"Prop firm bot" is a bag of four products. Search results dump them in one SERP. So do a lot of AI answers. If you install the wrong one you either fail a payout review or you buy a reverse that points at a second evaluation, which is the hedge firms ban.
Prop Firm Armour is one of the four: the hedge bot. If the prop account hits maximum drawdown, the hedge on your own broker is sized so the challenge fee is designed to come back. In Margin mode that scenario is also where the surplus is designed to land. This is not a refund from the firm, and it is not a guarantee: it depends on configuration, capital, and friction (erosion).
This page is the taxonomy. Use it to name the thing in your terminal before you name a vendor.
The four machines
| Places entries on the challenge | Second account | What it optimises | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Pass EA / trading bot | Yes | Usually none | Hit the profit target without tripping daily loss |
| 2. Risk manager | No (closes or internally hedges at a line) | None | Stop you breaching daily or max drawdown |
| 3. Same-side copier | No (you trade) | Repeats the same direction, often onto another prop | Scale a signal. Does not price the fee. |
| 4. Hedge bot | No (you trade) | Opposite lot on your personal broker, sized to the fee | Make max drawdown the priced event |
Most "best prop firm bot" roundups rank type 1. They compare claimed ROI, VPS setup, and which firms "allow EAs." That is a real category. It is also the category payout desks already watch. The write-up of that category, including why so many accounts die in review, is prop firm trading bot.
Type 2 is a utility. Useful. It does not return the fee after the floor. Once max drawdown prints, the evaluation is over.
Type 3 onto a second prop account is how copy-trading bans get triggered. Type 3 onto a personal account just doubles your directional bet.
Type 4 is the prop firm hedge bot. Opposite direction. Personal broker. Lot calibrated to the cash fee, not to the virtual notional. Local Windows process. That is ARMOUR.
How to tell which one you were sold
- If the sales page says "pass FTMO on autopilot," "1,000 strategy combinations," or "built-in news filter on the challenge," you were sold type 1. Maybe with a reverse bolted on.
- If it only closes positions at 4% daily loss, you were sold type 2.
- If master/slave writes the same side into a CSV in the Common folder, type 3.
- If master/slave writes the opposite side onto a broker in your name, and the lot is a function of the fee and the mode, type 4.
A type 1 with a reverse onto your live account is still a trading bot. It adds a hedge. It also adds every detection surface of automated entries on the evaluation. Prop Firm Armour does not fire those entries. You do.
Are prop firm bots allowed?
The honest sentence is: EAs are often allowed, specific behaviours are not. On CFD names (FTMO, FundedNext, The5ers and peers) MT4/MT5 Expert Advisors are commonly permitted, with hard lines against HFT, latency arbitrage, grid, martingale, and copy trading. Futures names are a different matrix (NinjaTrader, Tradovate, Rithmic) and are out of scope for ARMOUR.
A hedge bot that never trades the challenge does not trip an "EA on the evaluation" clause, because it is not on the evaluation. It is on your broker. The evaluation still has to look like a trader. Read the terms of the firm you choose. Firm-by-firm bot matrices on other sites go stale. The rulebook you clicked through does not.
What "best" even means here
If "best prop firm bot" means "highest chance the EA prints the profit target," you are in a different shop, and you should ask for verified payouts under the same firm you will use, not a backtest. If it means "the evaluation fee is designed to come back when I hit the floor, on my own broker," you are shopping type 4. Open /start and price the breach. That is the only number this product will stand on.
The strategy type 4 runs: prop firm hedging strategy. The account it needs: prop firm personal account.
