Topstep has brought back the first release from its experimental Topstep Labs line: the $25K Static Trading Combine, known as Drop #001. It’s a smaller, cheaper evaluation account built around a fixed loss limit instead of the trailing drawdown Topstep traders are used to — and availability is limited, so it won’t stick around indefinitely.

Here’s a walk-through of how it works, stage by stage, and why we think it’s genuinely one of the more trader-friendly things Topstep has put out.

The Quick Facts

• Account size: $25,000 buying power
• One-time fee: $75 — no subscription, no rebills, no resets
• Drawdown type: Static (fixed), not trailing
• Max Loss Limit: $1,000, permanently locked at $24,000 balance
• Profit Target: $2,000
• Consistency Target: 50%
• Max Contracts: 2 mini / 20 micro
• Daily Loss Limit: $500
• Express Funded Activation Fee: Free
• Payout Cap: $4,000 (same double payout cap as the standard $50K Combine)
• Combine Expiration: 90 days after purchase

Stage 1: The Trading Combine

This is the evaluation stage — where you prove you can trade within the rules before Topstep hands you a funded account. You start with $25,000 in buying power and need to hit a $2,000 profit target while respecting the 50% consistency target (no single day can carry an outsized share of your total profit).

The part that actually makes this account different is the Max Loss Limit. It’s static — fixed at $1,000, sitting permanently at the $24,000 mark. Compare that to a trailing drawdown, where your loss limit creeps up behind your balance as you make profit, and one bad stretch after a good run can suddenly put you closer to a breach than you realized. With a static MLL, that line simply doesn’t move. If your balance dips and recovers, your room to work with recovers too — it isn’t locked in at whatever your peak balance was.

That’s really the core idea behind Drop #001: you’re building your account against a wall that stays put, not a wall that follows you around.

Stage 2: Funded and Payouts

Once you clear the Combine, you move into an Express Funded Account — activation is free, no extra fee to unlock it. From there you’re working toward payouts under a $4,000 payout cap, the same cap Topstep offers on its standard $50K Combine, just on a smaller, cheaper account.

Topstep gives you two ways to qualify for a payout:

• Option 1 — Standard: Land at least five $150+ winning trading days, and keep your balance maintained between payouts.
• Option 2 — Consistency: Trade at least three days with a minimum of one trade per day, and keep your best single day within 40% of your total profit.

Either path leads to the same place: real payouts, and a track toward a Live Funded Account.

Our Take

We like this one, especially for traders who are newer to funded accounts or who’ve never gotten along with end-of-day trailing drawdowns. There’s a specific kind of stress that comes from watching your drawdown line creep up right behind your equity curve — it can feel like something’s chasing you, and it changes how people trade, often for the worse. A static drawdown removes that. You know exactly where the floor is on day one, and it stays there.

Combined with the $75 one-time entry, no rebill structure, and the same $4,000 payout cap as the full-size Combine, this is a low-cost, low-pressure way to test whether funded futures trading suits you — without the account rules working against your psychology on top of the market.

The catch: it’s a limited drop. Topstep has been explicit that once quantities run out, this specific offering is gone, and there’s no guarantee it returns or graduates into a permanent product.

I hope @MichaelPatak makes this permanent. I mean most balanced 25k static plan ever from @Topstep pic.twitter.com/M0BEdKn9Hv

— Funded Truth (@fundedtruth) September 2, 2026

View the $25K Static Combine on Topstep

Key Considerations

As with any evaluation account, read the actual rules on Topstep’s site before buying — particularly the max contract limit (2 mini / 20 micro) and the fact that this Combine expires 90 days after purchase if not passed. Limited availability also means it can sell out or be pulled without much notice.

Gourang Parekh

I’ve been trading for over 5 years, mainly across Indian markets, futures, forex, crypto, and CFDs. Over the years, I’ve traded with a lot of different brokers and prop firms and spent a huge amount of time testing their rules, platforms, pricing, drawdown models, payout systems, and trading conditions.

I’ve been through plenty of failed prop firm challenges myself before eventually figuring out what works for me. That experience has given me a pretty practical understanding of what traders actually deal with when choosing a prop firm or trading platform.

Outside of trading, I work with financial content, SEO, and WordPress. I’ve built websites and tools around trading and finance, tested a wide range of trading tools, and even modified Pine Script indicators on TradingView as a hobby.

I write about prop firms, brokers, crypto platforms, and trading tools with a focus on the things that actually matter to traders, including rules, costs, payouts, and the overall trading experience.

Expertise: Prop Firms, Forex Brokers, Futures, Crypto, CFDs, Trading Platforms, Trading Tools, Risk Management

Prop Firm Trader