Profit split
The profit split is the percentage of funded-account profits paid to the trader, with the firm keeping the remainder; most firms advertise splits between 75% and 90%.
The split applies to net profit at payout time, not to individual trades. Some firms improve the split after milestones — a number of successful payouts, or progress through a scaling plan — with long-standing funded traders commonly offered the upper end of the range.
The split is the firm's answer to a basic question: why fund strangers at all. On a simulated funded account the firm's outlay is the split it pays, financed mostly by evaluation fees, so paying 75–90% of simulated profits to the minority of traders who reach that stage is a cost of the model rather than a share of live-market gains. The money the trader receives is real either way.
Example
A trader on a $100,000 funded account finishes a payout cycle $4,000 up in net profit. At an 80% split the trader requests $3,200 and the firm retains $800. Profits made during the challenge phases are simulation bookkeeping and are never paid out — the split exists only from the funded stage onward.
Split percentages are among the most advertised numbers in the industry and among the least decisive: a high split on an account with unforgiving loss rules can be worth less than a lower split a trader can actually keep. That trade-off is explored in how prop firm payouts work.