This free drawdown calculator shows the number every evaluation lives or dies by: your trailing loss floor. Pick a firm preset or enter custom rules to see where the floor is right now, how much buffer you have left, what you can safely risk per trade, and the daily target that keeps you consistency-compliant.
Presets mirror the rule sets in TestMax's prop firm simulator (reviewed July 2026). Rules change — always verify against the firm's published rules. Not affiliated with any prop firm.
Floor ratchets from your end-of-day balance peak. Open-trade spikes that fade don’t count.
Topstep 50K: $2,000 trailing EOD drawdown, floor locks at $50,000 once balance hits $52,000.
| Peak P&L | Peak balance | Loss floor | Buffer at peak |
|---|---|---|---|
| +$0 | $50,000 | $48,000 | $2,000 |
| +$500 | $50,500 | $48,500 | $2,000 |
| +$1,000 | $51,000 | $49,000 | $2,000 |
| +$1,500 | $51,500 | $49,500 | $2,000 |
| +$2,000 | $52,000 | $50,000 locked | $2,000 |
| +$2,500 | $52,500 | $50,000 locked | $2,500 |
| +$3,000 | $53,000 | $50,000 locked | $3,000 |
At $1,500/day you pass in ~2 green days with no single day near the $1,500 consistency cap, risking $200 per trade (≈10.0 NQ points) to survive 10 straight losses.
Your maximum-loss floor equals the highest balance reached minus the drawdown allowance — and it only moves up. The model (EOD vs intraday) decides which peak counts; a lock rule freezes the floor at a set level.
A "$50K account" with a $2,000 trailing drawdown is really a $2,000 account. Divide the live buffer by the losing streak you want to survive and convert to points — that is your real per-trade risk budget.
Firms like Topstep require your best day to stay under a percentage of total profit. Pace the evaluation evenly instead of going for one home-run day that makes the target unreachable.
Deep dives: trailing drawdown explained (EOD vs intraday) and the consistency rule explained.
The loss floor trails your equity peak: floor = highest balance reached − drawdown allowance. On a Topstep 50K ($2,000 trailing), starting at $50,000 the floor starts at $48,000; if your end-of-day balance peaks at $51,000, the floor rises to $49,000. It never moves back down. EOD models only ratchet on the daily close; intraday models ratchet on every tick, so open profit that reverses still drags the floor up.
End-of-day (EOD) trailing only updates the floor from your balance at the daily close — open-trade peaks that fade cost you nothing. Intraday (real-time) trailing updates from your highest unrealized equity, so a trade that runs +$1,500 and comes back to breakeven still raises your floor by $1,500. Intraday trailing is significantly harsher for the same dollar allowance.
Under intraday (real-time) trailing, yes — the floor ratchets up with your open-trade equity peak. Under end-of-day trailing, no — only the closed daily balance moves the floor. This single difference is why the same $2,500 allowance feels much tighter at firms using real-time trailing.
At firms with a lock rule, the floor freezes once your balance reaches a set threshold. Topstep locks the Maximum Loss Limit at your starting balance once the floor has trailed up to it — after that, you can no longer blow the account below your initial balance. Firms without a lock keep trailing all the way through the evaluation.
Divide your remaining buffer by the number of consecutive losses you want to survive. With a fresh $2,000 buffer and a 10-loss cushion, that is $200 per trade — about 10 NQ points on one contract or 100 MNQ points on one micro. Sizing off the buffer, not the account size, is what keeps you alive through normal losing streaks.
If the firm requires your best day to stay under X% of total profit, your biggest day must stay below X% of the profit target by the time you pass. Aim for an even daily pace — profit target ÷ planned trading days — comfortably under that cap, and stop for the day before one green day dominates the total.
Don't just calculate the floor — rehearse trading against it. TestMax's prop firm challenge mode enforces these exact drawdown models (trailing EOD, real-time, static) plus consistency rules on real replayed futures data, so the first evaluation you pay for isn't your practice run.