A grade on this site is built from what a trader actually buys into: the contract, the published rules and the price, each read firsthand from the firm’s own pages. The sections below show how that evidence turns into one letter, and what we will not let it turn into.
What the grade weighs
One letter per firm, set by our own review of the published evidence, never by the firm. Six factors carry the grade, and their weights are fixed in advance so no single result can be argued into a better letter after the fact. What each letter means, and the score it takes to reach it, is set out on the A+ to F scale.
| Factor | Weight | What moves it |
|---|---|---|
| Payout reliability | 25% | Whether the money arrived, how long it took, and whether the transaction is independently checkable. |
| Rule fairness | 20% | Whether the rules that decide a payout are published before purchase and applied as written. |
| Trading conditions | 20% | The drawdown model and the trading environment, weighted equally. Static, end-of-day or intraday trailing, how much of your own open profit the model can take back, and the fills, spreads and platforms actually available on the account you bought. Scored today: the drawdown model only. |
| Company trust | 15% | Who runs the firm, where it is registered, and what the contract says when something goes wrong: the governing law, the forum a dispute is heard in, and any term that penalizes a trader for contesting a decision. |
| Challenge value | 15% | The real price after any code, against the account size and the target you have to hit, together with the profit split and scaling you are actually paid under. Scored today: the price only. |
| Support | 5% | How the firm answers under load, and the quality of the answer. The contractual route when a decision is contested is weighed under company trust. |
NR means we have not assessed the firm. It is neither a warning nor an endorsement, and it is not a low grade: it is the absence of one. When desk testing begins, we will buy a challenge, trade it to a payout and time the money to the wallet. We have not run that test on any firm yet, so every letter on this site is Preliminary today, and each review lists what is not yet scored.
Where the grades sit today
This is the live distribution across the catalog, not a target and not a curve. It clusters in the middle because most firms are scored on the same four things so far, and we would rather publish a letter that says what it is based on than a confident guess.
36 firms are in the catalogue today. 36 of these grades are preliminary: the letters can move as verification of the records completes.
- 2 (6%)
- 8 (22%)
- 24 (67%)
- 2 (6%)
- 0 (0%)
- 0 (0%)
How we treat evidence
Every fact we publish carries an evidence tier and a last-checked date. The tiers are a brightness ladder, not a color scale: a claim does not become true because it is printed in a brighter color, and a lower tier is a statement about our confidence, not an accusation.
- Verified 0 records
- Seen on an account bought with our own money, with the artefact on file. Reserved for a completed desk test.
- Reported 191 records
- Published by the firm in its own terms, help centre or pricing page, and re-read on every release.
- Claimed 0 records
- Asserted in marketing with no contractual source behind it. Recorded, never used to lift a grade.
- Refused 0 records
- We asked and the firm would not answer. Silence is a fact about a firm, so we publish it.
What money cannot buy
- When desk testing begins, challenges will be bought with desk funds. We do not accept comped accounts, and no firm will be able to tell which account is ours.
- Commissions never touch the rubric, a score, or the order of a toplist. The weights are set before any firm is graded.
- Downgrades publish immediately, partners included, and the change is logged on the firm’s review under Review history.
- No firm sees a grade before it is public, and no firm can request a re-score outside the normal monthly re-check.
How a grade is re-checked
Every graded firm is re-checked once a month, starting 23 October 2026. A re-check re-reads the published terms and re-prices every account size. Payout tests have not started yet. Once they do, a re-check will also repeat a payout test whose result is older than the cycle. If a rule changed, the change is dated and the affected facts are re-tiered.
When we get it wrong
Write to corrections@propfirmgrade.com. We correct within 48 hours and log every change under Review history on the firm’s page, including what the page said before.
PropFirmGrade earns a commission when you buy through links on this site, at no cost to you. Grades are editorial and independent; commissions never change a grade or a rank.