1-Step vs 2-Step Prop Firm Challenges: Which Is Easier to Pass?

1-Step vs 2-Step Prop Firm Challenges: Which Is Easier to Pass? | Rev One Trading

Most prop firms hand you a two-step evaluation. Pass a profit target, then pass a smaller second target, then in some cases a "verification" before you see a funded account. Rev One is one challenge. One target. One pass.

This post breaks down the actual difference between a 1-step and a 2-step evaluation: where the math hides, where the failure points are, and which structure is genuinely easier to pass for a disciplined trader.

What "1-step" and "2-step" actually mean

A 1-step challenge is a single evaluation phase. Hit the profit target, satisfy the trading-day and profitable-day rules, stay inside the max loss limit, you're funded. That's the whole tree.

A 2-step challenge stacks two evaluations:

Phase 1: hit a larger profit target (typically 8% to 10%) inside a tight rule set.
Phase 2: hit a smaller target (often 4% to 5%) under similar rules.
Then most firms add a verification or "funded prep" step before payouts unlock.

Same end state, different number of gates. The marketing reason firms give for 2-step is "it proves consistency". The real reason most of them keep it: more gates means more failures, and more failures means more re-purchases.

The math: pass-through rates

Stack any two independent gates and the joint pass rate drops fast. If you have a 30% chance of clearing each phase on its own, your joint probability of passing both is 9%. The same trader on a 1-step has a 30% pass rate. Same skill, different structure, three times the funded conversion.

That's the underrated story of 1-step. The trader didn't get better. The math just stopped working against them.

Where 2-step adds friction

Two specific things hurt traders in 2-step:

Time pressure stacks. Even if neither phase has a hard time limit, most traders accelerate after passing phase 1 because they "feel close". Phase 2 becomes the place they oversize.
Drawdown often resets between phases. Sounds friendly. In practice it means you spend your phase 1 buffer, then start phase 2 with no slack and a tighter target. The early days of phase 2 fail more accounts than any other window.

Where 1-step is harder than it looks

A 1-step is not "easier" in every sense. Two things bite traders who underestimate it:

The profit target is a single, larger number. On the Rev One $50K, that's $3,000, which is 2,400 ticks of MES per contract. You don't sneak up on it; you have to actually run.
There's nowhere to hide a bad week. A 2-step lets you reset your equity curve between phases. A 1-step is one continuous PnL line until you pass.

If you trade well, that's a feature. If you blow up on day three out of habit, the structure won't save you.

How the Rev One 1-Step is structured

The numbers are flat and they're on the rules page:

Account	Promo	Base	Profit target	Max loss
$25K	$89	$149	$1,500	$750
$50K	$108	$180	$3,000	$1,500
$75K	$161	$269	$4,500	$2,250
$100K	$179	$299	$6,000	$3,000
$150K	$239	$399	$9,000	$4,500

Live numbers from the Rev One Futures 1-Step Challenge.

A few things to pin down:

Profit target: 6% of starting balance. On the $100K, that's $6,000 to clear the eval.
Max Loss Limit (MLL): 3% of starting balance, end-of-day trailing on the high water mark. It locks at start + $100 once you clear the buffer.
Profitable days: 3 days at 0.5% of balance each on the eval. On a $50K, that's three days where closed PnL is at least $250.
Minimum trading days: 3 unique days. No time limit beyond that.

No phase 2. No verification. The day you pass, the funded account is provisioned.

Which one to pick

The honest answer: pick the structure that matches how you trade.

If your edge is small and steady, a 1-step is friendlier. You don't have to spike phase 1 to feel like you've made progress.
If you're a trader who needs a "test phase" to feel out a platform, a 2-step does give you that, at the cost of paying for the privilege.
If you've already passed challenges before, a 1-step is just less surface area to lose on.

For more on the rule that decides this for most traders, see our breakdown of trailing vs end-of-day drawdown. For what happens after you pass, the payouts explainer covers the whole post-funding flow.

Pick an account size

One challenge. One pass. The rest is up to you.