is a minimum balance you can't withdraw below ($2,100 for 50K, $2,600 for 100K, $3,600 for 150K). Payout eligibility is daily. You can request up to 2x the profit earned since your last payout, capped per account size, with a $250 minimum payout.

For both paths, all payouts after the first require positive net profit during that payout cycle.

Contract scaling: Select funded accounts start with reduced contract limits that increase as your EOD equity grows. For example, a 50K account starts at 2 minis / 20 micros and scales to 4 minis / 40 micros. Scaling triggers are cumulative, so once you reach a higher tier, you keep those limits even if your balance fluctuates.

Lightning Funded

Lightning accounts skip the evaluation entirely. You pay a one-time fee and are placed directly into a Simulated Funded Account. No subscription, no activation fee.

Lightning uses an escalating consistency rule: 20% for your first payout, 25% for the second, and 30% for all subsequent payouts. There is no minimum trading day count for payout requests.

To request a payout, you must meet the consistency rule and reach the profit goal for that payout cycle. Profit goals reset after each payout, and you must earn fresh profit from new trades to reach the next goal. Leftover profit from the previous cycle does not carry over.

Payout goals and limits:

Minimum payout is $1,000. For 25K accounts, the payout amount is fixed at $1,000 for all payouts. Payout frequency is every five days.

Trading Rules That Apply to All Tradeify Accounts

Some Tradeify rules apply regardless of which account type or phase you're in.

No Hedging and No Mixing Contract Types

You cannot hold opposing positions (long and short) on the same instrument at the same time. You also cannot hold mini and micro contracts at the same time, even on different instruments. These rules apply across all of your Tradeify accounts, not just within a single account. There is a 10-second grace period to close conflicting positions before a violation is flagged.

You can switch between minis and micros across different sessions. The restriction is only against holding both simultaneously.

Trading Hours and No Overnight Positions

A Tradeify trading day runs from 6:00 PM ET to 5:00 PM ET the next day, following CME futures market hours. All positions must be closed by 4:59 PM ET. Overnight and swing trading are not allowed. If you forget, Tradeify will auto-close your positions at market close. This won't fail your account, but you may get unfavorable fills.

If you trade during different market sessions on the same calendar day (for example, at 1:00 AM and again at 7:00 PM), those count as two separate trading days.

Microscalping Rule

Over 50% of your trades must be held longer than 10 seconds, and over 50% of your profit must come from trades held longer than 10 seconds. Failing to meet this threshold means you can't activate a passed evaluation or request a payout.

Inactivity

Simulated Funded Accounts require at least one trade per week (Monday through Friday). The trade can be as brief as five seconds. Tradeify will contact you before taking action on an inactive account.

News Trading, DCA, and Bots

News trading is allowed with no restrictions, but you trade at your own risk. Dollar-cost averaging, flipping, and scaling are all permitted. Bots and algorithms are allowed under specific conditions: you must be the sole owner, the bot can't be shared across firms, and high-frequency trading bots are not permitted. Copy trading with other traders is not permitted. You may only group trade between accounts you own. Third-party trade copiers are allowed but used at your own risk.

Bottom Line

Tradeify rules differ meaningfully across Growth, Select, and Lightning accounts, so it's worth knowing which rules apply to your specific plan and phase. The EOD trailing drawdown is the one rule that can end your account instantly, and it applies everywhere. Everything else, from the daily loss limit to the consistency rule, varies by account type and whether you're in the evaluation or funded stage. For the most current rules and edge cases, check Tradeify's Help Center.

Last updated: March 17, 2026