Bankroll (evaluation budget)

The bankroll, in the prop-firm context, is the cash a trader must be able to spend on evaluations, resets, activations and subscriptions before payouts start covering those costs. It is measured as the deepest point the cumulative cash position reaches over the account cycle, not as the price of one evaluation.

Senzoukria · Glossary · Updated September 2026

Why one evaluation price is not the budget

The price on the firm's page is the cost of a single attempt. A strategy that passes every third evaluation, then loses one funded account in two before the first payout, needs several attempts' worth of cash before any money comes back. Add the activation fee and the subscription months and the required budget is a multiple of the sticker price.

The bankroll is therefore a path measure: follow the cash in and out, month after month, and record the lowest point. A trader who does not have that amount available stops before the cycle turns positive, whatever the strategy's long-run figures say.

Estimating it

  • Replay your own sessions through the rules to get the sequence of purchases, resets and payouts.
  • Reshuffle the sessions many times; the deepest cash point varies with the order.
  • Take the value at a chosen confidence level rather than the median; the worst paths are the ones that end a trading career.
  • Recompute after any change in the rules, the fees or the strategy.

In Senzoukria

The prop simulation's "Prop economics" block has a line "Bankroll it required", with a hint reading "The deepest your cash went before the payouts caught up." The Monte Carlo block adds "Bankroll needed (P95)" over the reshuffled paths, and the "Should I buy this evaluation?" card on the Backtest page prints "Bankroll to hold" at 50, 75 and 95 % confidence. The "Cash in and out" chart shows the path the figure was read from.

All three are computed from the Journal sessions and the fees entered in the "What you pay" section of the "Prop firm rules" form. The "Equity curve, split by account" chart makes the point visually: the trader's curve never resets, while each prop account starts again from its own initial balance.

Mistakes

  • Budgeting for one evaluation and stopping after the first failure with a strategy that would have passed on the third.
  • Reading the median bankroll as the amount to hold; half of the paths need more.
  • Treating an evaluation discount as a lower bankroll: it lowers one term, not the number of attempts.

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Frequently asked questions

Is the bankroll the same as the account's drawdown allowance?
The bankroll is not the account's drawdown allowance. The drawdown allowance is simulated money on the firm's account and is lost when the account fails; the bankroll is the trader's own cash, spent on fees. The two are related only in that a smaller allowance tends to fail more accounts and therefore raise the bankroll.
Can payouts reduce the bankroll needed?
Payouts reduce the bankroll needed once they arrive. The measure is the lowest point of the cumulative cash, so early payouts lift the path and reduce the depth. A program with a long wait before the first payout typically needs a larger bankroll than one paying sooner, other things equal.

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