Expert is the one-day path and Starter is the shaped path
Expert can finish in a single session. There is no consistency cap. Payouts, once funded, run every 14 days. Starter wants five winning days and keeps 40% as the best-day test. Both sit on futures accounts of $50,000, $100,000, or $150,000, with trails of about $1,500 to $2,000, $3,000, and $4,500. Calling them 1-step and 2-step is a search habit. The invoice says Expert or Starter.
The evaluation profit target is 6%. On $100,000 that is $6,000. After it, there is no Phase 2 hurdle. Open a Venasri account and store the plan name, because a 2-step FX flatten will not match either product.
Skipping a second target does not widen the trail
People buy the faster plan to avoid extra rules and then trade it with maximum contracts. The trail is still $3,000 on $100,000. A one-day pass that leans on the opening New York candle is the published way this account dies. The absence of a daily loss label means the trail is the only loss bucket, not that the bucket is larger. Intraday damage is judged at the end-of-day mark, around 4:10 PM ET or 5:00 PM ET.
Starter adds rules and does not add trail. A smooth Starter week can still fail if one day owns more than 40% of the profit. Forty percent of $6,000 is $2,400. That is 120 NQ points on one contract, at $20 per point.
The plan you pick changes the contract count, not the point value
NQ remains $20 per point on both plans. A 40-point stop on one contract is $800, more than a quarter of the $3,000 trail. Expert does not make that stop cheaper. It only removes the excuse of a second phase. If the geometry needs 60 points, use micros at $2 per point so five MNQ with a 40-point stop risk $400. Bot controls should refuse the maximum contract load on an Expert pass day.
The fee near $150 at $100,000 is not a reason to hurry. It is smaller than a single slipped ES point stack. ES is $50 per point. Hurry is the expensive part.
Use $2,250 on both, and add a profit ceiling only on Starter
Equity Guard should flatten either plan near $2,250 on $100,000, leaving $750 under the trail. Starter also needs a session-profit stop so one day cannot clear $2,400 of a $6,000 cycle. Expert does not need that profit ceiling and still needs the loss flatten. Using only the profit ceiling, or only the loss flatten, covers half the firm.
Both plans are flat before Friday CME close. A swing copied from a 2-step FX challenge is a breach here even when the trail had room. The faster plan is faster only if the contracts stay small enough to see the close.
