There's no trick, but there is an order. First check that the way you trade makes money after costs; then choose the account by its time limit, not its discount, and size your trades to each day's cushion. In our simulations, sizing alone took the same trader from passing 64% of evaluations to 91%.
This guide sums up what we've measured in our lab, with a link to the article behind each number where we have it in English.
1. Check you have an edge after costs
No sizing rule and no firm turns a losing way of trading into a winning one. With an 8-tick target and stop on the micro Nasdaq and realistic costs, you need a 77.5% win rate just to break even. Before paying for an evaluation, ask your strategy three things: real costs, enough trades and a forward test.
2. Look at the time limit before the discount
The same scalper passes 98% of evaluations in an account with no time limit and 17% in one with 30 days: they don't blow more accounts, they run out of time. The time limit matters more than any discount.
3. Size your trades to today's cushion
Today's cushion (the distance to the floor, or what's left of the daily loss limit if that's less) should be able to take 10 typical losses. That rule raised pass rates from 64% to 91% without touching the strategy; the price is taking longer (how many contracts to trade, with a calculator).
4. Understand your trailing drawdown
With the same trader and the same drawdown, intraday trailing passed 58% and end-of-day trailing 63%: with intraday trailing, profits you give back count as if you had closed them (trailing drawdown explained).
5. Read what happens when you hit the daily loss limit
At your normal size you won't hit it. But if hitting it blows the account and you trade 3× your size, pass rates fall from 40.7% to 17.4%, and 82% of accounts are lost to that limit (daily loss limit, with a calculator).
6. The consistency rule only stops people in a hurry
At normal size it changed nothing (61.3% passed with and without the rule). At 4× size, a 40% rule cut pass rates from 38.6% to 25.9% (the consistency rule, with a real-target calculator).
7. Be wary of what's popular and what's optimized
- The best of the 13 most popular TradingView strategies passed 11% and blew 36% (the study).
- If you test 100 strategies with no edge, the best one will look good 9 times out of 10.
- The best bot combinations of the past blew between 13% and 32% of accounts in years that weren't used to choose them.
8. Follow the rules that aren't in the table
News, straddles, bots and trade copiers: what one firm allows can cost you the account at another. Read your firm's help center for news, straddle, automation and copy before you buy.
9. Before you pay, simulate with your numbers
The free simulator puts it all together: it applies each firm's trailing drawdown, daily loss limit, consistency rule and time limit to your stats or your NinjaTrader CSV and tells you how many evaluations you'd pass, how many you'd blow and what size suits you. Unfamiliar terms are in the glossary.
Simulated and hypothetical results, with the limitations that implies. Not investment advice. Firm rules change: check them on each firm's website. This article contains no affiliate links.