How Prop Firm Payouts Work: Splits, Schedules and Buffers

Nordic Funder pays funded traders 80% of closed profit as standard, or 90% with the profit-share add-on, which is priced at an extra 15% of the account fee. The first withdrawal carries no delay; after that the payout cycle runs every 14 days. A breach means no payout, the account is locked while a payout is processed, and Instant Funding Lite adds two thresholds no other track has — a 1.5% withdraw buffer and a 1% minimum payout.

What follows is the published mechanism, not a projection of earnings. Every number is taken from the programme terms and the per-track pricing tables; where a figure is not published, we say so instead of estimating it. If you want the terms unfiltered, the payouts page lists them per programme.

80% is the standard, 90% is a priced option

Every track funds at an 80% profit split: One-Step, Two-Step, Three-Step, One-Step Lite and Two-Step Lite on FX & CFDs, both crypto tracks, Equities One-Step Daily, and Instant Funding Lite. The figure does not move with account size, and the only published route to 90% is the profit-share add-on, bought with the account and priced as a percentage of the fee rather than a flat amount.

Because the gain scales with profit and the cost scales with the fee, the break-even is one line of arithmetic. Ten extra percentage points of split on profit P is worth 0.10P. The add-on costs 0.15F on a fee of F. Set them equal and the add-on repays itself once closed funded profit passes 1.5 times the base fee.

That threshold is lower than most traders assume, and it is lowest exactly where the fee is lowest. A $100,000 Three-Step account costs $367.50, so its $55.13 add-on is repaid by $551.25 of funded profit. The same size on One-Step costs $850, so the $127.50 add-on needs $1,275. Instant Funding Lite is the most expensive $100,000 product at $1,000, so its $150 add-on needs $1,500 of profit before it clears.

Two structural points make that better than the raw comparison suggests. The fee is one-time and non-refundable — there is no subscription, so the add-on is never billed again. And the break-even is a lifetime figure rather than a per-payout one: past it, every subsequent payout carries the full extra ten points. A trader who expects one modest payout should probably skip the add-on. A trader who expects to hold the account for several cycles is buying a permanent 12.5% uplift on take-home for a small one-off.

The schedule: no delay on the first, then every 14 days

The cycle is identical across programmes: first withdrawal with no delay, then every 14 days. The practical effect is that your first request is gated by your own performance rather than by a calendar. Meet the funded conditions and you can ask; from then on the clock sets the pace, not the balance.

This is the part of a payout policy worth comparing between firms, and it is not the same comparison as the headline split. FTMO and FundedNext also run scheduled payout cycles. The structural questions are how long the cycle is, whether the first request is delayed, and whether the higher split is included or sold as a separate line item. A firm advertising a higher standard split on a longer cycle with a delayed first payout is not obviously better than 80% with an immediate first request and a fortnightly cycle after it.

One more published term shapes the request itself: funded consistency, which differs by track. It is 50% on both Lite FX tracks, 25% on crypto, 20% on Equities and 20% on Instant Funding Lite. The three staged FX tracks — One-Step, Two-Step and Three-Step — publish no consistency figure at all. If your funded profit is concentrated in a handful of sessions, check your own track number before you build toward a withdrawal. The FAQ carries the definitions.

Lock on payout, and no payout on breach

Two terms published on the Equities and Instant Funding programmes decide whether a payout arrives at all, and both are easy to read past.

Lock on payout: Yes. The account is locked while the payout is handled. That is an administrative pause, but it has trading consequences: do not submit a request with open risk you need to manage by hand, and do not submit one into a session you intend to trade. Your own EAs and algos are allowed on every account with no approval and no surcharge, which also means nothing external pauses them for your convenience — stop them yourself before you request. Running EAs on a funded account covers the rest of that ground.

Payout on breach: No. Profit in the account is not yours until it has been paid out. Breach the max drawdown or the daily loss limit before a request clears and the payout does not happen; the equity that existed on the way down is not honoured retroactively. That is the strongest reason to withdraw on the cycle rather than letting a balance ride against a limit, and it also raises the stakes on drawdown type. One-Step on FX runs a 6% trailing drawdown that follows equity upward, while Two-Step (8%), Three-Step (5%), crypto and the Lite tracks are static. Trailing versus static drawdown works through why a 6% trailing limit can bite harder than a static 8%.

Instant Funding Lite: the 1% minimum and the 1.5% buffer

Instant Funding Lite has no assessment and no profit target — it is funded from day one — so its payout terms carry weight the staged tracks do not need. It is the only track publishing a withdraw buffer of 1.5% and a minimum payout of 1%.

On a $100,000 Instant Funding Lite account those are $1,500 and $1,000. On the $2,500 account they are $37.50 and $25. Read together they say that small, frequent withdrawals are not the intended pattern: profit has to build past the buffer, and a request has to be worth at least 1% of the account balance. Set that alongside the tightest limits on the site — a 3% static max drawdown and a 1% intraday trailing daily loss — and the product suits a trader who can sit on a small edge without touching it. The percentages are published; the arithmetic combining them is not, so ask support before your first request if the sequencing matters to you.

What comes off before the split

The split applies to closed profit, so trading costs land before the 80% or 90% is calculated. Spreads are raw. Commission is $7 round turn per lot on FX and metals, and $0 on indices, oil and crypto. On a high-turnover FX strategy that commission is a genuine line item reducing the base the split is taken from; on an indices or crypto book it is simply absent. If you are choosing between asset classes partly on payout economics, that gap deserves more weight than the split percentage itself.

Organising a first payout

1. Check your track funded consistency figure and daily loss type before you build the profit you intend to withdraw, not after.
2. Request the first payout as soon as you qualify. There is no delay on it, and no payout survives a breach.
3. Flatten what you cannot leave unattended and stop any algo before submitting, because the account locks while the payout is processed.
4. Work to the 14-day cycle after that rather than letting a large balance sit exposed to a drawdown limit.

None of that guarantees an outcome. It describes a shape: one non-refundable fee, an 80% or 90% split on closed profit, an immediate first request and a fortnightly cycle after it. Hold that shape against other firms in our 2026 comparison, or read how it works for the route from assessment to a funded account.

A $100,000 account and $10,000 of funded profit: 80% split versus the 90% add-on

Fees are the published $100,000 prices for each track; they are one-time and non-refundable, with no subscription. The 90% profit-share add-on is priced at +15% of the account fee. Profit is modelled at $10,000 — 10% of a $100,000 account, which is also the published profit target on the One-Step, One-Step Lite, crypto One-Step and Equities One-Step Daily tracks. The final column is 1.5× the base fee: the point at which the extra ten percentage points of split equal the add-on price. Commission of $7 round turn per lot on FX & metals is not deducted here. Instant Funding Lite has no profit target; its row is shown for comparison only.