The loss box is a copy, the profit target is not
A 1-step reading of these rules is 5% daily and 10% maximum. The flagship 2-step reading is also 5% daily and 10% maximum, with a 5% target followed by another 5%. On $100,000 the targets are $5,000 and then $5,000. You do not buy extra room by picking the longer path, and you do not buy a tighter trail by picking the shorter one. Live equity is the mark on both.
That is different from firms that cut a one-step exam to 4% and 6%. Here the pass-odds gap is whether you can produce the second $5,000 without a new, easier stop-out. Create a Venasri login and write both targets only if you are actually on the two-stage path. A single $5,000 goal with a second $5,000 imagined on top is how people size for a finish line that is not theirs.
Day count and Edge Score dominate the comparison
Both paths still sit inside a program that wants 20 minimum trading days and an Edge Score from 50 to 90 or higher. A trader who can make $5,000 quickly and then damages the score with one oversized loser does not "pass" in any useful sense. The multiplier can freeze for a month. Stages still run Seed, Incubation, Acceleration, Pro, and Pro M, and the 1st of the month is when multiplier profit, up to 90%, is settled.
Your own deposit, from $500 upward, keeps 100% of its profit. The $0 entry fee means you are not choosing a cheaper challenge fee versus a harder one. You are choosing how many 5% profit marks you must print before the allocation feels earned. The daily line never joins that negotiation.
Pick the path from the second target, not from hope
If your strategy produces frequent 0.50% outcomes and hates giving back a second month, the single 5% mark is the cleaner exam, because the loss line will not reward you for choosing it. If you already trade a 20-day swing book and can repeat the same $350 to $650 risk, the second 5% is mostly time. It is $5,000 more profit inside the same $5,000 day and the same $10,000 hole.
News is unrestricted on both, and weekend holding is fully permitted on both. Neither path offers a blackout or a forced Friday flat as a hidden advantage. Bot controls should load one risk card. Running a 1-step lot model and a 2-step profit goal on the same magic number is how the second target gets hunted with the first target's frustration.
One flatten level covers both labels
Equity Guard at 4.25% is $4,250 on $100,000 for either path. You do not loosen it because a second target remains, and you do not tighten it to 3% because the path is named 1-step. The official day is 5% in both columns. The quarantine at 10% is also shared. What changes is how many green weeks you need before you call the evaluation done.
Expert Advisors are allowed on MT4 and MT5 either way. An advisor with a 5% profit cap in its settings will stop at the first target and sit idle through the second unless you tell it the path. That is a software problem with a rules consequence: the 20 days keep passing, the score goes stale, and the 1st arrives with less multiplier profit than the month could have paid.
