Quick Answer — Breakout Rules
- • Breakout has two drawdown types: static max drawdown on 1-Step accounts (3-6%) and trailing max drawdown on 2-Step accounts (8% from highest balance).
- • Daily loss limit is 3% on 1-Step accounts and 5% on 2-Step accounts, resetting at 00:30 UTC based on prior day's closing balance.
- • As of April 2026: No minimum trading days, no time limits, no consistency rules — you can pass the evaluation in a single trade.
- • News trading, overnight holds, weekend holds, and bots/EAs are all allowed. Cross-account hedging, HFT exploitation, and copy trading are prohibited.
- • Breaching either limit — daily loss or max drawdown — results in permanent account forfeiture with no warnings, no appeals, and no soft breaches.
Researched in depth: I've gone through every Breakout rule document, help center article, and community discussion to map out exactly how their drawdown, daily loss, and payout mechanics work. This breakdown reflects verified data from their official sources and real trader experiences.
Breakout's rules are simpler than most crypto prop firms — no consistency rules, no minimum days, no time limits. I broke it all down in my complete Breakout rules guide. For the full picture, read my complete Breakout review. For the absolute latest, check Breakout's website or their help center.
Breakout's rule set is one of the simplest in the crypto prop firm space. No consistency rules, no minimum trading days, no time limits on evaluations. That's the pitch. And honestly, it's accurate.
But "simple" doesn't mean "easy." The drawdown mechanics differ between 1-Step and 2-Step evaluations, the daily loss limit resets on a specific schedule, and one breach ends your account permanently. No second chances. I've seen traders blow accounts within hours because they didn't understand exactly how the trailing drawdown interacts with payouts on funded 2-Step accounts.
This guide covers every rule that matters across all four Breakout account types — Classic, Pro, Turbo, and the 2-Step variants.
How Does the Breakout Max Drawdown Work?
Breakout uses two different drawdown systems depending on your evaluation path.
1-Step accounts (Classic, Pro, Turbo) have a static max drawdown. It's calculated from your starting balance and never moves. On a Classic 1-Step $100K account, the max drawdown is 6% — meaning your floor is $94,000. Period. You could grow the account to $115,000 and that floor stays at $94,000. It never trails upward.
2-Step accounts use a trailing max drawdown. The formula is simple: Highest Balance - 8% of starting balance. On a $100K 2-Step account, that's Highest Balance - $8,000. If your balance hits $105,000, your drawdown floor moves up to $97,000.
One critical detail most traders miss: the trailing drawdown on 2-Step accounts caps at your starting balance. If your $100K account grows to $109,000, the drawdown floor becomes $101,000 — but it won't trail past $100,000 even if your balance goes higher. That cap is your safety net.
| Account Type | Drawdown Type | Percentage | $100K Example | Behavior |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Classic 1-Step | Static | 6% | Floor = $94,000 (fixed) | Never moves, regardless of profits |
| Pro 1-Step | Static | 5% | Floor = $95,000 (fixed) | Never moves, regardless of profits |
| Turbo 1-Step | Static | 3% | Floor = $97,000 (fixed) | Never moves — tightest buffer |
| Classic 2-Step | Trailing | 8% | HWM - $8,000 | Trails highest balance, caps at starting balance |
What Is the Breakout Daily Loss Limit?
The daily loss limit at Breakout resets every day at 00:30 UTC, based on your account's closing balance from the previous day. Not the starting balance. Not the high water mark. The closing balance.
On 1-Step accounts (Classic, Pro, Turbo), the daily loss limit is 3%. On 2-Step accounts, it's 5%.
Here's how the calculation works. Say you have a Classic 1-Step account and your balance at 00:30 UTC is $105,000. Your daily loss limit for the next 24 hours is 3% of $105,000 = $3,150. That means your equity can't drop below $101,850 at any point during the day. If it touches that number — even for a second while a position is open — you're breached.
This reset mechanism is important. If you had a winning day and your balance grew, your daily limit the next day is calculated on that higher balance. More room. If you had a losing day, the limit tightens.
The equity check is real-time. Open positions count. There's no waiting for the candle to close or the trade to settle. If your unrealized P&L pushes your equity to or below the limit, the account is gone.
What Are the Breakout Profit Targets?
Profit targets vary by account type and evaluation phase.
Classic 1-Step: 10% of starting balance. On a $100K account, that's $10,000. Hit it and you're funded. One trade, one day, one week — doesn't matter.
Classic 2-Step: Phase 1 is 5%, Phase 2 is 10%. On a $100K account, that's $5,000 first, then $10,000 on the second phase.
Pro accounts: Targets range from 12% ($5K account) to 24% ($200K account). These are significantly higher than Classic. The trade-off is a tighter max drawdown (5% static) but you get Pro-tier accounts that can scale.
Turbo accounts: Lower targets than Pro but the tightest drawdown in the lineup at just 3% max. These are designed for traders who want the cheapest entry and can manage extremely tight risk.
No partial targets. No scaling targets. No weekly minimums. You hit the number or you don't.
What Happens When You Breach a Breakout Rule?
Permanent account forfeiture. Immediately. No warnings.
This applies equally to evaluation and funded accounts. If your equity reaches or drops below either the daily loss limit or the max drawdown limit at any point, the account is closed.
There are no "soft breaches" at Breakout. Other firms sometimes give you a warning or let you keep trading if you touch the limit briefly. Not here. The check runs continuously on your equity (including open positions), and there's no grace period.
No appeals process either. I've seen traders in the Discord argue that a spread spike or a liquidation cascade caused the breach. Doesn't matter. The system is automated and final.
If you want to trade again after a breach, you buy a new evaluation at full price. No discounted resets, no free retries. Breakout is transparent about this being a conflict of interest — they make money when traders fail and repurchase.
What Does Breakout Allow and Prohibit?
Breakout's list of allowed strategies is longer than most prop firms.
Allowed:
- News trading (no restrictions, no blackout windows)
- Overnight position holding
- Weekend position holding
- Bots and Expert Advisors (no technical support provided)
- Hedging within the same account
- VPN usage (as long as you're not misrepresenting your location)
- Scalping
- Swing trading
- Any trading style, any session, any timeframe
Prohibited:
- Cross-account hedging (opening opposite positions on different Breakout accounts)
- High-frequency trading exploitation (gaming the execution system, not regular HFT)
- Copy trading from external signals, social media, or research reports
- Sharing account credentials or letting someone else trade your evaluation
- Exploiting pricing errors or platform glitches
The prohibited list is pretty standard across crypto prop firms. The key difference is what's NOT on it. Most futures prop firms restrict news trading or add consistency rules. Breakout doesn't.
How Does Leverage Work at Breakout?
Breakout's leverage is auto-enforced by the system. You can't adjust it manually.
BTC and ETH: 5:1 maximum leverage All other altcoins: 2:1 maximum leverage
That's conservative compared to competitors. HyroTrader offers up to 100:1. Tradeify Crypto caps at 5:1 as well. If you're used to high leverage on exchanges like Bybit or Binance, the 5:1 cap on BTC will feel restrictive.
For a $100K account trading BTC, 5:1 leverage means you can control up to $500,000 in notional value. On altcoins with 2:1, you're limited to $200,000 notional. These limits apply across your entire account — not per position.
The upside of lower leverage: it's harder to accidentally blow through your daily loss limit. With 100:1 leverage, a 0.3% move against you on a full position wipes your 3% daily limit. At 5:1, you need a 6% move for the same damage. The system protects you from yourself.
What Are the Breakout Trading Fees?
As of April 2026, Breakout charges 0.04% per side on every trade. That's $4 per $10,000 in notional value, or $8 round trip.
There's also a swap fee of 0.09% per day on open positions. This gets deducted at 12:25 AM UTC for any positions held at 12:00 AM UTC. Swing traders and overnight holders need to factor this in.
On a $100K account with 5:1 leverage on BTC, a single round-trip trade at full size would cost roughly $400 in fees. That's not trivial. For scalpers doing 20+ trades a day, fees eat into profits fast. This is one of the few areas where Breakout's costs are higher than spot exchange trading.
No monthly platform fees. No data feed charges. No inactivity fees. The trading fees and swap costs are the only recurring expenses.
How Do Breakout Payouts Interact With Drawdown?
This is where 2-Step funded accounts get tricky.
When you request a payout on a 2-Step funded account, your High Water Mark drops by the payout amount. Here's a real scenario:
Your $100K 2-Step account grows to $103,000. High Water Mark is $103,000. Max drawdown floor is $95,000 ($103,000 - $8,000). You request a payout for the full $3,000 profit.
After the payout, your balance returns to $100,000. But your High Water Mark also drops by $3,000, back to $100,000. Your new drawdown floor is $92,000 ($100,000 - $8,000).
The practical effect: every payout resets your drawdown cushion. You're essentially starting fresh after each withdrawal. This is why many funded traders let profits accumulate before withdrawing.
On 1-Step funded accounts, this isn't an issue. The drawdown is static and doesn't trail, so payouts don't affect your floor.
First payout bonus: Breakout refunds your entire evaluation fee with your first payout. A $999 Classic 1-Step $100K evaluation effectively costs $0 if you pass and withdraw. That's a meaningful differentiator.
What Markets Can You Trade on Breakout?
Breakout is crypto-only. No forex, no stocks, no futures, no commodities.
As of April 2026, they offer 50-100+ USDT perpetual futures contracts. The exact number varies as they add and remove pairs. Core assets include:
BTC, ETH, SOL, XRP, DOGE, PEPE, AVAX, LINK, ADA, DOT, MATIC, and dozens of smaller altcoins.
Liquidity is sourced from tier-1 centralized exchanges — OKX, Bybit, and Binance. This means you're trading against real order books, not a simulated B-book. The order depth is visible in the Breakout Terminal, and fills should match what you'd get on the exchange itself.
Trading runs 24/7, 365 days a year. No market open/close schedule. No futures settlement times. Just continuous crypto markets.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does Breakout have a consistency rule?
No. Breakout does not have any consistency rule in either the evaluation or funded phase. There's no requirement that profits be spread evenly across days, no lot size restrictions, and no percentage caps on single-day gains. You can make your entire profit target in one trade on one day.
Can you hold positions over the weekend at Breakout?
Yes. Breakout allows overnight and weekend position holding without restrictions. Be aware that crypto markets run 24/7, so there's no true "weekend close" like futures markets. Liquidity can thin out on weekends, leading to wider spreads and more volatile moves. The swap fee of 0.09% per day still applies.
What happens if you breach the daily loss limit at Breakout?
Breakout permanently closes the account if your equity touches or falls below the daily loss limit at any point during the trading day. This applies to both evaluation and funded accounts. There are no warnings, no soft breaches, and no appeal process. The check runs in real-time against your equity, including unrealized P&L from open positions.
How does the Breakout daily loss limit reset?
The Breakout daily loss limit resets at 00:30 UTC every day. The new limit is calculated as a percentage of your account's closing balance at that time — 3% for 1-Step accounts and 5% for 2-Step accounts. If your balance grew from profits, the next day's dollar limit is larger. If it shrank, the limit tightens.
Is news trading allowed on Breakout?
Yes. Breakout fully allows news trading with no restrictions. There are no blackout windows before or after economic events, no position size limits during high-impact news, and no penalties for trading through volatile announcements. This makes Breakout one of the more permissive crypto prop firms for event-driven strategies.
Can you use trading bots or EAs on Breakout?
Yes. Breakout permits bots and Expert Advisors on their platform. The caveat is that they provide no technical support for automated trading setups. If your bot malfunctions and breaches a drawdown limit, it's on you. The account gets closed the same way it would for a manual trading error.
What is the profit split at Breakout?
As of April 2026, Breakout offers an 80% profit split by default, with an option to upgrade to 90% as an add-on. After three months of consistent profitability with at least two payouts and no open positions, the split can increase to 95%. All payouts are in USDC on the ERC-20 network.
How much does a Breakout evaluation cost?
Breakout evaluation fees range from $45 (Turbo $5K) to $1,399 (Pro $200K). The Classic 1-Step $100K account costs $999 and the Classic 2-Step $100K costs $749. These fees are non-refundable once trading begins. However, Breakout refunds the full evaluation fee with your first successful payout.
Is there a time limit on Breakout evaluations?
No. Breakout evaluations have no time limit. You can take as long as you need to hit the profit target, as long as you don't breach the daily loss or max drawdown limits. There are also no minimum trading days required — theoretically, you can pass in a single trade.
Can you trade altcoins on Breakout?
Yes. Breakout offers 50-100+ altcoin USDT perpetual futures beyond BTC and ETH, including SOL, XRP, DOGE, PEPE, LINK, and many others. Altcoin leverage is capped at 2:1, compared to 5:1 for BTC/ETH. Liquidity is aggregated from OKX, Bybit, and Binance, so popular altcoins have decent order book depth.
The bottom line: Breakout's rules are genuinely simple. No consistency rules, no time limits, no minimum days. The drawdown mechanics are the only part that requires real attention — especially the trailing drawdown on 2-Step accounts and how payouts reduce your High Water Mark. If you trade within 1.5% of your daily limit per position, you'll never get close to breaching. The firm is built for crypto traders who want clear rules and fast execution. If you need MT4/MT5, leverage above 5:1, or want to trade forex and futures, look elsewhere.
