How Still Funded Scores Prop Firms
Method version 1.4 - Last updated: October 11, 2026
Why We Score Firms This Way
The scores on this site measure what matters to a trader deciding where to put money. Is the firm legitimate and stable? What does it cost to get funded and stay funded: the eval, resets, the activation fee and data fees? How much can a funded trader realistically take home? Do the rules favor the trader or the firm?
They are non-biased by design. No firm is ranked by who pays us or how much. A firm we have no affiliate relationship with outranks affiliated firms whenever the math says so, because commission is not a field the scoring data contains. Every firm we cover is graded by the same math from the same data fields, recomputed whenever the underlying data changes.
This page is the published version of that method. It states every input, the direction each input pushes a score, and what is deliberately left out. The method described here and the method computing the live scores are the same thing, version-matched, so if this page and a score ever disagreed, that would be a bug and not a judgment call.
The Four Scores, One by One
Trust Score
What it measures: how legitimate, established, and safe the firm is.
The inputs, and the direction each one pushes:
Institutional accountability. A firm backed by a regulated broker carries a real accountability anchor and scores at the top of this input. It is a tier, not a pass-fail: a long-established independent firm with a verified, multi-year payout track record earns substantial credit here too. A new independent with no track record and no backing scores low.
Verifiable business details. A registered legal entity name, jurisdiction, registration number, a physical address that checks out, and working contact channels each add to the score. Missing or unverifiable details subtract. Thin or offshore disclosure is noted as a real signal, not an automatic disqualifier.
Confirmed payout history. Driven by the payout-proof tiers described under Data Sources below. Strong community-aggregated evidence scores high. Reported-only or unverified claims score low.
Longevity. More years in operation scores higher. New firms are capped, not failed, until they build a track record.
Stability and risk flags. Documented problems subtract: payout freezes, sudden rule changes, mass account closures, platform-outage account wipes, shutdown rumors, and ownership changes. Each flag is dated and sourced.
Third-party review standing. Ratings weighted by review volume, plus how the firm handles negative reviews. A high rating on a thin review count scores lower than a slightly lower rating across thousands of reviews. We score the verifiable live review count, never a firm's self-claimed number, and a suspended or penalized review profile is the worst signal in this input and is stated openly on the firm's page. We also average recent ratings rather than scoring a single snapshot, so a short-lived swing cannot move this input on its own.
Transparency of terms. Drawdown rules, payout conditions, fees, prohibited strategies, country eligibility, and the trader agreement should all be published clearly before you buy. Hidden or vague terms subtract. Country eligibility and ID check (KYC) restrictions are read here as a transparency matter and are never scored or written up as a payout scam.
The top four inputs above carry equal weight, so a firm earns trust through accountability, verifiable identity, proven payouts, and time, with no single one dominating.
Cost Score
What it measures: what it costs to get funded and stay funded. A high score means cheaper and better value.
The core idea: evaluation fees are scored against what the fee actually buys, the profit target and the max drawdown, not against the advertised account size. The account size is marketing. The profit target and the max drawdown are the product.
The inputs, and the direction each one pushes:
Eval fee versus max drawdown, and eval fee versus profit target. Together these replace account-size fee comparison entirely. More drawdown and a closer target per dollar score higher.
Activation and funded-account fees. One-time or recurring fees to activate or keep the funded account. This is a frequently hidden second cost, so it carries more weight than either eval-fee input alone. Some firms scale the activation fee up with account size, which this input captures.
Reset fees and how the firm bills. Reset cost, plus whether the firm runs a monthly subscription, which balloons for slower traders, or a one-time fee, which is predictable. The score reflects the expected real cost, not the eval price.
Data and platform fees. Scored on Level 1 market data only: included, passed through at cost, or charged by the firm. Included scores best. Depth-of-book upgrades and platform add-ons are a separate purchase at some firms, so they never drag a firm's category down.
Effective cost after typical discount. The firm's typical sustained discount level factors into an effective-cost view. This is the sustained pattern over time, never a one-off spike, and it sits on its own line, separate from the per-account prices the fee inputs read.
Hidden and friction fees. Withdrawal fees and payment surcharges are read as a category: none stated, a payment service's fee passed on at cost, or a firm-side fee, disclosed or not. No fee keeps the points, a passed-on fee costs a little, and a firm-side fee costs more whether the firm publishes it or leaves it for you to find. Per-contract commissions subtract on their own line, and government taxes at checkout are not a firm fee, so they never subtract.
The fee inputs price each account the way you would actually buy it on the score's computed date. The baseline is the standard published price, and when a firm runs a published, dated sale, the sale-adjusted price is what the math reads until the sale ends. A discount code is different. A code is never a score input, so it cannot move a Cost Score no matter how large it is.
Payout Score
What it measures: how much a funded trader can realistically make and take home.
The inputs, and the direction each one pushes:
Number of simultaneous accounts allowed.Stacking multiplies capital, so a higher account cap scores higher. The firm's copy-trading permission is read alongside this: a firm that lets you copy across your own accounts multiplies payout potential and scores more favorably, and a firm that bans it scores less so.
Profit split. The percentage the trader keeps, including tiered splits. Higher splits, and splits that favor the trader earlier, score higher.
Payout caps and how often you can get paid.Fewer caps and more frequent payouts score higher.
Maximum allocation and scaling ceiling. This reads the firm's scaling plan rules, and it includes contract and position-size limits, because those cap earning power no matter what the advertised account size says.
Time to first payout. Shorter requirements score higher.
Payout speed. Time from request to money in hand.
Withdrawal flexibility. Whether you can request a payout on any day or only on set days. On-demand requests score higher.
One more consideration: where a firm forces successful traders onto live accounts with tighter risk limits, what they can take home drops after the move, and that lowers this score.
Rules Score
What it measures: whether the rules favor the trader or the firm. A high score means trader-friendly rules.
The inputs, and the direction each one pushes:
Drawdown size relative to profit target. The single most consequential rule for whether an account is realistically tradeable, and the heaviest input in this score. More drawdown per dollar of target scores higher.
Time limits. No time limit is best. Longer than a month is good, 30 days is the baseline, and a tight multi-day deadline scores lowest.
Consistency rule. Looser or absent consistency rules score higher. Strict ones favor the firm.
Drawdown method. Static drawdown is the most forgiving and scores highest, end-of-day trailing is next, and intraday trailing scores lowest. This is scored per account, because a single firm can use one method on the eval and a different one on the funded account, and the score reads the account you would actually trade.
Daily loss limit. Presence and size, including whether a breach is soft (a pause) or hard. A hard limit that fails the account the instant it is crossed is more firm-favored than a soft one.
News trading allowance. Fewer restrictions score higher.
Automation allowance. Same direction.
Other restrictive rules. A checklist of sixteen named restriction types, from mandatory daily flat rules to broad at-our-discretion clauses. The more types a firm's documents trigger, the more it subtracts. Each rule counts once: anything already scored by its own input, like automation bans, news windows, or consistency rules, stays off this checklist so no firm pays twice for the same rule. Minimum trading days, rules on how long you must hold a trade, and a forced move to live, where a firm moves winners onto a live account with tightened risk, still subtract on their own.
The Still Funded Score
The overall Still Funded Score is an equal blend of the four scores, 25% each. An equal blend treats the four as co-equal and builds in no hidden editorial preference, which is the most defensible way to publish an overall score. It exists for sorting and rankings. The four individual scores are the real value, and the prop firm finder reads them directly.
What We Deliberately Exclude
Three things never enter the math:
Commission. What a firm pays us, or whether it pays us at all, is not a field in the scoring data. The math cannot see it.
Affiliate status. Whether we have a relationship with a firm has no input anywhere in any score.
Sponsorship. No paid placement of any kind touches a score, a ranking, or a verdict.
Our scores are calculated from a published methodology using firm data, verified business details, payout evidence, and rule mechanics. Affiliate relationships are never an input. When a firm we have no relationship with scores highest, it holds the top spot.
Data Sources and Verification
Score inputs come from sources in this order of authority: government business registries and regulator records, the firm's own published terms, FAQ, and help-center pages, and dated community evidence. When a firm's marketing page and its trader agreement disagree, the agreement wins.
Payout evidence is labeled by tier, and there are two:
Community-aggregated. Documented payout evidence from public sources: the firm's own published or audited payout reports, dated payout threads on Trustpilot, Reddit, or Discord, and third-party trackers, cited and linked. This is the stronger tier. The best case is an independently audited payout report, the strongest form of evidence in this tier.
Reported and unverified. Claims exist but could not be independently confirmed, and the page says so. Where a firm shows both fresh verified payout reviews and a corroborated, dated cluster of non-payment complaints, the page presents both sides with dates, labels the evidence community-reported, and issues no verdict in either direction. The label carries the tension.
Pricing history comes from our own sale-history log, which records each firm's discount levels over time and feeds the typical-sustained-discount input in the Cost Score.
Versioning and Updates
The method carries a version number, shown at the top of this page. When the method changes, the change is dated and noted here. Each firm's scores also show the date they were computed, so you always know how fresh the number is.
After every scoring run we also perform an independence self-check: verifying that long-established independent firms with strong payout records land in the high Trust band, and that no broker-backed but otherwise weak firm outranks them on Trust alone. If a check ever fails, the inputs get reviewed and the result gets documented here.
Frequently Asked Questions
How is the Trust Score calculated?
From seven inputs: institutional accountability, verifiable business details, confirmed payout history, years in operation, stability and risk flags, third-party review standing, and transparency of terms. The top four carry equal weight, so no single input can dominate the score.
Do affiliate commissions affect the scores?
No. Commission, affiliate status, and sponsorship are not fields in the scoring data, so the math cannot see them. A firm we earn nothing from ranks first whenever the math puts it there.
How often are the scores updated?
Scores are recomputed whenever a firm's underlying data changes, such as a price change, a rule change, a published sale starting or ending, or a new stability flag. Every score displays the date it was computed.
What is the Still Funded Score?
An equal 25% blend of the Trust, Cost, Payout, and Rules scores, used for sorting and rankings. The four individual scores carry the real detail, so check those before choosing a firm.
Why is a firm's score different from its Trustpilot rating?
Trustpilot measures one thing, what customers say about a firm. Our Trust Score weighs review standing by volume as just one of seven inputs alongside verifiable business details, payout evidence, longevity, and documented stability flags, so the two numbers can and do disagree.
Does discount pricing change a firm's Cost Score?
A discount code never changes the score. A published, dated sale does: while the sale runs, the Cost Score prices each account at the sale-adjusted price, and it returns to the standard price when the sale ends. On top of that, one input tracks the firm's typical sustained discount level over time, so a firm that discounts constantly is scored on that pattern too.