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Guides · 2026-09-06 · 7 min read

Prop Firm Profit Deduction Rules: Soft Breaches Explained

Some prop firm rules take your profit without closing your account. See how prop firm profit deduction rules work at FundingPips, FTMO and Alpha Capital.

Some prop firm rules take money out of your account without closing it. You keep trading, the dashboard still says the account is active, and the profit you thought you had earned is smaller or gone.

We call these soft breaches — where money disappears without the account closing. Prop firm profit deduction rules are the most common kind, and almost no comparison table shows them, because they are not a number.

What a soft breach is, in dollars

A hard breach is the version everyone knows. You cross a loss limit, the firm closes the account, and the challenge fee is spent.

A soft breach never closes the account. Instead the firm removes the profit from a particular trade, or cuts the share of profit you are allowed to withdraw, or blocks the withdrawal until something changes.

Here is what that looks like on a $100,000 account. Say you finish a month $10,000 up on a firm paying an 80% reward split, which is the share of profit you keep. Normally you withdraw $8,000. If a rule has cut your split to 40%, you withdraw $4,000.

Nothing was breached. The account is fine. You are $4,000 poorer, and nothing warned you, because the cost only appears at the payout window.

Which firms have a documented soft breach rule

FirmDocumented soft breachWhat it costs you
FundingPipsStriking System, four stages, triggered when one trade idea reaches 1.2% floating loss (1.0% on the Monthly payout cycle)Strike one removes the profit from that trade idea. Strike two halves the reward split from 80% to 40%. Strike three drops it to 20%. Strike four is a breach.
FundingPipsNews rule on Master accountsOpening or closing within five minutes before to five minutes after high-impact news deducts the profit from that trade. Deliberate news trading closes the account.
FTMOBest Day Rule, on the 1-Step product onlyBest day is capped at 50% of the sum of positive days. Not a breach. It blocks the account from passing and blocks payouts until the ratio falls.
Alpha CapitalWeekend holding on a Qualified Pro accountThe profit from that trade is forfeited. The account is not closed.
Hola PrimeNot disclosedStop losses are mandatory on every trade and a missing stop loss counts as infinite risk, but the consequence is not stated.
FundedNextNot disclosedWe have not found a documented deduction rule. That is not a claim that none exists.
The 5%ersPartially disclosedOrders are forbidden within two minutes either side of major news. The consequence is not stated.

[sources: https://help.fundingpips.com/hc/en-us/articles/34501809112081-2-Step-Standard, Tier B, verified 2026-09-04 · https://ftmo.com/en/trading-objectives/, Tier B, verified 2026-09-04 · https://alphacapitalgroup.uk/posts/alpha-capital-rules-explained-drawdown-profit-targets-daily-loss-and-evaluation-rules-2026, Tier B, verified 2026-09-04 · https://the5ers.com/terms-and-conditions/, Tier A, verified 2026-09-05]

How the FundingPips Striking System works

The Striking System is the most detailed soft breach rule we have recorded. It runs on trade ideas, not on individual trades.

A trade idea is one trade, or several positions on the same instrument in the same direction, or any new position opened within ten minutes of closing a losing trade. Re-entering fast does not give you a fresh start. It extends the same idea.

A strike is issued when one trade idea reaches a floating loss of 1.2% of the account. On a $100,000 account that is $1,200 of unrealised loss on a single idea. On the Monthly payout cycle the trigger is 1.0%, which is $1,000.

Two details make this heavier than it first reads. Strikes are cumulative for the account's lifetime and do not reset after a reward, so three strikes earned across three separate months still leave you one away from a breach.

And trades are never force-closed. The platform does not stop you. You find out what a strike cost when you try to withdraw.

The rule that costs nothing until you try to get paid

FTMO's Best Day Rule works differently and shows the second shape a soft breach takes. It does not remove money. It locks it.

The rule caps your single best day at 50% of the sum of your positive days. Losing days are excluded from that total, which makes it tighter than 50% sounds.

Make $6,000 on Monday and lose $4,000 later in the week. Your positive days total $6,000, and one day holds all of it. That is 100%, not 60%, and the payout is blocked until the ratio comes down by trading more days.

This applies to FTMO's 1-Step product only. The 2-Step does not have it at all. Two products from the same firm, and one of them can freeze a payout the other would release.

What firms give up by not having these rules

A firm without a deduction rule has to control risk somewhere else, and usually does.

FundingPips caps risk per trade idea at 2% of the account, which is $2,000 on $100,000, and 3% on account sizes from $25,000 to $50,000. Alpha Capital requires an average trade duration above two minutes. Hola Prime requires a stop loss on every trade and caps risk at 2% per trade idea.

Those are hard limits written in advance. A deduction rule does the opposite. It lets the trade happen and takes the money afterwards, so the cost is knowable only after the fact.

Who needs to read these rules most closely

If you average down or re-enter quickly, the trade idea definition is the one that will catch you. Ten minutes is a long window when a trade goes against you and you want to try again.

If your profit arrives in a few large sessions, best-day rules are your constraint. They will not stop you trading. They will stop you withdrawing.

If you trade news releases, check whether the penalty is a deduction or a closure, because those are very different outcomes. Our list of prop firms and their news trading rules records the windows firm by firm.

If you hold positions over the weekend, check the funded stage separately from the evaluation stage, because several of these rules only switch on after you pass.

What we could not verify

  • How the 1.2% strike trigger relates to the 2% maximum risk per trade idea at FundingPips. Both numbers appear in the same rule set. The page we read does not explain how they interact, and we are not going to guess.
  • The full text of FundingPips' Profit Concentration Policy. We have recorded that it took effect on 27 June 2026 and applies to new accounts only, with existing accounts explicitly grandfathered. We have not captured the complete wording.
  • What The 5%ers does when the two-minute news window is broken. The prohibition is in the terms. The consequence is not disclosed, and not disclosed is not the same as no penalty.
  • What Hola Prime does about a missing stop loss. The firm states that a trade without a stop loss counts as infinite risk. It does not state the outcome.
  • Whether FTMO, FundedNext or The 5%ers run any graduated warning system. We have not found one. Absence of a published rule is not evidence that there is no rule.
  • No terms and conditions have been read for FundingPips, Hola Prime or Alpha Capital. Everything above comes from public rule pages. Our methodology page explains how we grade sources.

FAQ

Can a prop firm take your profit without closing your account?

Yes, and several publish rules that do exactly that. FundingPips deducts the profit from a trade idea at the first strike and halves the reward split at the second. Alpha Capital forfeits the profit from a position held over the weekend on a Qualified Pro account.

What is a soft breach in prop trading?

A rule that costs you money without ending the account. The three forms we have recorded are profit deducted from a specific trade, the reward split cut, and the payout blocked until a ratio improves.

Do prop firm warnings reset after a payout?

At FundingPips, no. Strikes are cumulative for the account's lifetime and do not reset after a reward. Other firms have not disclosed whether they run any comparable system.

Why do comparison tables not show these rules?

Because a soft breach is not a single number. A four-stage warning system with a percentage trigger, a lifetime counter and three different penalties does not fit in a column, so most sites leave it out entirely.

Sources

Related pages: FundingPips firm profile · FTMO firm profile · how prop firm rules are structured

Every figure above is traced to a Tier A or Tier B source (the firm's own terms, rules or help pages). Nothing from aggregators or review sites is used to state a fact. Rules change; the firm's live pages override this article. Not financial advice.