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FAQs

Find the answers to all of your questions about the SurgeTrader
funded trader program right here in our FAQs.

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SurgeTrader is a proprietary trading firm that funds traders — enabling them to earn more profits on their trading activity. To become a funded SurgeTrader, traders must first pass an audition to demonstrate their skills and discipline as competent traders. Upon successful completion, traders will receive a funded account of up to $1 million. Traders keep up to 90% of the profit they generate in their funded account.

Absolutely! We’re not a fly-by-night company. Based in Naples, Florida, SurgeTrader is a well-funded proprietary trading firm, funded by a venture capital group and holding company.

​SurgeTrader was born from the experience of a few seasoned traders — and that experience led to SurgeTrader’s singular mission: Accelerate trader funding. Help outstanding traders capitalize on their success.

We come from the same world you do. We’re also traders. We used that experience to develop and optimize the best programs for our traders. We want traders to pass the SurgeTrader Audition and become successful traders because, if you profit, we profit. It’s a win-win all the way around.

So, we’ve developed a program with straightforward, simple trading rules. We’ve made it easy to track your performance with our industry-leading platform and dashboards.

Anyone age 18 and older can become a funded trader with SurgeTrader. If you can successfully pass the SurgeTrader Audition — demonstrating profitability and responsible risk management — then you can be funded by SurgeTrader.

Becoming a successful trader is a challenge. You spend countless hours honing your skills, studying the market, practicing sound risk management… just to find a few profitable trades. You’ve put in the work and now it’s time to capitalize on that hard work with a funded account. After all, one of the most pressing challenges for profitable traders is undercapitalization — trading accounts that are too small.

As a funded trader, you keep up to 90% of the profits. For example, if your trading skills yielded a 30% return one month, but you only have $5,000 to invest, a 30% return probably isn’t worth the time you spent. But with a $1 million account, a 30% return — where you keep up to 90% — is an incredibly richer return on investment.

Trading is a risky business, though, and even profitable traders have periods where they break even or incur losses. An undeniable benefit of trading with SurgeTrader is that you are not responsible for any losses. All losses are covered by SurgeTrader.

More than just having the opportunity to trade our capital, SurgeTrader improves your trading by requiring you to adhere to our straightforward trading rules which promote strong risk management, while not restricting your trading decisions. Eliminate over-trading, revenge trading, or over-leveraging. Our traders find that they learn to manage risk more responsibly simply by joining the SurgeTrader team.

SurgeTrader is a US-based company with headquarters at 405 5th Ave. South, Naples, Florida 34102. We can be contacted by contact form, email, live chat, or phone — all of which can be found on the contact page.

In order to become a funded trader, the first step is to choose the assessment tier that fits you best and take the SurgeTrader Audition — an assessment of your skills, risk management, and profitability as a trader. Once you pass the audition, we’ll set you up with a funded account.

It’s that easy.

Unlike other firms, we don’t have a minimum number of days, trading days or unique trades. To pass the SurgeTrader Audition, simply generate a return of 10% in your account while not incurring a daily drawdown of 5% or a maximum trailing drawdown of 6%.

Unlike other prop trading firms that take two business days or more to review and verify your assessment, SurgeTrader will get you into a funded account within 24-48 hours. After you’ve passed the SurgeTrader Audition, you’ll receive an email from our withdrawal payment processor DEEL to set up your account. Please allow 24-48 hours after you have registered your DEEL account for set up of your funded account.

First, it’s important to understand that there are two different types of breach: a hard breach and soft breach. A violation of the daily or maximum drawdown constitutes a hard breach. A soft breach occurs if, for example, a trader does not close positions by market close on Friday, or if they place a trade without a stop-loss. If a soft breach occurs, the trade is closed, and the trader can continue to trade.

During the SurgeTrader Audition, in the event of a hard breach, account access will be revoked. If a funded trader incurs a hard breach of the trading rules, trading account access will be revoked. Any profits earned by the trader at that time will be distributed.

In either case, traders can always start again with another SurgeTrader Audition. A 20% discount is available for a repeat audition.

Yes. SurgeTrader wants you to be successful. We want to create an environment where talented traders can grow and improve their returns. We’re here to help you do just that, instead of penalizing you for the full fee amount. To that end, SurgeTrader offers a 20% discount on every SurgeTrader Audition after the first.

Traders will trade the same account balance as their SurgeTrader Audition. If you traded with $500,000 for the audition, you would also manage $500,000 worth of our capital in your funded trader account.

All SurgeTrader Audition accounts are demo accounts with virtual funding. Upon successful completion of the audition, traders receive login credentials to a live trading account with real funds. Traders are then entitled to 75% of profits generated in the live account, with the option to purchase an add-on for a 90% profit share.

In order to trade an account with a higher account balance, you can apply for another SurgeTrader Audition. However, a trader can only have one account per audition tier. Each account is independent and starts with an audition.

So, for example, if you are trading a $100,000 account and wish to trade more, you can apply for a $50,000 account by taking a $50,000 SurgeTrader Audition. However, to diversify our risk and exposure, those accounts must not be traded with the same strategy, per our Terms & Conditions.

For both the demo SurgeTrader Audition account and live trading accounts, the following rules apply:

Hard breach rules, which will disqualify your account:

  • Daily Loss Limit: 4% 5%
  • Max Trailing Drawdown: 5% 6%
  • See the explanation of these 2 rules in the next 2 FAQs

Soft breach rules, which will close positions and you can continue trading:

  • Stop-loss required for each trade, at the time the trade is executed
  • Flat for the weekend — all positions closed on Friday at 3:55 PM EST
  • Maximum open lots with risk

Note that the daily loss limit applies to current daily equity. For example, a trader with a $100,000 funded account would have a $5,000 daily loss limit. If the trader ran up a profit of $10,000, their new daily loss limit would be $5,500 – or 5% of their new Balance of $110,000.

In addition, there is a limit on the maximum number of open lots. If you are in the $100K plan, you will have 10 open lots with risk available. If you buy 5 lots of EUR/USD at 1.20 and your stop loss is at 1.18, you would have 5 lots on with risk, so you would have 5 still available. If the EUR/USD moves up to 1.25, and you update your stop loss to be at 1.20, which would be your open price, you no longer have risk on that trade. So, you would again have 10 lots available, even though you currently have 5 lots open. In the event that you put on too many trades with risk, then our system will liquidate all trades that currently have risk.

This is only considered a soft breach though, which means, even though you violated the rule, you can continue on trading, and should you reach your 10% profit target (without violating daily or maximum loss limits), you would be upgraded to a live funded account.

 

We calculate daily loss limit based on the previous day’s end of day balance.
The daily loss limit resets at 5PM EST each day.

For example, if your prior day’s end of day balance was $100,000, your account would breach when your equity reached $95,000 that day.
 
Additionally, because we base the daily stop out level on a %, and not a fixed $ amount, the more money you make in your account the wider your daily stop loss is. For example, if you start with a $100,000 balance and grow that account to $110,000 balance, your daily stop out level is now $5,500 vs. $5,000.

Our Maximum Trailing Drawdown is the maximum your account can drawdown before breaching your account. The initial level is set at 6% from the starting balance of your account. As your account balance increases, the trailing maximum drawdown follows you up until you achieve a profit target of 6% in your account. Once you have achieved a 6% profit target in your account, we take off the trailing drawdown and allow our traders to draw back down to their initial starting balance before breaching the account.

This means for profitable traders the maximum trailing drawdown can be greater than 6%.

For example, if you have a $100,000 account, you can go down to $94,000 before being disqualified. Let’s say you are a profitable trader and make $4,000 in your account. Your High-Water Mark is now $104,000 (balance, so just closed trades). Your max drawdown limit will be $98,000. Next, you make an additional $2,000 in your account. So, your new High-Water Mark is $106,000. Here is where it will lock in, so as your High-Water Mark rises your max drawdown limit will stay at $100,000, which means your maximum drawdown increases beyond 6%. Let’s say you grown your account to $120,000. Your effective maximum drawdown level is now 20% (over 3x greater).

Trading hours are set by our broker, EightCap, and SurgeTrader has no control over them. Traders can locate the specific trading hours for each product on the trading platform under Specifications. This can be navigated to by right-clicking on any product in the Market Watch window of the MT4 or MT5 platform and selecting Specifications from the dropdown menu.

Please note:

On normal market days Single Stock CFDs open 5 minutes after and close 5 minutes before normal US Stock Market hours. Additionally, holidays can have an impact on available trading hours for all products.

We calculate daily loss limit based on the previous day’s end of day balance. The daily loss limit resets at 5PM EST each day.

For example, if your prior day’s end of day balance was $100,000, your account would breach when your equity reached $95,000 that day.

Additionally, because we base the daily stop out level on a %, and not a fixed $ amount, the more money you make in your account the wider your daily stop loss is. For example, if you start with a $100,000 balance and grow that account to $110,000 balance, your daily stop out level is now $5,500 vs. $5,000.

Traders may have a maximum number of open lots with risk equal to 1/10000 the size of their account.

Below are the maximum open lots across all pairs that a trader can have at any given time.

  • $25K – 2.5 lots with risk
  • $50K – 5 lots with risk
  • $100K – 10 lots with risk
  • $250K – 25 lots with risk
  • $500K – 50 lots with risk
  • $1 million – 100 lots with risk 

Note: These are the maximum available lots with risk, your account still has margin requirements and you may not be able to trade up to the maximum lots listed above if you do not have the margin available.

For example, if you are in the $100k plan you will have 10 open lots with risk available.

If you buy 5 lots of EURUSD at 1.20 and your stop loss is at 1.18, you would have 5 lots on with risk, so you would have 5 still available. If the EURUSD moves up to 1.25, and you update your stop loss to be at 1.20, which would be your open price, you no longer have risk on that trade. So, you would again have 10 lots available, even though you currently have 5 lots open.

In the event that you put on too many trades with risk, then our system will liquidate all trades that currently have risk.

This is only considered a soft breach though, which means, even though you violated the rule, you can continue on trading, and should you reach your 10% profit target (without violating daily or maximum loss limits), you would be upgraded to a live funded account.

But what constitutes a lot?

  • FX– 1 lot = $100k notional
  • Index – 1 lot = 10 Contracts
  • Cryptos – 1 lot = 1 coin
  • Stocks – 1 lot = 100 shares
  • Silver – 1 lot = 5000 ounces
  • Gold – 1 lot = 100 ounces
  • Oil – 1 lot = 100 barrels

Yes, with the exception of holding a Single Share Equity CFD into an earnings release.

No, a trader cannot hold a stock trade overnight into an earnings release. To avoid being in breach of this rule, you must close all such Single Share Equity CFD positions by 3:50 PM Eastern Time on the day of the release, if an aftermarket release, or on the preceding day, if a before market open release. Violation of this rule will constitute an immediate, hard breach of your account and any gain or loss on said position will be removed from any payout calculations.

Yes, all traders must close their positions by 3:55pm EST on Friday. If you don’t close your positions, our system will attempt to liquidate them for you before the close of the market.  However, it is the traders sole responsibility to close their trades prior to 3:55pm EST.

You can hold trades overnight.

We do not limit your trading style or strategy, in any way. Whether your strategy involves discretionary trading, hedging, algorithmic trading, or anything else, you can use it with SurgeTrader. The only requirements are adherence to the trading rules.

Traders can execute trades on a variety of CFD market instruments — including FX, cryptocurrency, metals and energy, stock indices and lots of individual stocks. To see the full list of available products, please click here

FX, Metals, Oils and Indices receive up to 10:1 leverage. Individual stocks receive 5:1 leverage. Cryptocurrencies receive 2:1 leverage. Traders can purchase an add-on at checkout to increase leverage on forex and metals to 20:1.

If you do not place a trade at least once every 30 days then your account will be deactivated. This is a result of the broker deleting inactive demo accounts after that period of time. This is only deemed as a soft breach, however. If we can reinstate the account we will reinstate the existing account, otherwise we will create you a new account and carry over any associated P&L, and highwater mark from the inactive account.

When a trader passes the SurgeTrader Audition they are upgraded to a live account at Eightcap, where they are trading real money, with real execution. This is very different from many other prop firms out there, where the traders are always trading in a demo environment, and never actually trade on a live account. As SurgeTrader is putting up real money, in Live accounts we are seeking to properly assess that a trader’s strategy during the demo phase is going to work in the live environment. To achieve this we utilize the pricing and execution provided to us from Eightcap (SurgeTrader is not the broker and does not provide the platform or liquidity). Eightcap is a leading broker partner for prop trading firms because they have spent a considerable number of resources developing a demo price feed that mirrors their live, real-world execution. This ensures that once a trader passes our audition and is trading in a live account, they are going to have the exact same execution.

Slippage refers to the difference between the expected price of a trade and the price at which the trade is executed. Slippage can occur at any time but is most prevalent during periods of higher volatility — like during an impactful economic news event, for example.
 
Slippage occurs when the bid/ask spread changes between the time a market order is requested and the time an exchange executes the order.
 
As with all exchanges, market orders executed through our broker EightCap are subject to occasional slippage — which is not controllable by the broker nor SurgeTrader. Traders should be aware of the possibility of slippage during high-volatility periods and trade positions accordingly. Learn More

You are responsible for all applicable tax obligations in your country or region.

Traders will have the same live account balance as they chose for the SurgeTrader Audition. Once a trader passes the audition and results are verified, they will be provided credentials to a live account — where they are entitled to 75% of profits generated, with the option purchase an add-on to increase profit share to 90%.

There are no live account upgrade options for account size. Traders should choose the appropriate account size when applying for the SurgeTrader Audition.

SurgeTraders can request a withdrawal of profits at any time in their trader dashboard, but no more frequently than once per thirty (30) days. So, if you make profits on day one in your live account you can request a withdrawal. Additionally, if you want to leave profits in the account and let them compound to scale your account you have the flexibility to do so.

​When you are ready to withdraw your profits, simply click the Withdraw Profits button in your trader dashboard and enter the amount to withdraw. All profits are distributed in partnership with Deel. Once SurgeTrader approves your withdrawal, your profits will post into your Deel account, which you can withdraw via any of the available methods they offer.

When a withdrawal is approved, SurgeTrader will also withdraw its share of the profits and your max trailing drawdown will lock in at your starting balance. The trailing drawdown does not reset when you request a withdrawal.

Example: You have taken an account from $100,000 to $120,000. Your account had a 75% profit share. You then request a withdrawal of $14,000. In this scenario, we would pay you $10,500 (75%) and we would retain $3,500 (25%). This would also take the balance of the account down to $106,000, and your max loss limit is locked in at $100,000. So, you would have $6,000 maximum you could lose on the account before it would violate the maximum trailing drawdown rule.

The relationship between a trader and SurgeTrader is based on the contract agreement agreed to by you at the time you sign up for your audition. This agreement is legally binding to both parties.

Not at this time. Each account is independent of one another.

Yes. Upon passing the Audition, you will be presented with a choice. You can either (1) claim your fully funded account OR (2) choose to extend your Audition and scale up to the next largest account size. If you choose to scale up to the next largest account size, you must continue the Audition and achieve an additional 10% profit.

At each 10% profit increment, traders will be presented with the same two options above. Traders can continue scaling all the way up to $1,000,000 in funding.

It’s important to note that if a trader breaches their account at any point in the scaling process, their Audition will be disqualified, and the trader can retry the Audition.

Traders can choose between Eightcap MT4 and Eightcap MT5 — all offered through our broker EightCap, which are considered the universal platforms in the over-the-counter trading industry.  MT4 and MT5 accounts trade on the Raw account types at Eightcap.

Trading account dashboards include metrics on: daily loss limit, profit target, maximum loss limit, equity, balance, monthly return and projected annual return. In addition, you’ll have access to a comprehensive account history with all executed trades.

No, there are no hidden fees. The one-time fee for the SurgeTrader Audition is all you’ll ever incur. There are no recurring monthly fees.

You may apply for the SurgeTrader Audition by choosing your tier here. Upon form submission, you will be directed to the payment page and receive an order confirmation email.

Traders may have multiple funded accounts, but only one per Audition tier. So, for example, if you are trading a $100,000 account and wish to trade more, you can apply for a $50,000 account by taking a $50,000 SurgeTrader Audition.

Within minutes after purchasing an Audition, your account credentials and the platform download link will be emailed to you. If you don’t receive the email, please first check your spam folder and then contact [email protected]

We accept all major credit cards, debit cards, PayPal, and Cryptocurrency (BTC, ETH and USDC)

We will also accept Direct Wire Payments. Please send wire instruction requests to [email protected] 

There are a few reasons.

First and foremost, the fee covers various operating expenses for SurgeTrader — including technology platforms, personnel, customer service functions, marketing and all the healthy expenditures that make a company strong.

In addition, the fee ensures that the trader is committed to the process and committed to successful, disciplined trading practices. When a trader has skin in the game, so to speak, they are incentivized to treat their account responsibly and with the utmost care. After all, the fee is but a small token of commitment rewarded with hundreds of thousands of dollars in real capital to trade. The best part of this arrangement for traders is that it is the only capital they risk. Traders cannot lose more than this fee, as losses on a live funded account are covered by SurgeTrader.

The SurgeTrader Audition fee serves as a filter for serious traders. The SurgeTrader community only works when it is comprised of experienced traders that can consistently generate a profit. With limited resources, the SurgeTrader Audition process reveals those who are committed and responsible traders.

At the end of the day, the SurgeTrader program is an extremely valuable service — a win-win for everyone — and the service is accurately priced to support a symbiotic relationship.

Generally, no. The recipient of the Audition and the name on the credit/debit card or PayPal account, must match in order to pass our fraud checks. If the names do not match, the transaction will be rejected.

If you wish to purchase an Audition on behalf of a third-party, you may only do so via wire transfer. For wire instructions, please contact [email protected]  Please note that to receive a funded account, however, the recipient of the Audition must be disclosed prior to purchase and be willing to complete our AML/KYC checks and Trader Agreement.

WHY TRADE WITH US

Clear & Simple Trading Rules

Trading rules that are easy to understand and comply with.

Flexible Trading

We have no restrictions on trading style. Our program allows for any strategy. 

Quick Customer Service

Get answers quickly with our responsive customer service channels.

One-Time Audition Fee

No monthly fee. No hidden costs. No recurring costs. Just a one-time investment.

Easy Payout

Get paid on your profits with a couple clicks — no minimum required.

Instant Funding

Get funded instantly upon successfully passing the SurgeTrader Audition. 

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