Only Two Prop Firms Can Actually Run Grid/Trailing-Repeat EAs: "Not Banned" and "Usable" Are Different Things
※ This article reflects each firm's public terms and help center as confirmed on September 16, 2026. This is not investment advice. Grid and trailing-repeat strategies can see floating losses expand rapidly. Firm-specific rules change often, so always check each firm's official site before purchasing.
We get a lot of questions about running grid or "trailing-repeat" (トラップリピートイフダン, i.e. a repeating range-trading system) EAs on prop accounts, but most people are checking the wrong thing.
The common approach is to look at the list of banned practices and see if it mentions "grid." That's the wrong test. Firms that explicitly ban grid by name are actually a minority — most of the big names don't mention it at all. And yet it still doesn't work. The real reason lies elsewhere.
The short answer, up front
| Firm | Grid / trailing-repeat | Off-the-shelf EA | Floating-loss cap | DD basis | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| City Traders Imperium 1-Step | Explicitly allowed | Allowed (no proof of ownership needed) | Not specified | Balance-based, 5% trailing, no daily DD | ◎ |
| Fintokei | Not on the ban list | Not allowed (self-made only) | 3% combined across all open positions | Equity, static 10% (based on initial capital) | ○ |
| FTMO | Not named | Allowed | "Significantly oversized position" clause | Equity, static 10% | △ |
| E8 Markets | Could not confirm it's named | Allowed | Discretionary clause allowing a cap down to 1% | Equity, static | △ |
| Funding Pips | Not named | Not allowed | Risk Per Trade Idea | Equity | △ |
| Hantec Trader | Not named | Allowed (challenge phases only, custom settings required) | Post-Funded, combined floating loss capped at 3% of initial balance | Equity | △ |
| Funded7 | Allowed within Rule 2's risk limits | Allowed | 1–3% by tier | Equity | △ |
| Moneta Funded | Explicitly banned | Not allowed | 2–3% per symbol | Equity | ✕ |
| Eightcap Challenges | Explicitly banned | Allowed | Cap of 10 simultaneous positions | Equity | ✕ |
| Alpha Capital | — | Fully automated EAs banned outright | 1–3% per symbol | Equity | ✕ |
Only two firms can actually run this. And they're completely different in character.
Three reasons "not banned" isn't enough
① When there's a floating-loss cap, the rules themselves dictate how many levels you can run
Grid trading only works by carrying floating losses. But most prop accounts have a clause limiting "risk per trade idea" or "open risk," and the account closes the instant floating loss touches that percentage — not a stop-loss, an account termination.
The tricky part is that this cap is per symbol at some firms and account-wide at others.
- Fintokei: 3% applies to the combined total of all open positions (regardless of symbol or direction). This is the worst possible match for a grid
- Moneta Funded / Alpha Capital / Hola Prime: 2–3% per symbol. And re-entering the same symbol in the same direction within 10 minutes gets combined into the same total. If your grid's spacing is faster than 10 minutes, every level gets summed into a single trade
- Hantec Trader: on a Funded account, if the combined floating loss across all positions reaches 3% of the initial balance, it's an instant fail (no such rule during the evaluation)
② Equity-based DD kills you on floating losses alone
This is the core issue. Whether max drawdown is measured on equity (including unrealized P&L) or on balance (realized P&L only) completely changes how survivable a grid is.
Most firms use equity. That means you can fail the instant floating loss balloons — even if you haven't closed a single losing trade. Grid trading operates on the premise that "this is a floating loss now, but it'll turn into profit once price comes back," which is fundamentally incompatible with equity-based judging.
Firms that use balance-based drawdown don't count floating losses against your DD no matter how large they get, as long as you don't close the position. That's the only kind of account where a grid can survive.
③ Whether off-the-shelf EAs are allowed is a separate rule at every firm
Trailing-repeat EAs are often purchased off the shelf. But the line between self-made and commercial EAs is a completely separate clause from whether grid is allowed — and this is where people trip up.
Fintokei lists "using unauthorized 3rd-party signals or EAs" as its fourth banned practice. Grid itself isn't banned, but a purchased trailing-repeat EA can't be used. It has to be self-made, or something you've configured and manage the logic for yourself.
Top pick #1: City Traders Imperium 1-Step
Founded in London in 2018, this is the only firm that satisfies every condition here. Confirmed via the official EA guide and the 1-Step rules table.
- Martingale: allowed ("Martingale is explicitly allowed on the 1-Step Challenge")
- Grid: allowed ("test higher-risk models such as martingale or grid systems if you apply proper risk management")
- Third-party EAs: allowed, and no proof of ownership required ("Third-party EAs are permitted without requiring proof of ownership")
- Drawdown: Balance Based (highest balance reached minus 5% of the starting balance — floating losses don't move it)
- Daily drawdown: none
- News trading and weekend holding: allowed
- Profit target 8% / minimum 3 profitable days / 80% split (up to 90–100% for VIP)
- Price: $2.5K $29 / $5K $49 / $10K $79 / $25K $159 / $50K $299 / $100K $449
Balance-based DD, no daily DD, and no documented floating-loss cap — this three-piece combination was the only one we found anywhere in this survey. It lines up directly with a design built around "carry a floating loss and wait for it to come back," which is exactly what a trailing-repeat EA does.
The practices that are banned are HFT, exploiting latency/errors, and gap-chasing at market close, plus any pattern that looks like it's "gaming the system." A normal grid strategy doesn't fall into any of these.
Two caveats. First, this condition is exclusive to the 1-Step. The 2-Step, Instant, and Direct plans are a completely different setup ("self-made EAs only, no martingale"). Pick the wrong plan and all of this flips.
Second, the 5% trailing DD is a fixed 5% of the starting balance. As your balance climbs, the floor rises with it, so even if you can survive a floating loss, tolerance for a realized loss stays at 5% the entire time. A grid's "close everything out at the end" move can blow through that floor in one shot.
Top pick #2: Fintokei (but the rules dictate how many levels you can run)
This is the only candidate that lets you operate entirely in Japanese. As confirmed via the official help center on September 16, 2026, there are 9 banned trading practices, and neither grid, martingale, nor "nanpin" (averaging down) is among them.
What's more, martingale was explicitly unbanned as of July 28, 2025. Here's the original text:
"As of July 28, 2025, Martingale Trading & Aggressive Averaging is no longer listed among our prohibited trading practices." "You will not be penalized for using Martingale or Aggressive Averaging."
The same page states this is not recommended, and spells out the guardrails it uses instead: the Maximum Risk limit on open trades (a floating-loss cap) and the Daily Loss Limit. In other words, Fintokei switched to a policy of "we don't restrict the method, we restrict the amount of risk."
And this Maximum Risk is 3%, and it applies to the combined total of every position open at once. This is what dictates the number of grid levels you can run, straight from the rulebook.
Working backward to figure out how many levels you can stack
For an equal-lot, equal-spacing grid, the floating loss at the moment price has dropped all the way to the bottom level works out as:
Floating loss = lot size per level × contract size × spacing × n(n−1)/2Take an example on Sapphire (¥20M) trading XAUUSD, 0.05 lots per level (= 5 oz), $5/oz spacing. The cap is 3% of ¥20M = ¥600,000 (about $3,750 at ¥160/dollar).
| Levels n | n(n−1)/2 | Floating loss | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10 | 45 | $1,125 | Room to spare |
| 15 | 105 | $2,625 | Room to spare |
| 17 | 136 | $3,400 | Cutting it close |
| 18 | 153 | $3,825 | Over the cap |
17 levels is the wall. And that's the number at "the exact moment price has dropped all the way to the bottom level" — go any lower from there and the combined total across all levels grows by $425 for every further level of decline. In practice, designing around 14–15 levels and leaving some margin is the realistic call.
Note also that Fintokei doesn't allow off-the-shelf EAs. Buying a trailing-repeat EA and running it as-is doesn't work here — it has to be self-made, or something you've configured the parameters of yourself.
Firms that explicitly ban it
If a firm names it as banned, just avoid it.
- Moneta Funded: bans martingale, grid, and HFT. EAs must be self-made only. On top of that, on the 1-Step and 2-Step, you can't open or close positions within 5 minutes of a high-impact red-flag release, which is about the worst possible fit for a time-driven grid
- Eightcap Challenges: bans tick-scalping, martingale, grid, hedging, and copy trading. Oddly, HFT is explicitly allowed. There's also a cap of 10 simultaneous positions
- Alpha Capital: forget grid — it bans fully automated EAs outright. The official help center's own wording is "will not be approved under any circumstances," and using one triggers immediate account closure. Only supporting tools like lot-size calculators or SL/TP management are allowed
Trailing-repeat-specific pitfalls
Weekend holding: grid trading assumes you'll carry positions over the weekend, but some firms ban weekend holding (Alpha Pro's Funded accounts, E8 Signature, etc.). E8 Signature doesn't even allow holding overnight to the next day, so it's out of the running entirely.
Swap: the more levels you stack, the more swap costs bite. Since the floating-loss judgment is usually swap-inclusive equity, build in margin in your cap calculation for swap costs.
Hedging: Fintokei bans "opposite trading / hedging across multiple accounts or traders." Hedging within a single account is not covered by this, but running opposing-direction grids across multiple accounts is a rules violation.
Minimum trading days: CTI's 1-Step requires "3 profitable days" — not simply trading days, but days you actually made a profit. Since grid trading takes small profits frequently, this usually isn't an issue.
FAQ
Q. Few firms explicitly ban grid by name, so why doesn't it work?
Because what actually kills you is the floating-loss cap and how drawdown is measured, not the ban list. Most firms judge max DD on equity (including unrealized P&L), so you fail the moment floating loss balloons — even without closing a single losing position. Grid trading works by carrying floating losses and waiting for them to come back, which is fundamentally incompatible with that kind of judging.
Q. Which firms use balance-based drawdown?
City Traders Imperium. Its 1-Step rules table explicitly says "Balance Based," and the drawdown floor is set by "the highest balance reached minus 5% of the starting balance." Floating losses don't move the floor, so unless you close a position, it doesn't count toward DD. In this survey, it was the only realistic venue for running a grid.
Q. Can I use a purchased trailing-repeat EA as-is?
You can with City Traders Imperium's 1-Step. Its official documentation states third-party EAs are allowed with no proof of ownership required. Fintokei, on the other hand, bans off-the-shelf EAs, so even though grid itself isn't banned, a purchased EA can't be loaded on there. It has to be self-made, or something you've built the logic for yourself.
Q. How many levels can I run on Fintokei?
Work backward from the cap: "the combined floating loss across every open position must not exceed 3% of the balance." On Sapphire (¥20M) trading XAUUSD, at 0.05 lots per level and $5/oz spacing, the calculated wall is 17 levels; 14–15 is more realistic in practice. Because this 3% applies to the combined total across all positions regardless of symbol or direction, running multiple currency pairs at once means they're all competing for the same cap.
Q. Are martingale and grid treated the same way?
No, they're treated as separate things. Martingale is a "increase your lot size after a loss" method, while grid is a "build positions at equal intervals" method, and the rules often distinguish between the two explicitly. For example, Funded7's Rule 4 explicitly bans martingale (increasing lot size geometrically after a loss, e.g. 1.0 → 1.5 → 2.0), while explicitly allowing averaging down with the same or a reduced lot size, as long as it's within Rule 2's risk limits. For more detail, see Prop firms that allow averaging down (nanpin).
Q. Should I pick a firm with no daily drawdown?
For grid trading, strongly recommended. A grid inevitably hits a stretch where floating losses balloon, and a daily limit will get you first if it exists. CTI's 1-Step has no daily drawdown and its max DD is balance-based, which alone makes it stand out from the pack.
Sources
- City Traders Imperium — EAs On CTI 1-Step Challenge
- City Traders Imperium — 1-Step Challenge
- Fintokei — What is considered as a prohibited trading practice?
- Fintokei — Martingale and Aggressive Averaging: now allowed but not recommended
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Written by
Hosono P | the prop firm strategist
I buy challenges with my own money and record everything through to the payout. Recorded payouts: ¥6.1M in total from Fintokei, Fundora and Funded7, plus $4,776 from The5ers (as of September 2026). Author of the semi-discretionary EA "ELDRA".