Why traders lose prop firm accounts: what 1,150 negative reviews say
We read 1,150 recent one- and two-star Trustpilot reviews of 15 prop firms that offer MetaTrader 5, and sorted each one by the main reason the trader gave for failing, losing the account or not being paid. Most reviews were written between August and October 2026. These are the traders' own accounts of what happened; they are not checked facts. Still, the same reasons come up again and again, and many of them can be avoided.
The main reasons
| Reason given by the reviewer | Reviews | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Slippage, spread or platform problem | 137 | 11.9% |
| Payout refused | 127 | 11.0% |
| Price or support complaint | 109 | 9.5% |
| Same IP, VPN, VPS or device as another account | 96 | 8.3% |
| Daily or maximum loss limit broken | 90 | 7.8% |
| Identity check (KYC) | 79 | 6.9% |
| Account closed with no reason given | 73 | 6.3% |
| Stop loss required or risk per trade idea | 64 | 5.6% |
| Copy trading, group trading or EA use flagged | 53 | 4.6% |
| "Gambling" or prohibited strategy | 33 | 2.9% |
| Open-loss limit separate from the daily limit | 29 | 2.5% |
| Consistency rule (best day share) | 25 | 2.2% |
| New limits added after passing | 21 | 1.8% |
| Minimum holding time or HFT rule | 21 | 1.8% |
| News rule | 19 | 1.7% |
| Hedging within or across accounts | 17 | 1.5% |
About half of the reviews describe something no trader can control: identity checks, support, payout decisions or closures with no reason. The other half describe rules that the trader could have seen coming.
1. The daily limit is measured differently at every firm
Reviewers who broke the daily limit often say they did not know how it was calculated. Firms differ in three ways:
- The starting point: balance, equity, or the higher of the two at the start of the day.
- The reset time: for example midnight Central European time at FTMO, 5 pm New York time at Blue Guardian, and midnight server time at several others.
- Whether floating loss, commission and swap count. At most firms they do, so a trade closed later in profit can still have broken the limit while it was open.
Several reviewers lost an account by a few dollars, often because of commission or slippage on the closing trade.
2. Rules that are not the daily or maximum loss
A guard that only watches daily and maximum loss misses many of the rules in these reviews:
- Risk per trade idea. Some firms add up all trades on the same symbol and direction opened within a few minutes and treat them as one idea with a risk cap, often 2% of the starting balance. Some also fail a trade that has no stop loss after a few minutes.
- Open-loss limits. Some firms fail or reduce the account when floating loss on one trade or on all trades reaches 1% to 3%, separate from the daily limit.
- Margin and "gambling". Using a very large share of margin in one trade is treated as gambling at several firms, and profits can be removed.
- Minimum holding time. Profit from trades closed in under one to five minutes can be removed, depending on the firm.
- News windows. Opening or closing trades a few minutes around high-impact news is banned or capped at many firms, often only on funded accounts.
3. Account-sharing checks
The largest single cause of refused payouts in this sample was a match with another account: the same IP address, VPN, VPS or device. Travelling, mobile data and shared computers were mentioned often. If you trade prop accounts, keep to one computer and one connection, and check your firm's rules on VPS use before using one.
4. Slippage and spread
The most common complaint was a stop loss filled far away from its price, or a spread spike, usually around major news or at the market open. No program can stop a single price jump. What helps is keeping a safety margin before each limit, closing trades before major news when your firm allows news trading anyway, and not holding trades through the daily market break.
What you can do
- Read your own account's rules for how the daily limit is measured and when the day resets.
- Keep a safety margin before every limit instead of trading up to it.
- Check the rules that are not loss limits: risk per trade idea, open loss, margin, holding time and news.
- Ask your firm before using any EA, including tools that only manage risk. Several firms restrict them.
About the tool we built from this
We used this review data to build Challenge Keeper, a MetaTrader 5 program that watches a prop firm account and acts before these rules are broken, or only warns you at firms that do not allow tools that change trades. It has presets for 14 prop firms and a free Strategy Tester demo: Challenge Keeper on the MQL5 Market.
Method: the 60 to 100 most recent one- and two-star reviews per firm, read on Trustpilot, sorted by the main reason each reviewer gave. The firms were the 15 MetaTrader 5 prop firms with the most Trustpilot reviews in the last 12 months.
