What's Lark Funding's Expected Value? A 1-Year Simulation of 1-Step, 3-Step, and Instant Puts 1-Step in First (September 2026)

Note: Rules and pricing were confirmed on September 27, 2026 against Lark Funding's official site and help center. All prices are list price (USD), calculated on a $100K account.

Conclusion

• At 1% risk per trade with "medium" skill, 1-Step comes out on top at +$23,182/year. 3-Step (+$15,034) and Instant (+$13,334) follow.
• 1-Step wins because it's a single step with no minimum trading days, and its 7% max loss stays static (fixed to the starting balance) all the way through. Even after a payout, the failure line stays at $93,000.
• 3-Step is cheap at $370 and has no daily loss limit. But its 5% max loss is tight, and you have to clear three stages, so it never catches up to 1-Step.
• Instant costs $4,500 — 4.5% of the account — so at "medium" skill or below, the fee eats you alive. At zero skill, 1% risk returned −$40,721/year. It only wins first place at "strong" skill and 0.5%/1% risk.
• At zero skill (50% win rate), the only positive result is 1-Step at 1.5% risk (+$700), and even then the probability of finishing in the black is only 44%. Choosing a plan doesn't manufacture an edge.

Lark Funding's plans ($100K equivalent)

None of the three plans have a consistency rule (a cap on your single best day's share) or a minimum number of trading days. There's no time limit either.

Instant's max loss sits 8% below the highest balance reached, and it follows every new high upward. Once profit reaches +8% or you make your first payout request, the line locks to the starting balance ($100,000). In other words, if you withdraw before reaching +8%, your remaining cushion is limited to whatever profit you left in the account. The official help center itself says "letting profit build before withdrawing gives you more cushion."

1-Step has a monthly base reward called "Lark Base" (1-Step only). The official page explains that on a funded account, if a given month has "3 days where you're up +0.5% or more" and your loss stays shallower than −3.5%, you receive 0.5% of the account size ($500/month on a $100K account). The exact payment mechanics (whether it's deducted from account balance, or treated the same as a payout) aren't documented in the help center and remain unconfirmed, so it isn't included in this simulation. This means 1-Step's numbers are understated by this amount.

Simulation assumptions

Held fixed

• 1 year (250 trading days), up to 3 trades per day, take-profit and stop-loss both 1:1
• The daily loss cap for every plan is 2.5% of the starting balance (stop taking new trades for the day once the next loss would push past 2.5%)
• Per-trade risk, floating loss, and the daily loss never exceed 3%
• Lot size is fixed at r% of the starting balance, one position at a time
• Cost is 5% of risk per trade (a win is +0.95R, a loss is -1.05R). On USD/JPY, this corresponds to a 1.5-pip round-trip cost against a 30-pip stop/target, or 2 pips against 40 pips
• On a fail, the same plan is bought again; no scaling; payouts every 14 days for 1-Step/3-Step, and for Instant the first payout is anytime with 30 days between payouts after that; profit still sitting in the account at year-end doesn't count
• 20,000 runs per condition

Varied

• Plan
• Skill: win rate 50% (zero) / 52% (small) / 55% (medium) / 58% (strong)
• Risk per trade r (0.5% / 1.0% / 1.5%)
• How much profit is left in the account at each payout (the best amount was chosen per plan)

Not included in this model

• 1-Step's monthly "Lark Base" reward (as explained above)
• The $40 fee charged per payout (up to 26 times/year at a 14-day cycle, $1,040 total)
• The "one free reset on 1-Step/3-Step" promotion running through September 30 (excluded as time-limited)
• Weekend holding (a paid add-on), an unset stop-loss (positions are auto-closed if none is set), and the $10,000 daily/per-trade profit cap (never reached under this model's position sizing)
• The ban on "one-sided-bet"-style trading (the official guidance recommends capping risk per trade idea at 1.5%). Since this article's r maxes out at 1.5%, it stays within that recommended range

The expected-value formula

Expected value per trade

With take-profit and stop-loss at 1:1 and cost at 5% of risk per trade (0.05R), a win is +0.95R and a loss is -1.05R. With win rate p,

Expected value per trade = p × 0.95R − (1 − p) × 1.05R = (2p − 1.05) × R

Expected value per year

Expected value per year = average payouts received in a year − average fees paid

• Payout received = amount withdrawn × profit split (80% on 1-Step/3-Step, 90% on Instant)
• Fees paid = fee × number of times purchased in a year (bought again each time you fail)
• Lark Funding doesn't refund fees, so "fee refunded" is zero

Losses are capped at "fee × number of purchases," while payouts from a passed account have no ceiling. Because of this shape, some plans end up positive over a year even when the expected value per trade is slightly negative. The three averages can't be derived in closed form, so a year of trading was run 20,000 times under the actual rules and averaged (Monte Carlo).

In USD/JPY (at ¥150/$), a 1.5-pip round-trip cost against a 30-pip stop/target, sized at 5 lots on a $100K account risking 1%, corresponds to this article's "0.05R cost." For a concrete position-sizing example and a lot-size table, see the 4-firm comparison article.

0.5% per trade: average annual take-home minus fees

1.0% per trade

The probability of finishing in the black at "medium" skill was 95% for 1-Step, 82% for 3-Step, and 70% for Instant.

1.5% per trade

At 1.5% risk per trade, after one loss, a second loss would push past 2.5%, so trading stops there for the day.

Why the gap happens

Instant took first place at "strong" skill and 0.5%/1% risk. That's because there's no evaluation period, so you're collecting 90% from day one. But at zero skill and 1% risk, you'd end up buying an average of about 11 accounts in a year, spending an average of $48,453 on fees alone. Instant only pays off for traders with strong confidence in their own win rate.

At 0.5% risk, 3-Step isn't far behind 1-Step, since even a 5% max loss is enough room when sizing small. The gap widens at 1% risk and above because a 5% cushion starts to fail more easily against a losing streak.

Which one to buy

FAQ

Q. Is Lark Funding's expected value positive?

At a 55% win rate skill level (+0.05R expected value per trade), it's positive across every plan. At 1% risk, the annual results were 1-Step +$23,182, 3-Step +$15,034, and Instant +$13,334. At zero skill (50% win rate), everything is negative except 1-Step at 1.5% risk (+$700).

Q. Is Lark Funding's fee refundable?

No. The official help center states, "challenge fees are not currently eligible for a refund." That puts it at a disadvantage compared to firms like FTMO's 2-Step, where the fee comes back on the first payout.

Q. How often can I withdraw from Lark Funding?

1-Step and 3-Step are every 14 days. Instant's first payout can happen anytime, and subsequent ones are every 30 days. The minimum is $100, and a $40 fee is deducted per payout. Payment goes through Riseworks, and the official site says "most within 6 hours, up to 3 business days." There's also a paid add-on that shortens the cycle to every 7 days.

Q. Is 1-Step's "Lark Base" included in the calculation?

No. On a funded account, hitting "3 days at +0.5% or more" while keeping your loss shallower than −3.5% in a given month earns you 0.5% of the account ($500 on a $100K account), but the exact payment mechanics couldn't be confirmed in the official help center. The more months a trader qualifies for this, the higher 1-Step's real expected value runs above the figures in this article.

Q. Can I use an EA at Lark Funding?

The official help center states it doesn't ban EAs. However, there's no public API, and any connection is at your own risk. EAs built for high-frequency trading (HFT) or arbitrage are banned. Trading is done on DXtrade, cTrader, and Match-Trader — there's no MT4 or MT5.

Q. I want to run this with my own assumptions

The simulation engine and this article's config file are both published. Edit the price or target in the config file to run it with your own assumptions (requires Python and numba). Usage: python sim-prop-ev.py larkfunding.json 20000.

Related

• 🏢 Lark Funding complete guide
• 📊 Lark Funding pricing comparison
• 📊 FTMO vs. The5ers vs. Fintokei vs. Hantec expected value compared
• 🤖 Prop firm EA rules compared

Sources: Lark Funding's official site, "Compare plans and features" and "Lark Base"; the official help center articles "1-Step Evaluation Details," "How do you calculate the 7% max drawdown?," "3-Step Evaluation Details," "Instant Master Account Details," "How does drawdown lock work on instant accounts after a withdrawal?," "How do payouts work?," "Is the challenge fee refundable?," "Prohibited trading strategies," and "Can I use an Expert Advisor?" (help center). All confirmed September 27, 2026.