Sim versus live, and futures versus forex firms
Lesson 3 · about 9 min
Two distinctions shape almost everything about a prop firm: whether your "funded" account touches a real market, and whether the firm operates in exchange-traded futures or in over-the-counter forex and CFDs. Both affect your fills, your rules and who is on the other side of your trade.
Simulated versus live-funded
In the evaluation stage, every account is simulated. Nobody disputes that. The question is what happens after you pass.
Sim-funded. Most firms move you to another simulated account, sometimes with a different name ("performance account", "express funded", "XFA"). Your trades are not sent to any market. Your profit exists on the firm's ledger and your payout is paid from the firm's cash, which mostly came from fees. The firm is your counterparty: your gain is their expense.
Live-funded. Some firms, usually after you have shown consistency on the sim-funded account for a period, copy your orders to a live brokerage account the firm controls. Your fills are now real. The firm's exposure is real too, so live accounts tend to come with tighter risk controls, smaller size at first, and slower scaling.
Hybrid or "A-book" arrangements. Some firms net internal exposure and hedge only what they need to in the live market. From your side it still behaves like a sim account.
Why does it matter?
| Feature | Sim-funded | Live-funded |
|---|---|---|
| Fills | Modelled; may be better or worse than real | Real; slippage and partial fills are real |
| Who pays your payout | The firm, from fees and its own capital | The firm, from trading profit it actually earned |
| Firm's incentive | Keep payouts below fee income | Keep you trading well; your profit is their profit |
| Rule strictness on "gaming" | Very strict, because sim can be exploited | Less about sim exploits, more about live risk |
| Scaling | Often generous on paper | Slower, tied to real risk |
The practical consequence: on a sim-funded account, any strategy that would not work in a live market (exploiting sim fills, trading illiquid moments at the modelled price, sending orders at sizes the real book could not absorb) is both against the rules and a signal to the firm that your profits are not "real". Firms reserve the right to refuse payouts for trading that is "not consistent with a live market". Trade as if the fills were real and you stay on the right side of that clause.
Key idea: In a sim-funded account the firm is your counterparty. Their interest and yours diverge, so the rules around payouts are where the friction lives. Read them as carefully as the drawdown rules.
Futures firms versus forex and CFD firms
The second distinction is the market the firm operates in.
Futures firms run on exchange-traded contracts (index futures such as ES, NQ, MES and MNQ; energy, metals, rates). Data comes from the exchange, so you pay exchange data fees, and platforms are the futures platforms you may already know. Prices are the real exchange prices, even in sim.
Forex and CFD firms run on over-the-counter quotes from a broker, often a broker the firm owns or white-labels, on platforms such as MT4, MT5, cTrader or a proprietary web platform. The spread is set by the broker feed, and the firm can, in principle, adjust it.
| Aspect | Typical futures firm | Typical forex/CFD firm |
|---|---|---|
| Evaluation structure | One step, no time limit, trailing drawdown | One or two steps, 4% to 5% daily, 8% to 12% total |
| Drawdown type | Trailing (intraday or end of day), sometimes static | Static or balance-based; some trailing |
| Position rules | Contract limits by account size, close before session end | Leverage caps, weekend and news rules |
| Overnight holding | Usually prohibited | Often allowed on funded, restricted on evaluation |
| Pricing source | Exchange | Broker feed |
| Products | Index, energy, metal, rate futures | FX pairs, indices, metals, sometimes crypto CFDs |
Neither is inherently better. Futures firms give you a transparent price and a clear contract-count rule; the trailing drawdown is the trap. Forex firms give you more flexible sizing and a static drawdown; the two-step structure, news restrictions and broker-feed pricing are where traders get caught.
Choosing where to compete
Compete in the market you already trade. A trader who scalps NQ in a personal micro account should not be doing a forex challenge because the fee was cheaper. The evaluation is hard enough without learning a new instrument, a new platform and a new rulebook at the same time.
Try it: Write down whether the firm you are looking at is sim-funded, live-funded or hybrid after passing, and whether it is a futures or a forex/CFD firm. Then find the clause in its terms about "trading inconsistent with a live market" or "gaming the simulator". Copy the exact wording into your notes.
Recap
- Evaluations are always simulated; most funded accounts are too, so the firm is your counterparty and pays you from fees.
- Live-funded accounts copy your orders to a real market; fills and firm risk become real and scaling gets slower.
- Futures firms use exchange prices, contract limits and trailing drawdowns; forex/CFD firms use broker feeds, leverage caps, static drawdowns and news rules.
- Do the challenge in the market and platform you already trade.
See it drawn
Original diagrams for the ideas on this page. Illustrative, not real market data.