Live Funded Account
A funded account where your orders route to the real market with the firm's capital, as opposed to a simulated funded account paid from evaluation revenue.
What is Live Funded Account?
A live funded account executes your trades in the real market using the firm’s capital. This contrasts with the industry-standard simulated funded account, where trading remains in a sim environment and payouts are funded by the firm’s business revenue. Live status is the top of the prop-firm ladder.
How Live Funded Account works
The typical path: pass an evaluation, trade a sim-funded account, build a payout history, then get promoted to live capital (TPT’s PRO+ is a well-known example). On live accounts, fills reflect true market liquidity — no sim-fill generosity — and firms watch risk more closely since losses are now real dollars.
Worked example
A TPT trader completes several PRO payouts and accepts promotion to PRO+. Their orders now hit the CME order book; slippage on market orders in fast conditions becomes real, and the EOD trailing drawdown replaces PRO’s intraday model — a net upgrade for most styles.
Live Funded Account vs related concepts
Side-by-side comparison of Live Funded Account against the most commonly confused alternatives.
| Concept | Definition | Category |
|---|---|---|
| Live Funded Account this term | A funded account where your orders route to the real market with the firm's capital, as opposed to a simulated funded account paid from evaluation revenue. | General Concepts |
| Funded Account | A trading account capitalized by a prop firm — usually after evaluation — where the trader executes real strategies and receives payouts under firm-defined rules. | General Concepts |
| Payout | A real-money transfer from a prop firm to the trader, settling the simulated profits earned on the trader's funded account based on the firm's profit-split percentage. | Rules & Risk |
Why traders fail Live Funded Account
Assuming “funded” means live. Read the fine print: most firms’ funded stage is simulated, which is fine — payouts are still real — but it changes what fills you can trust. Carrying sim habits to live: strategies tuned to optimistic sim fills often need re-testing against real liquidity.
Frequently asked questions about Live Funded Account
What is the difference between a live funded account and a simulated funded account?
A live account routes orders to the real market with the firm's capital; a simulated account keeps you in a sim environment with payouts funded by the firm's revenue. Both pay real money — fills and risk oversight differ.
How do you get a live funded account?
Usually by building a payout track record on a sim-funded account. Firms like Take Profit Trader promote consistent PRO traders to live capital (PRO+) after demonstrated withdrawals.