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Most funded futures traders face this decision at least once: the evaluation is in a hole, the firm offers a reset for a fee, and the question is whether paying to restart the metrics is better than finishing the current evaluation or buying a new one. The answer is not about the fee — it is about the diagnosis. This article covers what a reset actually does and does not restore, the cost comparison between resetting and restarting, the decision framework for when a reset is the right call, and how to set up the evaluation differently after using one.
Part 1 of 4 — What a reset does
Understanding exactly what a reset restores and what it leaves unchanged is the first step in deciding whether one is worth paying for.
When you purchase a funded futures evaluation reset, the firm restores your account to its initial state on three dimensions: (1) the account balance returns to the starting balance before any P&L was recorded, (2) the trailing drawdown floor resets to the initial drawdown level — the high-water mark is cleared and restarted from the opening balance, and (3) the qualifying trading day count resets to zero. Any DLL violations or consistency rule events that occurred during the current evaluation period are also cleared. The result is a clean slate: the evaluation begins again from the same parameters you started with originally. What does not reset: the evaluation rules themselves, the profit target, the minimum trading days requirement, the daily loss limit, and the consistency rule ratio. Those are properties of the evaluation contract, not the account metrics. The evaluation contract continues — only the scoreboard resets, not the ruleset.
A reset does not restore any profitable progress made before the drawdown event. If you had earned $1,800 toward a $3,000 profit target, then gave back $2,500 in a series of bad sessions, the reset account starts at $0 toward the profit target — not at $1,800. All prior qualifying trading days are also cleared: if you had 5 qualifying days toward a 7-day minimum, the reset account shows 0 qualifying days. The time invested in the evaluation before the reset is not returned. A reset is not a partial refund of progress — it is a full restart of metrics. The practical implication is that a reset costs more than the fee alone: it also costs the time and progress invested in the evaluation before the drawdown occurred. When you calculate whether a reset is worthwhile, include the opportunity cost of starting the day count and balance again from zero, not just the dollar amount of the reset fee.
Most funded futures firms limit the number of resets available per evaluation. The most common structure is one or two resets allowed per evaluation period, after which the evaluation must be completed on the current state or replaced with a new purchase. Some firms offer one free reset as part of the evaluation package, with additional resets available for a fee. A small number of firms do not offer resets at all — if the evaluation is in an unrecoverable position, the only options are to continue trading with the remaining margin before a violation closes it, or to let the violation occur and purchase a new evaluation. Check the reset policy before starting an evaluation, not when you need one. The reset limit is listed in the firm's evaluation rules documentation or account dashboard. The Funded Firm Radar tracks reset availability as part of the firm comparison data.
Part 2 of 4 — Cost comparison
The financial decision is between three options: reset the current evaluation, continue the current evaluation from the damaged state, or purchase a new evaluation. Each has a different cost structure.
The total cost of a reset is the original evaluation fee (already paid) plus the reset fee. If the evaluation cost $150 and the reset costs $75, the total invested in the evaluation is $225. After the reset, you begin the evaluation from Day 1 metrics, which means the full qualifying period and the full profit target lie ahead. The advantage: the reset fee is typically 30-60% of the cost of a new evaluation. The disadvantage: you have already paid the original fee, and the reset adds another fee on top while returning you to the starting point — not to your previous best position. The reset makes financial sense when (1) the reset fee plus the likely time to complete the evaluation is less costly than a new evaluation, and (2) there is a specific behavioral change you can implement immediately that addresses the root cause of the drawdown.
If the evaluation is in a hole but has not violated any hard rules, continuing from the current state is theoretically possible — it just requires recovering the full drawdown plus the remaining profit target, usually without the ability to take the same size that created the original problem. This option costs nothing additional in fees, but it requires exceptional P&L recovery under constrained sizing because the trailing drawdown floor typically moved against you during the drawdown period, tightening the remaining margin between the current balance and the floor. Continuing is the right option when the remaining distance to a violation is large enough to trade meaningfully and when there is a realistic path to recovery without taking outsized risk. It is the wrong option when the drawdown has left only a few ticks of daily loss limit headroom — in that state, continuing the evaluation produces a false economy where the cost savings of avoiding the reset fee are negated by the near-certainty of a violation that ends the evaluation entirely.
Purchasing a new evaluation costs the full original evaluation fee — typically more than a reset — but it also starts cleanly without any sunk-cost psychological weight. A new evaluation is the right option when (1) the reset fee is close to the price of a new evaluation, eliminating the financial advantage of a reset, (2) the current evaluation has already used its available resets, or (3) the drawdown was caused by a structural habit that requires time and deliberate practice away from the evaluation clock to address. Starting fresh also removes the temptation to compound the existing losses through recovery trading in the remaining sessions before deciding. The disadvantage of a new evaluation purchase: it delays the evaluation restart by the time required to process the new account, and it carries the full evaluation fee cost, not just the reset fee.
Part 3 of 4 — The decision framework
Most traders who reset without diagnosing the cause reset again. The decision framework filters for whether a reset is likely to produce a different outcome, not just a lower immediate cost.
Before considering a reset, review the session log that produced the drawdown and identify the specific cause. There are three common categories: (1) an isolated execution error — a position held through a news release, a wrong-direction entry on a confirmed setup, a technical error such as an incorrect stop placement — that is not characteristic of how you typically trade, (2) a sizing error — a session or series of sessions where position size exceeded what the daily loss limit and trailing drawdown supported — which indicates a habit, not an error, (3) a rule misunderstanding — trading through an event or at a time that violated the evaluation rules in a way you did not fully understand before the session. Category 1 is the only category where a reset is likely to produce a different result on the next attempt, because the error is specific and identifiable. Categories 2 and 3 require a behavioral change before resuming the evaluation, and a reset without that change is a paid repeat of the same session sequence.
Before purchasing a reset, answer these four questions: (1) Can you name the exact session and the exact decision that began the drawdown? (2) Is the cause something you have done before, or was it a one-time event? (3) What is the specific behavioral change — not "trade better," but a named rule change such as "no trading after 10:30 AM EST on NFP days" or "maximum 2 contracts until the trailing drawdown floor distance exceeds $1,500" — that you will apply in session 1 of the reset? (4) Has the firm's reset limit allowed this? If you can answer all four questions with specifics, a reset is a reasonable option. If question 3 produces a general answer ("be more disciplined," "take fewer trades"), do not purchase the reset yet — the general answer means the root cause has not been isolated, and the reset will repeat the drawdown sequence in fewer sessions than the first attempt because the same pattern will recur with less time to correct it.
The most common scenario where a reset is the wrong choice: the trader has experienced a drawdown from multiple sessions of compounding losses — a pattern of small losses that accumulated over four or five sessions rather than one catastrophic session. This pattern is not an error. It is a signal that something about the evaluation conditions — market conditions, timing, sizing — is misaligned with the trader's current execution quality. A break from the evaluation, a session log review, and a paper-trading period on the same setup type in similar conditions is more valuable than a reset in this case. The funded evaluation clock adds psychological pressure that compounds the behavior driving the losses. A short break to identify whether the issue is technical (setup selection), mechanical (sizing), or psychological (override and revenge behavior) is worth more than the reset fee. Return to the evaluation — or a new one — when the session log from the break period shows evidence of the correction, not just the intention to correct.
The most common reasoning error in the reset decision is factoring in the original evaluation fee as a reason to reset rather than let the evaluation expire. The logic goes: "I already paid $150 for this evaluation, so it makes more sense to spend $75 to reset than to let that $150 go to waste." This is the sunk cost fallacy: the $150 is already spent regardless of what you do next. The only financially relevant comparison is the reset fee versus the cost of a new evaluation, plus the difference in expected time to completion. If the reset costs $75 and a new evaluation costs $150, the reset saves $75 — but only if the reset is likely to succeed. If the behavioral cause of the drawdown has not been addressed, the expected cost of the reset path is $75 + the probability of another reset or a new evaluation shortly after. The original $150 is not a factor. Make the decision based on: what does it cost to get to a funded account from here via the reset path versus the new evaluation path, given an honest assessment of the behavioral change required?
Part 4 of 4 — After the reset
A reset without a pre-session behavioral change is a paid repeat. The first session is where the change is demonstrated — not planned, not intended, demonstrated.
In the first session of a reset evaluation, apply a more conservative position size than the one used when the original drawdown occurred. If the drawdown came from a 3-contract session and the evaluation supports 2 contracts at the current trailing drawdown distance, open the reset evaluation with 1 contract until at least 3 qualifying sessions have been recorded. The purpose is not punishment — it is evidence collection. A reset that starts with the same position size as the session that caused the problem provides no signal that behavior has changed. Smaller early-session size gives the trading pattern time to stabilize before the full allowed size is resumed. Reapply the position sizing formula from scratch on the reset account using the reset account's trailing drawdown floor distance and daily loss limit, the same way you would on a new evaluation.
In the original evaluation, the daily profit stop formula (total net profit × 0.28) only becomes meaningful after several sessions of accumulated P&L. At the start of the reset, the formula produces near-zero values for the first one or two sessions, which means the behavioral guard is effectively absent in the early sessions. Substitute the per-session pace ceiling instead: (profit target) ÷ (minimum trading days) = the early-evaluation daily profit stop. For a $3,000 target with a 7-day minimum, the pace ceiling is $428 per session. Apply $428 as the daily profit stop for the first three sessions of the reset, regardless of what the formula produces. This prevents the early-session overrun pattern that often produces the consistency rule problem later in the evaluation — and it prevents a large outlier session in the first few days that distorts the evaluation before the recovery habit is confirmed.
Add a third column to your daily session log alongside balance and qualifying day count: the behavioral change you identified in Part 3. After each session, mark whether the behavioral change was applied as intended. If the change was "no trading after 10:30 AM EST on NFP days," note whether that was followed. If the change was "maximum 1 contract until 3 qualifying sessions are recorded," note whether that contract limit held. This is not administrative — it is the evidence base that tells you whether the reset is working as a learning event or simply deferring the same problem. If the first session of the reset shows the behavioral change held and the session result was within the expected range, the reset was a good decision. If the first session shows the same pattern that caused the original drawdown, do not purchase another reset — pause, extend the diagnostic review, and return when the session log from practice shows a different result.
A funded futures evaluation reset restores your account metrics — balance, trailing drawdown floor, and qualifying day count — to their starting values in exchange for a fee. The rules do not change; only the scoreboard resets to Day 1 state. Most firms charge $50 to $100 for a reset, which is typically 30-60% of the original evaluation fee. The reset does not restore progress made before the drawdown — profitable sessions, qualifying days, and balance gains from before the problem are all cleared.
Most funded futures evaluation resets cost between $50 and $100, though some firms include one free reset per evaluation period. The key comparison is the reset fee versus the cost of a new evaluation. If a new evaluation costs $150 and the reset costs $75, the reset saves $75 — but only if the behavioral cause of the drawdown has been addressed. The fee comparison is secondary to the behavioral question.
Reset if: the reset fee is meaningfully lower than a new evaluation, the cause was a specific identifiable event you can name and correct, and you can describe the exact behavioral change you will apply in session 1. Start a new evaluation if: the reset fee is close to the cost of a new evaluation, the cause was a sizing or consistency habit rather than a one-time error, or the current evaluation has used its available resets. Never factor in the original evaluation fee — it is already spent regardless of what you do next.
Yes — a reset restores the evaluation to Day 1 state, which clears DLL violation history, resets the trailing drawdown to the initial floor, and returns the balance to the original starting value. All metrics restart from zero. However, profitable sessions before the reset are also cleared — you do not keep prior gains. The firm records the reset in your account history and most firms limit the number of resets available per evaluation.
Apply the specific behavioral change you identified in the diagnostic before session 1 of the reset. Use a smaller position size than the session that caused the drawdown, apply the per-session pace ceiling as the early-session daily profit stop rather than the formula-derived value, and track the behavioral change alongside balance and day count each session. A reset without a named behavioral change is a paid repeat of the same sequence. The standard: apply the change in session 1, not after it fails again.
Reset fee paid. The pre-session routine is what determines whether the second attempt ends differently.
Most traders who reset an evaluation do so because they were managing the balance but not the three independent evaluation constraints simultaneously. The method is the pre-session routine that keeps all three in view — profit stop, sizing, consistency ratio — in under three minutes. First 100 founding seats at $19/mo, locked for life.