Two-step is the most common evaluation model in prop trading, which means the useful question is not “what is it?” but “what does each phase actually measure, and how should that change the way you trade?”
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Follow along with a published rule set
It is easier to read the sections below against real objectives. FundingPips publishes its 2 Step Pro plan — 10% then 6%, 4% daily loss, 12% maximum loss, 0 minimum trading days.
Phase one asks a simple question: can you produce a return at all inside the risk limits? Phase two asks a different one: can you repeat it starting from a fresh equity curve, with no cushion, after you have already proved you can. That distinction matters. A trader who reaches phase two has usually run a favourable streak. Phase two removes the streak and restarts the drawdown clock, so the firm is really measuring whether your results survive a reset. It is a repeatability test, not a profitability test.
Practically, this is why phase two failures feel different. Most traders do not fail phase two because they cannot make money; they fail because they arrive tired, over-confident, or in a hurry, and they carry phase-one position sizing into an account that has no buffer yet.
Read the reset rules before phase two starts
ThinkCapital publishes its Dual Step Intraday objectives — 9% then 5%, 4% daily loss and a 7% challenge maximum loss — so you know exactly what resets when the second phase begins.
Across the firms listed on this site, the published phase-two target is consistently below the phase-one target — for example FundingPips publishes 10% then 6%, ThinkCapital publishes 9% then 5%, and BrightFunded publishes 8% then 5% on their own pricing pages. The reason is structural rather than generous. The firm already has one sample of your performance; the second sample exists to confirm the first, and a confirmation sample does not need to be as large. A lower target also keeps the drawdown-to-target ratio sane: if phase two demanded the same return under the same loss limits, the firm would simply be running the same test twice and filtering out consistent traders through variance.
The important consequence for you: phase two should be traded with smaller risk than phase one, not the same. The target is lower, so the risk needed to reach it is lower.
See the step-down in a published table
BrightFunded's own 2-Step table shows the pattern described above: an 8% phase-one target followed by a 5% phase-two target under the same 4% daily loss limit.
These two rules pull in opposite directions and traders routinely underestimate the squeeze. A minimum-trading-days rule sets a floor on how long the phase can take: if a firm requires five trading days, you cannot pass in three, no matter how fast you reach the target. A time limit sets a ceiling. Between the floor and the ceiling sits your actual working window.
Two failure modes come out of this. The first is the infrequent trader: if your strategy produces two or three setups a week and the firm counts only days on which a position was opened, the minimum-days requirement can become the binding constraint and push you into taking trades you would not otherwise take. The second is the fast trader: hitting the target on day two and then having to place further trades to satisfy the minimum-days rule is how comfortable passes turn into breached accounts. If you are in that position, the correct behaviour is to place minimum-size trades solely to satisfy the day count, not to keep trading normally.
Several firms now publish no minimum trading days at all (FundingPips lists 0 on its 2 Step Pro plan), which removes the floor entirely. Where a firm does not publish a time limit, treat it as unspecified and confirm it at checkout — never assume it is unlimited.
Remove the minimum-day floor entirely
FundingPips publishes 0 minimum trading days on its 2 Step Pro plan, so the squeeze between a day floor and a time ceiling described above does not apply.
Phase one carries the higher target, the full population of applicants, and the least experienced traders. Everyone who buys a challenge attempts phase one; only survivors attempt phase two. So even if the two phases were equally difficult, phase one would account for the majority of failures purely because of who is in it.
On top of that selection effect, phase one is genuinely the harder phase: the target is larger, the trader is least familiar with the platform and the rule set, and the temptation to size up to “get it over with” is strongest at the start. We do not publish numeric pass rates here, because no firm on this list publishes an audited pass rate we can cite.
A long-established firm running the model
The5ers lists a 2 Steps programme in its own program selector alongside one-step and futures products, so you can compare phase structures inside a single rulebook.
Treat the whole evaluation as one budget, not two. The constraint that kills accounts is the daily loss limit, and it applies identically in both phases. A workable framework:
Set per-trade risk from the daily loss limit, not the profit target. If the daily limit is 4%, risking more than about a third of it on any single trade means two losers can end your day.
Size phase two smaller than phase one, in proportion to the lower target.
Never increase risk after a losing day to catch up — the drawdown limit is fixed, so the catch-up trade costs more than the trade that caused the loss.
Count minimum-day trades separately: those are compliance trades at minimum size, not part of the risk budget.
Confirm the limits you are sizing against
Alpha Capital runs a standard two-phase evaluation, but its per-phase objectives are configured at checkout rather than published as a fixed table — check them there before setting per-trade risk.
The arithmetic below uses the objectives ThinkCapital publishes for its Dual Step Intraday plan (phase one 9%, phase two 5%, daily loss 4%, max loss 7% in challenge, minimum 3 trading days). It is an illustration of how to plan, not a projection of results.
Account: $50,000
Phase 1 target $4,500 · Phase 2 target $2,500 · Daily loss cap $2,000 · Max loss cap $3,500
Phase 1 plan
Risk 0.75% ($375) per trade — roughly one fifth of the daily cap, so five losers in a day would be needed to breach it, and you would stop after two. At a 1.5R average win, a 45% win rate over 40 trades produces roughly 40 × (0.45 × 1.5 − 0.55 × 1) × $375 ≈ $4,000, i.e. the target is realistically 40–50 trades away, not five. Budget four to six weeks.
Phase 2 plan
Target is 5/9 the size of phase one, so cut risk to 0.5% ($250). Same expectancy needs roughly 30 trades. Drawdown limits reset with the phase, so the fresh account has zero buffer on day one — the first three sessions are where discipline matters most.
Minimum-days interaction
Three trading days minimum is not binding at 40 and 30 trades. It becomes binding only for a trader who reaches the target in one or two sessions — in which case place two minimum-size trades on separate days rather than continuing to trade the edge.
Check the plan against the real objectives
The arithmetic above uses ThinkCapital's published Dual Step Intraday objectives. Read them in the firm's own plan table before committing to a sizing plan.
You need capital quickly. Two phases mean two full evaluation cycles before a single payout is possible. If speed to funding is the priority, a one-step evaluation or an instant-funding product is the honest answer, and you should accept the tighter drawdown that usually comes with it.
You trade infrequently. Swing traders, news-only traders and anyone taking a handful of positions a month will find minimum-trading-day rules the binding constraint across two phases. Either choose a firm publishing zero minimum days, or choose a model with fewer phases.
You are still testing a strategy. Two-step rewards a settled, repeatable process. If your method is changing week to week, the second phase will expose it — that is precisely what it is designed to do.
If any of those describe you, the sibling sites below cover the models that fit better.
Two-step still fits, but you trade infrequently?
FundingPips publishes 0 minimum trading days on its 2 Step Pro plan, which removes the day-count floor in both phases.
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FU
FundingPips
Two-step programme confirmed on the firm's own site
Traders who want a two-step route with no minimum trading days, alongside 1-Step and Zero alternatives from the same firm.
Phase 1 target8% (2-Step models)
Phase 2 target5% (2-Step models)
Daily loss limit3–5% by model (hard breach)
Max loss6–10%, static or trailing by model
Minimum trading days0
Time limitNot specified
Profit splitBi-weekly, up to 95%
FundingPips runs 2-Step Standard, Flex and Pro models; objectives differ by model, so the ranges above are model-dependent rather than a single fixed table. A consistency rule (biggest day capped at 15%) applies on some funded accounts.
Two-step programme confirmed on the firm's own site
Traders comparing two-step against the same firm's one-step and three-step programmes under one rulebook.
Phase 1 targetNot specified
Phase 2 targetNot specified
Daily loss limitNot specified
Max lossNot specified
Minimum trading days3+ profitable days required for funded payouts
Time limitNot specified
Profit splitNot specified
ThinkCapital's two-step programme is confirmed, but its drawdown values and per-phase targets are not fully verified, so they are not asserted here. News trading is prohibited by default (a 2-minute window around high-impact releases) unless the add-on is purchased.
If the framework above matches how you trade, BrightFunded's own 2-Step table (8% then 5%, 4% daily loss, 5 minimum trading days) is the closest published match to the worked example.