How the first-step restart works

What does the restart actually give you?

A breach fails the account. The trading rules page is blunt about it: there are no warnings, no partial penalties and no soft strikes, and the rules are checked automatically against your trade history. The inactivity rule fails an account the same way. Without the restart, a failed first step means that fee is spent and the account is closed.

The restart changes that one outcome. The home page describes it in five words: same size, same rules, fresh balance. You keep the account size you bought, you trade under the rule book you already know, and the balance goes back to the starting figure for that size. Nothing about the evaluation gets easier or harder. The target is still 5% of the account size, the daily loss limit is still 5%, the overall limit is still 12%, trailed from peak equity, and you still need at least 5 trading days and 5 closed trades before the step can be passed.

A failed first step costs half the full fee to try again, once.

What does it cost on each size?

The price is half the full fee for the account size. Pay After You Pass uses the full 1-Step fee, so its restart price is the 1-Step figure in the table.

Pay After You Pass is covered too. The restart is half the full 1-Step fee, not half of what you paid at checkout. On the €100,000 size that is €367.50, against €147 paid at checkout. The restart does not settle the rest of the fee either: the rest of the Pay After You Pass fee is still due once you pass, and the funded account opens on the day it is paid.

When does it apply, and when does it not?

The trigger is narrow, so read it literally.

It applies when the first step ends, by a breach or by an inactivity failure. On the 1-Step Challenge and on Pay After You Pass there is only one step, so the restart covers the whole evaluation. On the 2-Step Challenge it covers Step 1.

It does not apply to Step 2 of the 2-Step Challenge. If you pass Step 1 and then breach in Step 2, it was not the first step that ended, so the condition is not met. It does not apply to a funded account either, for the same reason. And it does not apply twice: the site says once, and a restarted account that breaches again has used its one restart.

There is no restart for running out of time, because there is no time to run out of. No step on any program has a deadline. The clock that does exist is the inactivity rule: more than 5 days, counted in full 24-hour periods with weekends included, without opening or closing a trade fails the account. The count runs from your last trade, or from activation if you have not traded yet. If that happens in the first step, the restart covers it just like a breach. It is still your one restart, so it is better not to spend it on a quiet week.

A worked example on a €50,000 2-Step Challenge

You buy the €50,000 2-Step Challenge for €240. Step 1 needs a 5% profit, which is €2,500. The daily loss limit during the evaluation is also 5%, so €2,500 in one trading day, and the overall limit is 12%, so €6,000.

On your third trading day, a run of losing trades plus one open position takes the day's drawdown past €2,500. The daily drawdown rule counts floating losses as well as closed ones, so the account fails at that moment, even if the open trade would have come back later.

Because it was Step 1, you can restart the same €50,000 account once for €120. Your spend on that account is now €360 in total. The balance returns to €50,000, the target is €2,500 again, and every rule is unchanged.

Now suppose the restarted account passes Step 1 and later breaches in Step 2. No second restart is available, because the restart has been used and because Step 2 is not a first step. Your remaining option is a new account at the full fee.

Restart or new account?

The home page gives both options after a breach: restart the same account once at half its fee, or buy a new account at any time. On price alone the restart is the cheaper path, since it is half of what a new account of the same size and program costs.

A new account makes sense in cases the restart does not cover: you want a different size, you want a different program, the breach was in Step 2 or on a funded account, or the restart has already been used. The guide to picking a program sets out how the three programs differ if you are thinking of switching. For what a breach means across the whole rule book, see what happens when you breach.

Whichever you choose, the restart does not change the odds of passing. Passing an evaluation is never certain, and results on a Simulated Demo Trading Account vary. The restart only changes what a first-step breach costs you.

Frequently asked questions