Lucid Trading Rules, Payouts and Costs Explained

Lucid Trading is a futures-only prop firm, so no CFDs or crypto, selling one-time evaluations with no time limit, no monthly billing and no activation fee, and paying 90% of approved payouts from simulated funded accounts. On the verification date it sold four lines in 25K, 50K, 100K and 150K sizes. LucidPro can pass in one day and applies a 40% consistency rule once funded. LucidFlex has consistency only in the evaluation and asks five profitable days per payout. LucidDaily pays every day and uses an intraday drawdown once funded. LucidDirect skips the evaluation and applies a 20% rule. Keep getting paid and Lucid’s risk team may move you to a live brokerage account.

This article is the rulebook in one place: the numbers per plan and size, how the four payout systems differ, and the arithmetic that decides when an account pays you back. Everything comes from Lucid’s help center, plan picker and policy pages on the date in the box above.

Lucid Trading account types and prices

Lucid’s home page is a plan picker: choose Pro, Flex, Daily or Direct, a size and, on Pro, Flex and Direct, a platform. CQG offers NinjaTrader, Tradovate or TradingView, Rithmic offers Quantower, Sierra Chart, Bookmap and others, and Lucid says every platform works with every account type. Evaluations add options: DLL on or off, 40% or 50% consistency on Flex and Daily, end-of-day or intraday drawdown for the Daily evaluation. Every card shows a struck list price and a lower “w/ coupon at checkout” price; both are reported as Lucid’s picker displayed them on the verification date.

One-time USD prices for the base configuration (DLL on, 40% consistency), as shown by Lucid’s plan picker on the verification date; the “with coupon” figure is the one Lucid prints next to the list price. EOD = end of day; reset fees have no coupon price; micro contracts count one tenth of a mini. *The evaluation and DLL help pages list “None” for the 25K Pro; the LucidPro funded-account page and the picker’s evaluation card show $600. The picker’s funded-rules cards show “NONE” below the trail for every Pro and Flex size. Two older LucidDaily help pages still list 50% as the only evaluation consistency; the customization page and the picker show 40% standard and 50% as a paid option, which is what we report.

Options cost extra and are locked once the account exists. With the DLL off the coupon price rises to $90.30–$300.30 on Pro, $60.20–$265.30 on Flex and $80.50–$250.60 on Daily (EOD evaluation). The 50% add-on adds $4.20–$21 on Flex and $4.20–$17.40 on Daily EOD, and a 50K Flex reset goes from $80 to $115 with the DLL off. Direct has no options: its DLL is fixed by size and the 25K has none.

Lucid evaluation rules: one day on Pro, two or three on Flex and Daily

The three evaluations share targets, loss limits and contract limits (table) and the same terms: no time limit, no monthly rebilling, no activation fee. Except for the intraday option on Daily, they also share the end-of-day trailing drawdown. The funded account is activated within 5–30 minutes of hitting the target. What differs is the consistency rule:

• LucidPro: no consistency rule; reach the target without touching the Max Loss Limit and you can pass in one trading day.
• LucidFlex: your largest profitable day may be at most 40% of your evaluation profit at the target (50% with the paid add-on): at least three green days at 40%, two at 50%. Funded Flex accounts have no consistency rule.
• LucidDaily: the same 40% / 50% choice, plus intraday (cheaper, unrealized P&L counts) or end-of-day drawdown during the evaluation; the funded Daily account always uses an intraday drawdown.
• DLL (when on): $600 / $1,200 / $1,800 / $2,700 by size, a soft breach: hit it and you are locked out until the next session. The “off” version costs more because it removes that brake in both stages.
• Failing means touching the Max Loss Limit. A failed evaluation can be reset from the dashboard for the reset fee (original balance and parameters); resets are never automatic or free, and a breached account not reset within 30 days is deleted.

Lucid drawdown explained: EOD trailing, the Initial Trail Balance and the buffer

Lucid’s Max Loss Limit (MLL) on Pro, Flex, Direct and the EOD Daily evaluation is an end-of-day trailing drawdown. At the close of each session the system takes your highest closing balance and sets the MLL that distance below it, so intraday swings do not move the floor. On a 50K account with a $2,000 MLL, close day one at $51,000 and tomorrow’s floor is $49,000 whatever happens during the session. The floor rises until a closing balance passes the Initial Trail Balance, starting balance + MLL + $100 ($26,100 / $52,100 / $103,100 / $154,600; $103,600 and $155,100 on the 100K and 150K Direct). It then locks for good at the starting balance + $100 ($50,100 on a 50K). If your balance reaches the MLL, the account is breached.

That same level is the buffer on Pro and Daily: profit below it can never be withdrawn. Flex has no buffer, but a payout request moves its MLL to the locked level. The intraday variant on LucidDaily moves the MLL with your real-time profit and loss (P&L), open positions included. On Daily, the DLL never moves during a session; if the trailing MLL climbs above it, the MLL becomes the binding limit, and that one is a hard breach.

Lucid funded account rules: Pro, Flex, Daily and Direct compared

A funded Lucid account is a simulated account of the size you passed (or bought with Direct); the dashboard updates your objectives within 5–30 minutes of each closed trade. The headline differences:

• LucidScale DLL (Pro and Direct): once the account closes above the Initial Trail Balance, the fixed DLL becomes 60% of your highest end-of-day profit and only grows: $2,400 after a $4,000 peak.
• Flex scaling plan, recalculated at the end of each session from simulated profit. On a 50K: 2 minis (or 20 micros) below $1,000 of profit, 3 from $1,000, 4 from $2,000; on a 150K, 4 minis rising to 10 at $4,500+. A payout lowers the balance and can drop you a tier; deliberately exceeding the limit can wipe the day’s profit.
• Account limits: 5 funded accounts per household (all types combined), 10 evaluations, 10 accounts in total.
• Trading hours: Lucid closes every position at 4:45 PM ET Monday to Friday (holding past the cut-off does not fail the account); trading resumes at 6:00 PM ET Sunday to Thursday. No overnight positions on simulated accounts (the page lists Pro, Flex and Direct; nothing suggests Daily differs). Live accounts may hold positions until 4:45 PM ET on Tradovate or 4:15 PM ET on Rithmic and may not swing trade.
• Inactivity: no trade producing at least $1 of net profit or loss in 30 calendar days and the account is deemed abandoned and permanently deleted.

Lucid payout rules: Flex vs Pro vs Direct vs Daily

Four plans, four payout systems. Common to all: $500 minimum, 90% to the trader, no fixed payout window, funds deducted within minutes of approval and sent within 2 business days (typically 5–15 minutes with Plaid for US traders, says Lucid’s FAQ). Requests are final once submitted and may be denied if you keep trading and the balance drops below the required level before processing. With the DLL on, Pro, Flex and Daily (and Direct from 50K up) also allow on-demand payouts during the session. On Pro, Flex and Direct the request must come from that session’s profit (6:00 PM to 3:45 PM ET). Pro and Flex are then paused until the end of the trading day; on Daily you can submit several requests in one session.

LucidPro: plus the 40% consistency rule (35% on accounts bought or reset before November 28, 2025 at 3 PM ET, which also keep 100% of the first $10,000); every condition resets after each approved payout. Lucid’s About page says “Get paid on Day 3 with LucidPro”, the minimum the 40% rule allows.

LucidFlex: the five days need not be consecutive and restart after every approved payout; the cycle must also end with positive net profit. The maximums do not grow with later payouts, and accounts with a hedging violation lose intraday payouts.

LucidDirect: on 50K to 150K the first profit goal equals the evaluation target of the same size; the 25K asks $1,500 against a $1,250 target. The 20% rule means at least five profitable days per cycle (the picker says “Min Day to Payout 5”); no buffer is listed, and the goal resets to $0 after each approved payout.

LucidDaily drops the per-request cap: with profit above the buffer ($26,100 / $52,100 / $103,100 / $154,600) and at least $1 made since the last payout, you can request everything above the buffer, every day. The limit is a maximum daily profit of $6,000 / $8,000 / $10,000 / $12,000. Meet or exceed it in one day and, per the payouts page, you are moved to live automatically. The newer LucidDaily live page lists that day as a trigger for a discretionary live review, and only funded accounts with at least one payout go live. Daily funded accounts also carry Lucid’s only news ban (below).

How you get paid: Plaid instant bank transfers for US traders, WorkMarket by ADP (bank transfer or PayPal, US and international) or, for international traders, crypto (BTC, ETH, LTC, USDT, USDC). An identity check (KYC) comes at payout time when the provider requires it, payouts to a company need business verification documents, and US traders may receive a 1099 where applicable.

The Lucid consistency rule and buffer, with the math

Lucid’s formula is the same everywhere: largest single-day profit ÷ account profit in the cycle = consistency percentage, at or below the plan’s limit. That limit is 40% in the Flex and Daily evaluations (50% with the add-on), 40% on funded Pro, 20% on Direct, none on funded Flex and Daily or on live accounts. Lucid’s own Pro example: a $1,000 best day on $4,000 of profit is 25%, so the payout is open if the other objectives are met. Turned around, best day ÷ limit = minimum cycle profit: a $1,500 day on a 50K Pro needs $3,750 of cycle profit, on a 50K Direct $7,500. Failing the ratio never breaches the account: you keep trading until the biggest day is diluted, and because losing days shrink the denominator, a red week after a big win pushes the request further away. The count restarts after each approved payout.

The buffer stacks on top. On a 50K Pro it is $52,100: a $500 request needs $52,600 ($2,600 of funded profit). The $2,000 maximum first payout needs $54,100 ($4,100 of profit) with no day above 40% of the cycle, so at least three days. Trade afterward as if the money were already gone: a request that lands in the buffer may be denied. The 50% add-on includes a small cushion above the exact 50% (Lucid’s 50K example: $1,560 instead of $1,500), a percentage of your actual day rather than a fixed amount.

Lucid activation, resets, fees and refunds

• No activation fee, no subscription: a passed evaluation becomes a funded account within 5–30 minutes; nothing rebills.
• Resets are bought from the dashboard for a breached evaluation ($45–$300 by plan, size and options); funded accounts cannot be reset.
• Refunds: none for any account that has been traded, “regardless of the number of trades placed”; never-traded accounts may be refunded at Lucid’s sole discretion, and a fraudulent or improper chargeback means a permanent ban. Payment by Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Discover, Diners Club or Maestro; no crypto payments.
• Eligibility: one profile per person, personal or business, forever (a second profile makes you ineligible to trade), and age 18 or over. Citizens or residents of about 80 listed countries and regions are not eligible, including Turkey, Pakistan, Nigeria, Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia, South Africa, Russia, Ukraine and EU members Bulgaria, Lithuania and Slovenia.

Lucid prohibited trading: hedging, microscalping, HFT, news on Daily (bots allowed)

Lucid’s rulebook is short, and it explicitly permits automation. The items that cost traders accounts or payouts:

• Hedging in any form: opposite positions on the same contract in the same account or across accounts (yours, another user’s or another firm’s). Correlated contracts across accounts (long ES in one, short NQ in another) count too; minis against micros of the same contract only inside one account. First detection: an email and a reset of the accounts to the prior day’s balance without restoring the drawdown; repeat offenses breach every account involved.
• Microscalping: flagged when more than 50% of your profit comes from trades held 5 seconds or less; review, written warning, then forfeiture of those profits and possibly a permanent restriction. Genuine scalping is fine.
• High-frequency trading: written warning first; repeated offenses remove the profits, close the accounts and restrict you permanently.
• News trading is allowed on Pro, Flex and Direct, slippage at your own risk. It is a hard breach on LucidDaily (spelled out for funded accounts: US high-impact USD releases, flat from one minute before to one minute after; the general rules page says simply “not allowed on Daily”).
• Exploiting the simulation (system errors, update delays, discrepancies in simulated prices): Lucid’s Terms of use allow it to strike those trades from your history, ignore their results and terminate your access.
• Allowed: automated systems and trade copiers (“traders are fully responsible for any software errors”), scaling in and dollar-cost averaging (martingaling is “strongly discouraged”, not banned), and “flipping” a quick trade to log a trading day. One caveat: the LucidDirect account agreement on Lucid’s site, dated May 19, 2025, still requires written approval for automated software and bans automated software developed by third parties. The current help center (updated August 2026) and FAQ simply permit automation and copiers. If you run a bot, ask support in writing which text governs your account.

What a Lucid account really costs before the first payout

Take the size Lucid uses in its own examples, a 50K LucidPro with the DLL on, and assume you pass and request the maximum first payout of $2,000.

• Money out: $172 at the list price or $103.20 at the coupon price the picker displays ($150.50 with the DLL off), nothing to activate, nothing monthly.
• What the account must do: make $3,000 to pass (one day is enough), then reach $54,100 in the funded account. That is $4,100 of profit over at least three days, no day above 40% of the total, on a $2,000 end-of-day drawdown. You receive 90% of the request, $1,800.
• Break-even: one maximum first payout returns about 10 times the list price and about 17 times the coupon price. Every reset ($120 with the DLL on) and every new evaluation before that payout goes on the cost side, where real accounts differ from the headline numbers (our data on what traders actually spend before a first payout).
• The other plans, same size: a 50K Flex ($115 / $69) needs five days of $150+ and $4,000 of profit for a $2,000 request (cap 50% of profit). A 50K Daily ($122 / $73.20, EOD evaluation) needs a $54,100 balance for the same $2,000: $4,100 of profit, $2,000 of it above the $52,100 buffer, with no consistency rule. A 50K Direct ($515 / $360.50) needs $3,000 of funded profit with no day above 20%; its first $2,000 payout ($1,800 net) is about 3.5 times the list price and 5 times the coupon price.
• Lifetime per account: a 50K Pro can request at most $2,000 + 4 × $2,500 = $12,000 in its five payouts ($10,800 net), the maximum before the live review. A 50K Flex reaches the live review after five payouts of at most $2,000 each; on Daily a single $8,000 day can end the simulated stage in favor of a live account.

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Lucid Live, LucidMaxx and the legacy LucidBlack

Lucid’s risk team reviews a trader for LucidLive after the fifth payout on Flex, Pro or Direct, after a maximum-daily-profit day on Daily, after “a significant amount of capital” paid out, or for exceptional performance. Every transition is at its discretion; the fifth payout is a ceiling, not a guarantee. When the email arrives you have 24 hours to choose a cashout instead, otherwise the move happens automatically; either way, all your simulated accounts are closed, unused evaluations included. Lucid’s page says the cashout is “50% of a traders live starting balance”, after the 90/10 split, without defining the base; ask support what it amounts to for your size. Only funded accounts with at least one payout move live; every other simulated account is closed, and a funded account left behind gets its evaluation fee refunded if it still has at least 50% of its drawdown. Live accounts start at a $0 balance. The starting drawdown depends on the funded size ($1,000 / $2,000 / $3,000 / $4,500) and trails end of day, with no DLL, daily payouts and a contract ladder by profit and exchange. Once live profit equals the starting drawdown, or when you request a live payout, the MLL locks at $100. A repeatable live bonus pays $1,000–$4,500 per account, subject to the 90/10 split, for $2,000–$9,000 of live profit plus 20 trading days. Nobody in your household may trade simulated accounts while you are live, and blowing a live account means a two-week cooldown. On LucidDaily the funded buffer becomes the live drawdown and simulated profit above it is paid out up to $15,000 in total. Accounts bought or reset on or before February 27, 2026 fall under an older structure with move-to-live caps and an escrow.

LucidMaxx is invitation-only (“earned, not requested”): a standard-target evaluation with 40% consistency, then a pre-live step with a target equal to the drawdown and no consistency rule. It ends in a live account with a starting balance of $1,000–$4,500 (subject to the 90/10 split), withdrawable from day one, a static $100 MLL, uncapped daily payouts and the same repeatable bonus. Its tiered price list ($110–$680) was retired on October 4, 2026 and no current price is published. LucidBlack (60% evaluation consistency, 40% funded consistency, $750–$2,000 standard payouts plus bonus payouts, live after the fourth payout) is filed under “Legacy” and is not in the picker.

Who the Lucid Trading rules suit

Each plan asks for a different proof before paying. Pro: a one-day pass, then a 40% best day. Flex: five modest green days and a 50%-of-profit cap. Daily: an intraday drawdown and a news ban in exchange for daily withdrawals. Direct: the strictest ratio, at two to five times the list price of a Pro or Flex evaluation of the same size. None allows overnight positions; all can lead, at Lucid’s discretion, to a live account that starts at zero. Our guide on tracking prop trading data covers how to count those fees per firm.

Frequently asked questions

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