Every route ends in the same place: a funded account on the same rules, with the same payouts. The differences are price, speed, and one important detail about drawdown. Here is how to choose without guessing.
2-Step: the lowest fee
Two phases, 10% target in each. The fee is the lowest of the three routes, and the maximum drawdown is fixed below your starting balance — it never trails your peak.
Choose it if you are patient, fee-sensitive, and comfortable proving your edge twice. The double phase is why firms can price it low: fewer traders finish both.
1-Step: the fastest earned route
One phase, one 10% target, and you are funded. Costs more than 2-Step at the same size.
The detail that matters: on 1-Step the 6% maximum drawdown trails your peak equity. Run the account up 8% and your floor has risen with you. Traders who bank profit steadily barely notice; traders who let big open profits swing back do. If your style is "let winners breathe for days", respect the trailing floor or pick 2-Step, whose floor stays put.
Instant Funded: pay for the skip
No challenge at all — you start on a funded account immediately. The fee is the highest, because you are buying the evaluation itself.
Choose it if your time is worth more than the fee difference, or if you have already passed challenges elsewhere and have nothing left to prove to yourself. Everything else — rules, payouts, split — is identical to an earned account.
The numbers side by side
- Cost for a $100K account: 2-Step $449 · 1-Step $599 · Instant $2,500
- Phases to funding: 2 · 1 · 0
- Max drawdown: fixed · trailing · fixed
- Everything else: identical — 4% daily, 2% per trade, same payout terms
Sizes run from $10K to $300K on every route, and one trader can hold up to $1,000,000 of combined funded capital.
The choice in one sentence each
- Pick 2-Step if the fee matters most and patience is cheap for you.
- Pick 1-Step if you want funding in one clean run and you bank profits rather than ride them.
- Pick Instant if the evaluation is a formality you would rather buy than perform.
Whichever you choose, the rules are published in full before you pay a dollar: driftfund.io/rules.