Simulated Funded
A funded account where the firm holds the trader's positions on a simulated book — the standard model in retail prop, with implications for payout reliability.
Definition
A simulated funded account is one where the firm holds trader orders on an internal simulated book rather than routing them to live markets. Fills are generated by the firm's pricing engine, balances and PnL are tracked internally, and payouts are issued from the firm's general balance sheet — typically funded by challenge-fee revenue. The model is the dominant one in retail prop because it avoids live market risk on trader flow; the trade-off is that the firm's ability to pay winning traders depends entirely on its operational cash flow, not on market gains from an A-book.
Example
Why It Matters
Simulated funding is why prop firm failures matter so much: when a firm's challenge-fee revenue drops below payout demand, the only way to remain solvent is to stop paying traders or raise the bar on rule enforcement. Several simulated firms have collapsed in 2024-2025 for exactly this reason. Traders should not avoid simulated firms outright — the majority of functional firms are simulated — but should give more weight to payout-proof and payout-time signals when the funding model is simulated. FTMO, Apex Trader Funding, and E8 Funding are among the largest simulated-funded operators.