The short answer
A funded trader is someone who trades an account a proprietary trading firm provides, to the firm's published rules, and keeps an agreed share of the profit the account makes. At WhitePips the account is simulated: it trades against live market prices with virtual capital, so no money of yours is ever placed at market risk. What you pay is a one-off fee for the account. The payouts on a funded account are real money, paid under the Payout Policy.
Being a funded trader is not employment. The WhitePips Terms of Service say taking part does not create an employment relationship: you buy an account and trade it under the published rules.
How you become one
There are two routes, and both are printed on each plan page before you pay.
Pass an evaluation. On Edge and Prime you reach a profit target without breaching the loss limits. Edge 1 Step and Prime 1 Step have one target of 10%. Edge 2 Step and Prime 2 Step have two phases, 7.5% then 5%. There is no time limit: maximum trading days are unlimited on every CFD evaluation. On futures, One Step has a single target with no consistency rule and no minimum days during the evaluation.
Buy an instant account. Instant Pro, Instant Go and futures Instant are funded the moment you buy them. There is no target to pass, and the fee is higher than an evaluation of the same size.
If you are new to the idea, What is a prop firm? explains why a firm would fund traders at all, and Prop firm or broker shows how it differs from trading your own money at a broker.
What a funded trader's day actually involves
The trading itself is the same as on any account. What changes is that every decision is made inside a rulebook, and three numbers sit behind every trade.
The daily limit. On the CFD plans the Max Daily Loss is measured from the day's opening balance: 4% on Edge 1 Step and Prime 1 Step, 4.5% on Edge 2 Step, 5% on Prime 2 Step, 3.5% on Instant Pro and 3% on Instant Go. Reaching it is a hard breach that ends the account. On futures the Daily Loss Limit is a soft limit: trading stops for the rest of the day and the account stays open.
The account floor. The Max Loss is the most the account may ever lose. On every CFD plan it is static, a fixed floor below the starting balance that never moves. On futures it trails: One Step at the end of each day, Instant intraday, both locking once the floor reaches the starting balance. The static and trailing drawdown article shows the difference with numbers.
Position size. On CFDs the Max. Exposure rule caps your combined open positions as a share of the balance, from 5,000% on a $2.5K account to 1,000% at $200K. On futures it is a contract cap, such as 2 minis or 20 micros on $25K.
Most funded traders plan their size from those numbers first and their entries second. The dashboard's calculators, and the trading calculator on the website, compute the same limits the platform enforces.
When a funded trader gets paid
A payout is never automatic. You request it from the dashboard when your plan's conditions are met:
- Edge and Prime: the first payout on demand once the account is funded and the plan's profitable days are done (3 days of +0.5% on the 1 Step plans, 2 on the 2 Step plans), then weekly.
- Instant Pro: after your first trade, then weekly. No minimum profitable days.
- Instant Go: after your first trade, then every 14 days, with 5 profitable days of +0.5% before each payout.
- Futures: on demand once the conditions are met: 3 profitable days of +0.25% and the Profit Buffer plus the Minimum Profit Goal on One Step; 5 profitable days and the Payout Milestone on Instant; the consistency rule on both.
Every request gets an automatic receipt confirming it has been received, and it is paid by the method on file for your account: bank transfer, local bank rails in some countries, crypto (USDT, USDC, BTC or ETH), or store credit. Identity verification must be approved before the first payout, and the bank account or wallet must be in your own name. Verify early, during the evaluation. The first payout article walks through the request.
How much of the profit is yours
- Edge: 80%, up to 95% as you scale.
- Instant Pro: 75%, up to 90% as you scale.
- Instant Go: 70%, up to 85% as you scale.
- Prime: 80% for the first 30 days funded, then 100%, plus a salary of 1% of the account size a month, accrued daily.
- Futures: 90% on both plans.
Nothing about this is promised as income. What a funded trader earns depends entirely on how the account is traded.
What happens when a rule is broken
Rules are not all equal, and the consequence is written beside each one in the Trading Rules:
- Ends the account: on CFDs, Max Daily Loss and Max Loss; on futures, the Maximum Loss Limit and 15 days of inactivity.
- Warning first: Max. Exposure on CFDs is a warning the first time, which resets the profit of an account in profit; a second breach closes it. Going over the futures contract cap is a warning the first time.
- Pauses payouts only: on CFDs, HFT and Profit Concentration never end an account. While either is over its limit, payouts on that account are paused, and they open again once it is back inside.
- Reviewed by a person: practices such as news straddling are referred to the risk desk, and no account is closed by a detector alone.
What happens when you break a rule covers each outcome in more detail.
Can you be a funded trader part-time?
Yes. Funded CFD accounts have indefinite trading days and evaluations have no time limit, so you can trade around another job. The one rule about time is inactivity: on CFDs, 30 days without a closed trade ends the account; on futures, 15 days without trading deactivates it.
Trying it before you pay
After identity approval you can start one free Edge 1 Step $100K CFD account for 14 days under the paid rules. It never funds and never pays out, but it lets you see the platform, the dashboard and the rules at work. The free trial article explains it. The smallest paid account is the Edge 2 Step $2.5K at $32; on futures, the One Step $25K at $81.
Trading leveraged products carries a high risk of loss, and past performance is not a guide to future results.