Short answer: a "live funded" account places real capital in the market on your behalf; a "simulated funded" account trades against real market prices but no real money is ever bought or sold based on your positions. Almost every retail prop-firm challenge today — including FTMO, FundingPips, FundedNext and WICK FUNDED — uses the simulated model. The payout you receive is still real money either way; what differs is what happens behind the scenes when you click buy or sell. Last checked: October 2026.
What "live funded" actually means
In a true live-funded setup, the firm (or a partner broker) places a real market order that mirrors your trade, using the firm's own capital. If you're profitable, the firm genuinely made money in the market and shares it with you. If you lose, the firm genuinely lost money. This model exists in narrower corners of the industry — some regulated brokers' incubator programs (where a proven strategy can attract real third-party investor capital) work this way — but it's rare among challenge-fee-based retail prop firms, because it exposes the firm to real, unhedged market risk at scale.
What "simulated funded" actually means
In the simulated model used by the vast majority of challenge firms, your account balance and P&L are calculated using real, live market prices — the same bid/ask you'd see on a real broker platform — but no real order is ever sent to a market. You're not trading against other market participants; you're trading inside a demo environment that behaves identically to a live one from your side of the screen.
When you pass a challenge and get funded, and then trade profitably, the firm pays your profit split from its own revenue (mostly challenge fees collected from traders who don't pass), not from gains it made executing your trades in a real market. This is why the category is sometimes described as a "paid trading-skill contest" rather than true proprietary trading in the traditional (investment bank) sense.
Why almost every firm uses the simulated model
- Risk control. A firm offering thousands of funded accounts cannot responsibly place real capital behind every one without enormous, unpredictable market exposure.
- Price: simulated infrastructure is dramatically cheaper to run than real brokerage execution at scale, which is part of why challenge fees can be as low as $29–$49.
- Speed to market: a firm can launch new challenge tracks and account sizes without broker-side capital agreements for every tier.
None of this makes the model dishonest — the dishonesty only enters if a firm hides it, implying your challenge fee is "invested" or that your profits come from real market execution when they don't.
Does it matter to you as a trader?
Mostly, no — day to day, a simulated account feels identical to a live one: same prices, same spreads, same P&L math, same drawdown mechanics. What it changes:
- Your downside is capped at the challenge fee. You cannot lose more, because there's no real capital of yours in the market.
- The firm's payout is a promotional reward tied to your simulated performance, not a market-profit share — worth knowing so you don't misread payout language as "investment returns."
- Firm solvency depends on its business model, not market luck. A simulated firm doesn't go bankrupt because markets moved against it the way a true live-funded operation theoretically could — its risk is almost entirely about fee revenue vs. payout obligations (see why prop firms shut down).
WICK FUNDED's approach
WICK FUNDED runs a 100% simulated model on every account — challenge and funded. Your account trades against real, live market prices on WICK's own in-house web and mobile terminal, but no real capital is placed in the market on any trade, yours or WICK's. When you pass and trade a funded account profitably, WICK pays your profit split (80% rising to 95%) from company funds, bi-weekly, in USDC on Solana — a promotional reward tied to simulated performance, never an investment return. Challenge fees are non-refundable and most participants do not pass, as in every firm using this model. More: how simulated prop trading works, is WICK FUNDED legit, /rules, /faq.
FAQ
Is a simulated account a scam because it's not "real" trading? No — it's the standard, disclosed model across almost the entire retail prop-firm category, including the longest-running firms. It becomes a problem only if a firm hides the structure or misrepresents payouts as market returns.
If my account is simulated, is the payout I receive also fake? No. The payout itself — the money sent to you — is real. What's simulated is the trading environment your performance was measured in, not the payment.
Do any major prop firms offer true live-funded trading? It's uncommon in the challenge-fee retail niche; it's more associated with regulated-broker incubator programs where a verified track record can attract real third-party investor capital, a different structure than a typical challenge firm.
Why do challenge fees exist if no real capital backs my trades? The fee funds the firm's operations and the payouts it makes to traders who do pass — it's the revenue model, not a deposit into a real trading account.
How can I tell if a firm is being honest about which model it uses? Read its rules and payout pages for explicit language ("simulated," "demo environment," "promotional reward from company funds") versus vague or misleading language implying live market execution.
Simulated trading evaluation — no real funds are traded. Not financial advice.