Methodology · updated August 2026

How we score prop firms

Every score on this site comes from one process, applied identically to all 16 firms we track. Reviews are written by Nikita — Funded futures trader — live accounts and real payouts across multiple firms. That matters here: we've passed evals, held funded accounts, requested payouts, and been on the wrong end of a firm voiding one. The rankings exist because of that last experience.

The five criteria

1. Payout reality. First-payout timing, minimums, buffers, split, and — above all — whether the firm has a verifiable record of actually paying. A generous split that never pays out is worth exactly zero.
2. Drawdown mechanics. End-of-day vs intraday trailing vs static. This single rule decides how survivable an account is, so it's weighted heavily. Firms that silently switch drawdown type between eval and funded get called out.
3. Real cost. Not the sticker price — the discounted price everyone actually pays, plus activation fees, data fees, and reset costs. Discounts of 30–90% are permanent industry-wide, so we score on the street price.
4. Rule traps. Consistency rules, daily loss limits, news bans, inactivity clauses — anything that can void a payout after you've earned it.
5. Trust signals. Review-platform score relative to volume, age of the firm, platform/vendor relationships, and documented incidents. Payout-voiding events are disqualifying — that's how firms end up on our avoid list.

How the affiliate money works

Some links on this site are affiliate links, always marked rel="sponsored". If you buy an eval through one, we earn a commission at no cost to you. Scores and rankings are set from the research before any affiliate consideration — the proof is the avoid list: those reviews earn us nothing and exist anyway.

Update cadence

Firm rules and pricing change constantly. Research is refreshed on an ongoing basis and every page carries the month it was last reviewed. Found something out of date? The fastest fix is the firm's own checkout — always confirm terms there before paying.