Combine to Express Funded to Live, on CME hours
Account sizes are $50K, $100K, $150K futures. Combine is one step: 6% target ($3,000 / $6,000 / $9,000), EOD trailing max of $2,000 / $3,000 / $4,500 that locks at a $0 initial-balance buffer, two minimum trading days, 50% consistency (largest day cannot exceed 50% of the target, so $3,000 max day on $100K). Daily loss is a 2% character with an optional/soft guard on TopstepX and a hard EOD max. Reset is 3:10 PM CT flatten, then 5:00 PM CT new CME session. Weekend holding is prohibited. Live Funded adds Tier-1 economic flatten windows. Platforms: TopstepX, NinjaTrader, Tradovate, TradingView, Quantower. Bots allowed if CME message-rate ratios stay legal.
Payouts: up to 50% of account balance after 5 winning days of $200+ net each. Split is 100% of the first $10,000, then 90%. If you start a free Venasri account, treat Topstep as a 15:10 Chicago calendar, not a 00:00 Prague calendar. A Venasri CE(S)T flatten will leave you in NQ into the CME close, which is how Combine accounts die on the EOD print.
EOD trailing versus Apex-style intraday trailing
Topstep's unique strength is that the $3,000 trail on $100K moves on end-of-day balance, not on the high tick of an NQ spike. You can be +$2,200 intraday, give back to +$400, and the trail has not crawled up $2,200 the way Apex would. Close the day at +$2,200 and tomorrow's trail has moved. That is the whole Combine skill: do not gift the close a high-water mark you cannot live under, and do not confuse Topstep with tick-trailing futures props.
50% consistency is the other skill. $3,800 in one NQ runaway on a $6,000 target forces a new target of $3,800 / 0.50 = $7,600. You did not fail. You got more homework. Many traders then overtrade the extra $1,600 and tag the EOD $3,000. Cap a Combine day near $2,800 so the 50% line never moves the goalposts.
3:10 PM CT is a rule, not a suggestion
All positions must be flat before 3:10 PM CT daily and before Friday close. Holding a Sunday Globex opinion is not a Topstep product. CME open at 5:00 PM CT is a new session with a new daily character. News is permitted in evaluation. Live Funded enforces Tier-1 flattening. Automations must respect Globex order-to-fill efficiency. A noisy NinjaTrader ATM that hammers cancels can look like a message-ratio problem even when EOD PnL is fine.
The $99/month $100K fee is a subscription, so a blown Combine is a month of cash, not a $540 one-time CFD fee. That cheapness is why people reset too fast and never learn the 50% cap. Budget months, not hero Tuesdays.
Chicago clock in Equity Guard, 50% green cap
Set Venasri Equity Guard to flatten well inside the $3,000 EOD trail on $100K (for example $2,200 to $2,400 of closed-day risk, plus an intraday soft stop so a -$2,800 open NQ does not become a -$3,000 close). Force flatten by 15:05 CT, not 15:11. Use the ZeroMQ MT5 Bridge only if you also run an MT5 CFD copy; the Combine itself lives on TopstepX/NinjaTrader/Tradovate. Keep 24/7 MT5 Bot Control off that futures login if the bot assumes 00:00 forex resets.
Cap day-profit near $2,800 on the $6,000 $100K target so 50% consistency never rewrites the exam. Count five $200 days before you think about the 50% payout-of-balance rule. 100% of the first $10,000 is the reason to stay boring after Express Funded, not to size 12 NQ micros like a $150K Live desk on day two.
