The model, step by step.

One trader, one playbook, one firm — Tradeify's 50K Growth. The strategy is not one thing: it's a policy that maps the account's state to a setup filter and a risk size. This page builds that policy from the ground up: first the playbook as a graded population of setups, then the eval priced step by step, then what stricter bias criteria do to your statistics, then why a funded account in profit is treated as a different asset entirely.

Every number on this page is computed live by the same engine as the calculator — deterministic seeds, no hand-waving.

1 · The playbook is a graded population, not one win rate

"33% win rate" is a blend. Underneath it, setups arrive in grades — each with its own frequency and quality. A bias criterion is a filter over this population: raise the bar and you trade less often, win more often, and shrink variance. That's the whole mechanism, made explicit:

The setup population (edit to match your journal)

The defaults are calibrated so taking everything reproduces the blended baseline (~1.35 trades/day at 33%). Your TradeZella data replaces them — grade every trade and these three rows become measured facts.

What each filter level does to your statistics

Note the shape: "A and above" maximizes EV per day (quality × enough frequency), while "A++ only" maximizes EV per trade and cuts variance — worth less per day, but far harder to kill. Neither dominates. Which one is right depends on what you're protecting — that's §4.

A day of trading under each filter — simulated day P&L distribution, $100 risk

4,000 simulated trading days each, same seed. Stricter filters pull the left tail in and pile days at zero (no qualifying setup arrived, no trade taken). Zero-trade days cost nothing in an account with a locked floor — and they're lethal to nobody.

2 · Stage 1: the evaluation, priced step by step

Rules that matter: $3,000 target · $2,000 EOD trailing drawdown · $1,250 daily loss limit (soft — ends your day, not your account) · no consistency rule · pass in as little as 1 day · $145 one-time, $95 resets, no clock. Here is the whole calculation, one step at a time, at the default eval strategy (every setup, $250 risk):

The step most spreadsheets skip: a pass-rate cell says nothing about time. Halving risk raises P(pass) — and multiplies median time-to-funded by five. The eval is the one stage where blowing up is cheap ($95) and the prize (a funded account worth thousands) is waiting. Price your calendar, then choose risk on the calculator's eval sweep.

3 · The funded phase: stricter bias, because the rules say so

Three Tradeify rules turn the funded account into a different game — each one pushes the optimal strategy toward fewer, better trades:

The $150 qualifying day

Every payout needs 5 days of >$150 profit. A win must clear the bar: below ≈$65 risk a single 2.4R winner can't, and the account becomes structurally unable to ever pay out. The rule sets a floor under viable risk — you can be too small to get paid.

The 35% consistency rule

Your best day ≤ 35% of profit since the last payout — and losing days shrink the denominator. A $700 hero day demands $2,000 of cycle profit before you can withdraw. Big days don't win the funded phase; they raise its bar. Capped, repeatable days ($150–$250) walk straight through it.

The floor lock at +$2,100

The $2,000 trail rises only until it hits +$100, then freezes forever — triggered the first EOD balance at +$2,100. Before the lock, your real bankroll is the shrinking gap to a moving floor. After it, the account cannot be chased down. That line is the regime change your strategy switches on.

4 · Treat the account by its expected value

The same $100 of risk means different things at different states, because what you stand to lose is the account's continuation value — and that value climbs fast:

What the account is worth at each state (expected remaining sim-phase payouts)

The policy — one row per state

StateWhat you're protectingSetup filterRisk postureDay rule
Evaluation$95 reset — almost nothingEvery playbook setupHigh — buy time, not safetyStop at the target; day stop 2R
Funded, below +$2,100The whole account EV, vs a moving floorA and aboveModerate — reach the lock aliveNo hero days; day stop 2R
Funded, floor lockedAn annuity of capped payoutsA++ onlySized to the ruin capBank the day past $150–$250
Live (post-review)Real capital at 80/20A++ only — full stopOut of scope hereLive strategies are a different animal
The last row is doctrine, not simulation: this engine models the sim phase only. Rules-fitted strategies do not transfer to live capital unchanged — that's a future model.

5 · What to track in TradeZella

The model is only as honest as its inputs. Tag every trade with its stage and grade, and these numbers become measured, not assumed:

MetricHow to tag itFeeds
Eval win rate (by grade)tags: eval + a++/a/b§1 population table, eval stage sims
Funded win rate (by grade)tags: funded-grow / funded-protect + gradefunded sims — keep it separate from eval; pressure changes execution
Payout ratepayouts requested vs approved, days per payout cyclevalidates simulated payout cadence
Qualifying-day rateshare of trading days > $150the payout-gate math in §3
Best-day / cycle-profit ratiolargest green day ÷ profit since last payoutconsistency-rule headroom (keep ≤ 35%)
Review monthly: paste the measured per-grade win rates and frequencies into §1, re-run the calculator, and let the policy table update. If the measured eval and funded win rates diverge, believe the funded ones for funded decisions — the sims that matter are the ones about the accounts you already hold.

Honest limitations

Trades are drawn independently within each grade — real losing streaks cluster, so ruin probabilities read slightly optimistic; size the caps accordingly. The grade populations are assumptions until your journal fills them in. The engine stops at Tradeify's live review and assigns the live account no value — real EV is higher. Rules are the published numbers as of August 2026 and firms change them; the spec sits at the top of engine.js with sources.