FTMO Free trial 100k 2 step Challenge

Critiques of The Challenge: Fees and Commission in particular

1. "No fee" only means no entry fee — the trading costs inside are real-world costs, not simulated ones. FTMO states explicitly that the Free Trial runs on the same conditions as the paid Challenge and the funded Account — same spreads, same per-lot commissions, same execution. So your -$6,534.60 isn't just "practice losses" in some abstracted sandbox sense — a real slice of that number is genuine spread markup and commission drag (the ~$3–5/lot on forex, the embedded spread on metals like Gold, etc.), identical to what you'd be charged on a live funded account. The "free" label describes what you pay to access the environment, not what the environment costs you to trade in.

2. You absorb full trading costs against a discounted target. The profit target is halved (5% instead of 10%) and minimum days are halved (2 instead of 4) — but the commission and spread structure isn't halved at all. That's a worse cost-to-target ratio than the real Challenge: you're fighting full-price friction for a smaller cushion. It can cut either way — either the trial makes cost drag feel more punishing than it'll actually be on the real target, or (more likely, since the target's easier) it lets you clear the trial without ever appreciating how much that same spread/commission structure will eat into a full 10% target later.

3. Passing changes nothing financially. Even a flawless trial run gets you information only — no discount, no credit, no reduced fee toward the real paid Challenge. You've already absorbed a full simulation of the cost structure and demonstrated you can handle it, and none of that carries forward. The realism that makes the trial genuinely useful for testing your strategy is the same thing that makes it a bit of a "free rehearsal for a bill you still pay in full."

Just complete 14 trading days (which should possibly be this Friday), then your account will enter a Read-only mode).

You've done 12, so two days left, then we'll see.

A break below that internal support it is reacting from currently at 1.1646 and price will decline further to fill up the Bullish imbalance.

I made a research on why my challenge hasn't ended yet and this is what i got.

FTMO removed the fixed time limit on Challenges back in late 2024. As of 2026, both the Challenge and Verification phases have unlimited time — the only day-based requirement is a minimum trading days rule (you need at least 4, and your account shows 12, so that's long since satisfied). So there's no 14-day expiry to worry about; your account isn't overdue for anything, it just runs until you either hit the profit target, breach a loss limit, or leave it inactive too long.

Nice Setup. This must have pushed finally.
A 1hr Bearish consolidation channel has been created finally on EURUSD.

I was stopped out on BE then i changed bias to buys just to get stopped out immediately

The Time limit removal being referred to here has to do with purchased challenge accounts, not free trial accounts.
When FTMO started, they used to give a 30-days limit to pass your purchased account otherwise your account will be forfeited. It's because of the too many complaints from traders worldwide that made them review and remove it, couple with new props coming up without time limits to pass purchased accounts.
That's one way they could still stay in the competition as other emerging props were introducing more lucrative and attractive offers and one of those was removing time limits for purchased challenges.

That's painful.

Okay then i will complete the remaining two days, but how are they counting the days

Price is now fully bearish.

This EURUSD has traumatized me today😂

once you complete the 14 days, and the trading account activates view-only mode, that would mean they are counting trading days not, normal calendar days that involves Saturdays and Sundays.

Exactly why I've avoided it. I'm not ready for trauma this week especially from dollar related pairs.

4. The 14-day clock creates pressure the paid product deliberately removed. FTMO markets "unlimited time" as a core improvement to the paid Challenge, precisely because time pressure pushes traders into oversized, cost-inefficient trades. The Free Trial reintroduces that exact pressure via the 14-day cutoff — which risks training new traders into the rushed, overtrading habits FTMO's own paid-product design is supposed to discourage, right before they move to real money on the line.

We go again tomorrow

not just painful but traumatizing

The 14-day trial is solely to give you a taste of what they offer in purchased challenges.
It's like a window-shopping strategy, you can have a feel of what is offered, but with expiry period.
That's why it's best for review processes, like what we are doing.

It's not always advisable for Newbies to trade trial accounts or normal demo accounts for long, it gives you a kind of comfort that is hard to breakout from, when trading real accounts.

But the statistics is always a sneak-peak of your trading behaviour and discipline.