Topstep Review: How the Combine Rules Really Work

Independent guide. We are not affiliated with Topstep. Pricing, drawdown numbers and payout terms change — confirm current figures on the firm's own site before you buy an evaluation.

The five rules that decide the outcome

• Trailing max drawdown — trails your highest closed equity, then locks once the account is funded. This is the rule that fails accounts.
• Daily loss limit — the number that sets your position size, every single day.
• Profit target — the easiest rule to hit and the least predictive of getting paid.
• Minimum trading days — forces a sample, so plan a campaign, not a sprint.
• Consistency / scaling — one monster day can disqualify an otherwise clean pass at payout review.

The plan we would run

One setup, traded in one window, sized off the daily loss limit. This is the same VWAP mean-reversion logic Algo Lisa runs live on the stream, cut down to a single instrument.

1. Instrument & window: MES only, 9:45 AM–12:00 PM ET. No opening five minutes, no lunch chop, no overnight.
2. Setup: price extends 1.5–2.5 ATR(14, 5-min) away from session VWAP and prints a rejection candle back toward it.
3. Entry trigger: first 1-minute close back through the rejection candle's extreme, in the direction of VWAP.
4. Stop: rejection candle extreme plus 2 ticks, or 4 MES points — whichever is tighter.
5. Target: scale half at VWAP (roughly 2R), trail the rest under 5-minute higher lows (or over lower highs when short).
6. Risk sizing: risk per trade = daily loss limit ÷ 5. Contracts = that dollar risk ÷ (stop points × $5 per MES point), rounded down.
7. Invalidation: a 1-minute close beyond the rejection extreme, VWAP going flat with price chopping across it twice, or 20 minutes without follow-through.
8. Daily stop: two losers or one target hit — flat for the day, either way.

Trailing drawdown math, in one example

Say the buffer is $2,000 and you run the account $1,400 up on closed equity. Your effective floor is now $600 below the starting balance only in name — the real number is $600 of remaining room from the peak. Two maximum-size losers at $200 risk plus a slippage day can put you inside a few hundred dollars of a breach while your statement still shows a profit. Once you are more than 60% of the buffer up, halve size until the funded lock-in point.

Who a Combine suits — and who it does not

It suits traders with one repeatable intraday setup and the discipline to stop at a fixed daily loss. It does not suit swing traders, news-driven discretionary traders, or anyone who needs to size up after a loss. The evaluation grades risk behavior far more than market opinion.

FAQ

What actually fails most Topstep Combine accounts?

The trailing drawdown, not the profit target. The loss buffer follows your highest closed equity, so handing back a large open winner can end the account on a day you finished green.

How much should I risk per trade in a Combine?

One fifth of the daily loss limit, fixed for the whole evaluation. Two full losers then use 40% of the day and never threaten the account.

How many contracts should I trade?

Size from the stop, not the max allowed. Contracts = (daily loss limit / 5) / (stop in ticks x tick value). Trading the maximum contract allowance is the fastest route to a breach.

Is automated trading allowed in a Combine?

Rule-based automation you run yourself is commonly allowed; HFT, latency arbitrage and mass copy-trading generally are not. Read the firm's written automation policy before you connect anything.

How long should a Combine take?

Plan on four to six weeks. Passing in three sessions usually means outsized days that trip the consistency rule at payout review.

Next, read how the trailing drawdown is calculated, compare firms in the futures prop firm guide, or watch the rules run live on the Algo Lisa stream.