The advertised fee is where the price starts, not where it ends. A trader reaches a funded account by paying whatever a firm charges between the checkout page and the first payout, and those charges are seldom in one place. This page defines the figure we compare on, and what we do when a firm publishes more than one.
The three moments a firm can charge you
Check every point where a firm can charge you. Each one is often published on a different page.
At checkout
The entry fee as the checkout charges it, which is not always the figure advertised beside it. A discount with an end date is a different thing from a price.
On passing
An activation fee, where one falls due only after a trader passes. Where it exists it usually scales with account size, so there is no single figure for the firm.
To trade your way
Add-ons the chosen strategy requires. We have found paid options for holding a position over a weekend, for using a stop loss, for a faster payout cadence and for swap-free accounts.
A promotional price is not a list price
Almost every firm we cover runs a discount at any given moment. Some print the promotional figure beside the list figure and apply it automatically. Some require a code. Some advertise a reduction the checkout does not apply, and some exclude the most popular account size from the offer they advertise.
We record the list price and the promotional price as separate facts, each with the code, the stated window, and whether the reduction was confirmed at checkout or only claimed on a banner. Where the two disagree the checkout governs, because that is the number a buyer pays, and the disagreement is itself worth publishing.
Deferring a cost is not the same as reducing it
Pay-after-pass routes split the price into a small amount due now and a larger amount due on success. The appeal is real: a trader who fails pays only the entry fee, so the downside is capped before the first trade.
Whether the route is cheaper depends entirely on the total. At some firms the deferred route costs less overall than the equivalent upfront product. At others it costs more, and the difference is the price of the option. Neither is hidden, and neither is usually stated, because the two routes are sold on separate pages. We compare totals, and we say which way the comparison falls.
How we calculate it
- We fix the configuration first: the route, the account size, the purchase currency and the payment model. A price without its configuration is not a fact about anything.
- We read the entry fee at the checkout, and record the list figure beside it wherever a promotion is running.
- We add any charge that falls due on passing, taken at the same account size rather than at the size the firm chose to advertise.
- We add any add-on the route requires to trade as intended, at that size, because an add-on priced as a percentage costs far more on a large account than on a small one.
- We publish the total for that configuration, and we publish the components beside it so a reader can see which charge falls where.
What we will not do
- We do not average. Where a charge varies by size, route or currency, we publish it per configuration or we publish nothing.
- We do not convert. A price listed in a second currency is recorded as the firm lists it, because a second currency is a second price.
- We do not estimate a number a firm has not published. Not disclosed is a finding about the firm, and it appears as one.
- We do not treat a promotion as a price, and we do not present a combined total as though it were a discount.
- We do not infer a formula from a handful of figures. Where several observed amounts share a ratio, that is a reason to go and read what the firm says, never a reason to publish a rule it has not stated.
Where the figures live
This page is the method. The numbers belong to the firms and render from our dataset, so they change when a firm changes them and never because a sentence went stale. Per-firm costs appear on each review and across the futures, forex and crypto challenge listings, and the support behind any individual figure is classed under our evidence standards.
We buy nothing to establish these prices. They are read from the firm’s own checkout and pricing surfaces, which means they carry the same standing as any other published claim a firm makes about itself, and none of the standing of an outcome we have observed.