Apex Trader Funding
Apex Trader Funding Eval Rules: Trailing Threshold, Consistency Rule & Pine Script Automation
Apex rewards traders who bank gains and lock them in — and quietly punishes anyone who lets a winner run and then gives most of it back. This page covers exactly how the intraday trailing threshold moves, what the consistency rule really caps, and how an automated Pine Script strategy is built to respect both without you watching the account all day.
Apex Trader Funding evaluation rules at a glance
| Account | Profit Target | Max Drawdown (Intraday Trailing) |
|---|---|---|
| 25k | $1,500 | $1,500 |
| 50k | $3,000 | $2,500 |
| 100k | $6,000 | $3,000 |
| 150k | $9,000 | $5,000 |
| 250k | $15,000 | $6,500 |
| 300k | $20,000 | $7,500 |
Drawdown type
Intraday trailing
Trailing threshold ratchets up in real time with new intraday equity highs during the evaluation.
Daily loss limit
None, at any account size.
Consistency rule
None during evaluation. Legacy Performance Account (funded stage): 30% cap — no single day’s profit may exceed 30% of total PA profit. Newer EOD/Intraday Trailing Drawdown product lines (from the Mar 2026 rule change) use a 50% cap at payout instead.
Min trading days
1 day minimum
Payout split
New EOD/Intraday Trailing Drawdown accounts: 100% payout split. Legacy Performance Account: standard split with a "safety net" (trailing drawdown amount + $100) required on the first three payouts.
$500 minimum payout.
Automation policy
Allowed during the evaluation. Not allowed for commercial/resold automation on live Performance Accounts — a script may still drive manual-confirm execution.
Apex retired its legacy Evaluation/PA product line on March 1, 2026 in favor of two new tracks — EOD Trailing Drawdown and Intraday Trailing Drawdown — while letting existing legacy accounts keep renewing under the old terms. Dated specifics live in the Apex rule changes tracker.
How Apex's trailing threshold actually moves
The trailing threshold is Apex's drawdown floor, and it's set to intraday trailing — a stricter version than the end-of-day model Topstep uses. Walk through a 50k account step by step:
- Starting balance $50,000, trailing threshold $2,500 → the floor opens at $47,500.
- Every new equity peak — even an unrealized one, mid-trade — pushes the floor up by the same amount.
- Account touches $52,000 intraday: the floor jumps to $49,500 ($52,000 minus the $2,500 trail).
- The same trade reverses and closes flat, back at $50,000 — but the floor stays at $49,500. Two thousand dollars of cushion is gone from a trade that booked nothing.
The trail stops advancing once equity clears the profit target — $53,000 on a 50k account. From there the floor is locked and the account has real room again. Everything before that point is governed by the highest tick your equity ever touched, not by what you actually banked.
Why trailing-stop strategies get punished here
Letting a winner run and trail out — a $1,500 open gain that closes at $400 — raises the floor by the full $1,500 while only crediting $400 to the account. The floor doesn't know or care what got booked; it only tracks the peak. Fixed profit targets sidestep the entire problem, because the exit price and the peak price are the same number.
Does Apex have a consistency rule?
Yes — but only on a funded account, never during the evaluation itself. On the legacy Performance Account, no single trading day may contribute more than 30% of the total profit target: $900 max on a $3,000 target. Apex's newer EOD and Intraday Trailing Drawdown lines (from the March 2026 change) apply a more relaxed 50% cap measured at payout instead of a flat 30%.
Either way, the practical fix for an automated strategy is the same:
- Cap the daily profit target around 25% of the funded target so an unusually strong session never brushes 30%, let alone 50%.
- Disable new entries for the session once that cap is hit, even if the strategy's signals keep firing.
- Build the cap into the script itself — a hard-coded daily P&L ceiling satisfies either version of the rule with zero manual oversight.
Apex vs Topstep: which is better for automation?
Both firms are solid choices for systematic strategies, but the rule differences change how a script should be built for each:
| Feature | Apex | Topstep |
|---|---|---|
| Trailing type | Intraday trailing (aggressive) | EOD trailing (forgiving) |
| Daily loss limit (eval) | None, at any account size. | $1,000 (50k) · $2,000 (100k) · $3,000 (150k). |
| Min trading days | 1 | 10 |
| Consistency rule | 30–50% on funded accounts only | 5 winning days ≥ $200 |
| Automation on live account | Not allowed (commercial) | Semi-auto is the safer default |
| Best for | Fast passes, tight fixed-target strategies | Steady daily grinders |
A strategy firing 2-3 precise trades a session with fixed targets handles Apex's intraday trail fine. A strategy with wide intraday swings before closing green is a meaningfully easier fit for Topstep's end-of-day model.
Contract sizing for Apex evaluations
| Account | Contract | Max Contracts | Recommended Stop | Max Loss Per Trade |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 50k | MES | 10 | 6 points | $30/contract |
| 50k | MNQ | 10 | 25 ticks | $12.50/contract |
| 100k | ES | 2 | 8 points | $400/contract |
| 150k | NQ | 2 | 30 ticks | $150/contract |
A conservative starting point on a 50k account is 2-3 MES or MNQ contracts per trade, keeping per-trade risk well under $150 so a losing streak can't approach the trail on its own. Add size only after 3-4 profitable sessions have opened up real distance between equity and the floor.
How to automate Apex evaluations with TradingView and TradersPost
The full setup is three pieces:
- TradingView Pine Script strategy — generates entries and exits on the chart.
- TradingView alert — fires a webhook whenever the strategy signals, set up once and running every session after.
- TradersPost — receives the webhook and places the order on your connected Tradovate or Rithmic account.
The prop-firm logic — bar-close confirmation, an RTH session filter, a daily loss kill switch, and a daily profit cap for funded accounts — lives in the Pine Script itself. TradingView fires the alert, TradersPost places the trade, and nothing needs a human in the loop.
Common reasons Apex evaluations fail
- Giving back an open winner. A trade that peaks at +$1,500 and closes at +$300 has already moved the floor by $1,500 while banking only $300. Two of those on the same day puts a winning session within reach of the trail. Fixed-target exits remove this failure mode entirely.
- Revenge trading after a red session. No daily loss limit cuts both ways — nothing stops a trader from doubling down after a loss. A script that stops firing past a set daily drawdown removes the decision entirely.
- Sizing up too early. Running 8-10 MES contracts on day one, before the trail has any room to work with, means two losing trades can put the account within a few hundred dollars of the floor.
- Trading through high-impact news. A 50-tick spike around a CPI or NFP print can stop out a position at max loss almost instantly. A session filter that pauses entries for 30 minutes around known releases avoids this.
Which Pine Script plan fits your Apex account?
On a 50k eval, the Starter plan ($19/mo) targets MES or MNQ sized for the $2,500 trailing threshold. On a 100k or 150k eval, the Pro plan ($29/mo) covers ES or NQ. If you already have your own entry rules and just want them coded to spec, the Custom plan ($250 one-time) builds it around your exact numbers.