Earn2Trade rules explained: the Gauntlet Mini drawdown and unrealized losses
Earn2Trade’s Gauntlet Mini sets its drawdown line on the close and checks it against your screen, and that split catches traders who read only half the rule: an intraday spike never raises the floor, but an open loss can still break it.
Prop firms change their terms, and rules differ by plan size, phase and promotion. Earn2Trade’s own rules page is authoritative — always check it against the plan you hold before you trade.
Earn2Trade at a glance
Where a row says “set per plan size”, the firm states that limit in dollars per account rather than as a single percentage — read it off your own account and enter it when you set the account up.
Start with the two clocks. The drawdown floor trails your end-of-day balance — it is recalculated once, at the afternoon close, so an intraday round trip never raises it. But the firm is explicit that open equity losses count when it checks whether you are below it. The daily loss limit counts open positions as well as closed ones. So the line is drawn from closes, and both rules are enforced against your screen right now.
That inverts the usual advice. Holding a loser does not protect you here — an unrealized drawdown is spending the daily limit in real time, and the account can be failed on a position you were still planning to be right about. The number the firm reads is your equity, not your realized P&L.
The floor stops rising once it reaches your starting balance, and everything you make above that is buffer you cannot lose back to the trail.
The daily loss limit is a dollar figure
The daily loss limit is a dollar figure that changes with account size — $1,100 on the 50K this rule set models — rather than a published percentage. It is measured against the balance you started the day with, commissions included, so yesterday’s profit does not enlarge today’s allowance. On a larger plan, read the figure off your own account and enter it.
No minimum days, and a 30% day
There is no minimum number of trading days in any phase. What stops a one-session pass is the consistency rule: no single day may be 30% or more of your total profit during the evaluation. Hit the target in one big day and you have not passed — you have raised the target, and now have to reach it without another day that size.
Worked through: on a 30% cap, a $1,200 day needs total profit above $4,000 before it stops blocking the pass. The funded accounts drop the rule and pay on a tiered split — a smaller share of the first profits, a larger one after — so check the current tiers on the firm's page.
Where the account actually dies
The typical Gauntlet Mini failure is not a dramatic one. It is a trader who holds an underwater position through the afternoon believing the loss is not real until it is closed, while the daily limit — reading equity — has already been consumed. The position is then closed by the platform at the worst available moment, on the firm’s schedule rather than the trader’s.
What most often ends an Earn2Trade account
- "It is not a loss until I close it." Against an equity-measured daily limit it is a loss the moment the market prints it.
- Chasing a one-day pass. With no minimum days it looks possible, and the 30% rule turns the big day into a longer wait.
- Ignoring that the floor ratchets on the close. A good day is banked into the drawdown line permanently, even though the intraday swings were free.
Tracking a Earn2Trade account
The reason these rules are worth reading closely is that none of them are checked by your platform. Your broker shows you a balance; the firm is watching a floor, a daily limit and a share of profit that your balance alone does not tell you about. Edgekeeper loads this rule set onto an account and does the arithmetic on every trade you log: how much daily loss room is left right now, where the drawdown floor currently sits, how many qualifying days you have, and whether one big day has put the consistency rule between you and a payout.
It also warns you before you write the trade, not after. The point is not to be a scoreboard — it is to be the thing that says "this trade takes you inside the last third of your daily loss" while you can still decide something about it.
Prop firms revise their rules regularly, and they differ by plan size, by phase and sometimes by promotion. Everything above is the rule set Edgekeeper loads for Earn2Trade, checked against the firm's own published rules on the date at the top of this page — but Earn2Trade's own page is the authority, and every field is editable on your account, so if your plan differs you can change it and the app will judge you by your numbers rather than these.
Earn2Trade rules: common questions
Does the Earn2Trade daily loss limit include open positions?
Yes on this rule set — it is measured on equity, so an unrealized loss counts against your daily allowance before you close anything. Holding a loser does not defer the breach; it spends the limit in real time.
How does the Gauntlet Mini trailing drawdown work?
The floor trails your end-of-day balance, so it moves only on the daily close and only upward. The floor stops rising once it reaches your starting balance, and everything you make above that is buffer you cannot lose back to the trail.
How many trading days does Earn2Trade require?
None — the Gauntlet Mini has no minimum trading days in the evaluation or on the funded accounts. The 30% consistency rule is what stops a single big day from passing the evaluation.
When does the Earn2Trade trading day reset?
The end-of-day drawdown is recalculated during the 4–5 p.m. CT close. This rule set starts the new day at 5:00 p.m. America/Chicago, the futures session boundary, rather than local midnight.
Track a Earn2Trade account in Edgekeeper — free
These are the exact rules Edgekeeper loads. Create the account and every trade you log updates your daily loss room, your live drawdown floor, your qualifying days and your payout eligibility — and warns you before a trade takes you past a limit. One prop account is free, forever, no card.
Track a Earn2Trade account freeOther prop firms
New to these limits? Start with daily loss vs. trailing max drawdown.