Apex Trader Funding: Drawdown, Safety Net and Payouts Explained

Apex Trader Funding is one of the most widely used futures prop firms. Its rules are public, yet often misunderstood: two thresholds that look alike, a trailing drawdown that behaves differently depending on the platform, and two separate payout schedules. Here are the 50K account numbers, read directly from the official help center. The 50K is the guiding example: the other three sizes, 25K, 100K and 150K, are covered further down.

EOD and Intraday: same distance, different speed

Apex offers two trailing drawdown formats. On a 50K account, the distance is identical in both cases: 2,000. The difference is how fast the floor moves.

• EOD (End of Day): the floor is recalculated once a day, at 4:59:59 PM New York time, on the closing balance. During the session, it does not move.
• Intraday: the floor follows your high-water mark in real time, unrealized gains included. A trade that goes +800 and comes back to zero has moved your floor up by 800, even though you banked nothing.

The trailing lock: three regimes

“The trailing drawdown eventually freezes” is true, but not everywhere, and not at the same moment:

• Evaluations on Tradovate: the trailing never freezes.
• Evaluations on Rithmic and WealthCharts: it freezes at the Profit Target level (53,000 on a 50K, reached when the account touches 55,000).
• Funded accounts (PA): the floor locks at 50,100 as soon as your high-water mark, realized or not, reaches 52,100. The formula: starting balance + drawdown + 100.

52,100 and 52,600: two thresholds on the same row

The official 50K table shows two numbers close to each other, and mixing them up throws off every calculation:

• Safety Net: 52,100. The level where the trailing locks. It is the safety floor for the entire life of the account.
• Minimum Balance to Request: 52,600. The balance below which the payout request button does not appear. It is simply Safety Net + 500, the minimum amount of a withdrawal.

Both apply to the 50K EOD and the 50K Intraday alike: the drawdown is 2,000 on both sides.

The 50K daily loss limit

1,000, reset at 6:00 PM New York time, measured on realized and unrealized P&L in real time. Hitting it pauses the session. It never closes the account.

50K payouts: two different schedules

EOD and Intraday do not share the same withdrawal schedule. Many traders find out too late.

Rules shared by both: minimum payout 500, 100% split for the trader, qualifying days non-consecutive with no deadline, account closed after the sixth payout.

Three account-life rules to know

• 50% consistency at the payout stage: no single profitable day may represent 50% or more of the total profit accumulated since the last approved payout.
• Inactivity: without at least two days of 50 net profit within 30 consecutive calendar days, the account is closed.
• Cap: 20 active PA accounts maximum, all types combined. PA activation fee: 99 USD, one time.

Apex drawdown by account size: 25K to 150K

Everything above covers the 50K. Apex runs the exact same mechanics across four sizes: 25K, 50K, 100K and 150K. The logic never changes: the trailing drawdown distance is the same in EOD and Intraday, the Safety Net follows the same formula everywhere (starting balance + drawdown + 100), and the Minimum Balance to Request adds 500 on top of the Safety Net. Only the amounts scale.

One thing the table does not show: the ratio between the evaluation profit target and the drawdown gets tougher as the account grows. 1,500 of target against 1,000 of drawdown on the 25K, 9,000 against 4,000 on the 150K. The full breakdown of all four sizes, evaluations included, is in the Apex drawdown table for all four account sizes.

Payouts by account size: qualifying-day minimums and lifetime caps

Every size keeps the 50K structure: 6 payouts maximum, 5 qualifying days per request, 500 minimum payout, 100% split for the trader. What changes is the minimum net profit that makes a day qualify, and the lifetime cap. And just like on the 50K, EOD and Intraday do not share the same schedule.

The 25K is the only size where both modes share the same schedule: six payouts of 1,000. On the other three sizes, the Intraday lifetime cap runs slightly higher than the EOD one, but its floor moves in real time while you trade.

Evaluation vs funded account: same drawdown, different framework

The drawdown of a given size does not change between the evaluation and the funded account: 2,000 on a 50K at both stages, for example. Everything else does:

• Contracts: fixed during the evaluation (4, 6, 8 or 12 depending on size), capped lower on the funded account (2, 4, 6 or 10) and unlocked in profit tiers.
• Daily loss limit: fixed on EOD evaluations (500, 1,000, 1,500 or 2,000 depending on size), absent on Intraday evaluations, tiered by profit on funded accounts.
• Trailing lock: never on a Tradovate evaluation, at the Profit Target level on Rithmic and WealthCharts, at the Safety Net on a funded account. All three regimes are detailed in the article on the three freeze regimes of the Apex trailing drawdown.

The evaluation profit target depends on size: 1,500 on the 25K, 3,000 on the 50K, 6,000 on the 100K, 9,000 on the 150K. No minimum number of trading days, and no consistency rule at that stage.

What to do with all this

Before every session: recompute your actual floor and the distance available. The floor rises with your profits and never comes back down. That is the starting point of the general guide to prop firm rules, and one of the pillars of the framework detailed in the Ephore Prop System. At Tradeify, the locking mechanics are the same but the payouts differ: the Flex vs Daily comparison is here.

Frequently asked questions

What is the Apex safety net?

The Safety Net is the level where the trailing drawdown of a funded account locks for good. The formula is the same for every size: starting balance + drawdown + 100, which gives 26,100 on a 25K, 52,100 on a 50K, 103,100 on a 100K and 154,100 on a 150K. Only profit above the Safety Net can be requested as a payout.

What is the difference between an evaluation and a funded account (PA)?

The drawdown is identical at both stages, but the framework changes. During the evaluation, position size is fixed (4 to 12 contracts depending on account size) and the trailing never freezes on Tradovate. On a funded account, the contract cap drops to 2, 4, 6 or 10, unlocked in profit tiers, the daily loss limit scales in tiers, and the floor locks at the Safety Net.

What is the minimum payout at Apex Trader Funding?

500 per request, for every account size. The request button only appears once your balance reaches the Minimum Balance to Request, which is the Safety Net plus 500. Each request also takes 5 qualifying days, whose minimum net profit depends on size and mode: 250 on a 50K EOD, 200 on a 50K Intraday, for example.

What is the difference between EOD and Intraday drawdown at Apex?

The distance is the same for a given size, 2,000 on a 50K for example. With EOD, the floor is recalculated once a day, at 4:59:59 PM New York time, on the closing balance. With Intraday, the floor follows your high-water mark in real time, unrealized gains included. The payout schedules differ too: 13,000 vs 14,500 lifetime cap on a 50K.

Does the Apex trailing drawdown ever stop trailing?

Not always. On a Tradovate evaluation, it never freezes. On Rithmic and WealthCharts evaluations, it freezes at the Profit Target level, 53,000 on a 50K. On a funded account, it locks at starting balance plus 100 as soon as your high-water mark reaches the Safety Net.

Numbers re-checked on the official Apex Trader Funding help center on August 9, 2026. These rules change often: always verify the official source before trading.

Futures trading involves substantial risk of capital loss. This article is educational and does not constitute investment advice.