Maximum drawdown is the single rule that ends most funded accounts, and it's also the rule most traders misread. "6% drawdown" is not one rule — it's at least three different calculations wearing the same name.
The floor is fixed at the starting balance minus the allowance, and it never moves.
On a $50,000 account with 6% static drawdown, the floor is $47,000 permanently. Grow the account to $56,000 and the floor is still $47,000 — you now have $9,000 of room.
This is the most forgiving type. Profit genuinely becomes a cushion.
The floor moves up behind your highest balance — or, on some programmes, your highest equity , which includes unrealised profit on open positions.
On a $50,000 account with a $3,000 trailing allowance:
with equity-based trailing, letting a big winner give back most of its profit is exactly as damaging as taking a loss of the same size — and it doesn't appear anywhere in your win rate.
A common hybrid. The floor trails your high-water mark until it reaches the starting balance, then stops permanently.
On that $50,000 account, the floor trails up until you've made $3,000 of profit, at which point it locks at $50,000 and stays there. From then on you're trading with the original balance as a hard floor and everything above it as cushion.
This is why the first $3,000 of profit is the hardest phase of many programmes: until the lock triggers, every gain tightens your own leash.
Separate from the type is when the floor is measured.
Real-time calculation combined with equity-based trailing is the strictest combination in the industry. If that's what you're trading under, your effective room is smaller than the headline number suggests — treat the stated allowance as roughly two-thirds of itself and size accordingly.