Challenge cost calculator

Prop firm pricing pages advertise the cost of a single attempt because that is the number that makes the product look cheapest. It is also the least relevant number to a buyer, because pass rates on funded evaluations are low across the industry — most traders who buy an evaluation do not reach a funded payout on their first try, and many do not reach one at all. The honest cost of 'getting funded' is the expected spend across every attempt it takes, not the sticker price of one.

The maths is simple once you frame it as expected value: if your realistic pass probability is p, the expected number of attempts to pass once is 1/p. At a 33% pass rate that is 3 attempts; at a 10% pass rate it is 10. Multiply the failed attempts by the entry price and add the one that worked, and you have the true expected evaluation spend — usually several times the advertised price.

Refundability changes this dramatically and is worth checking for every firm you consider. A number of firms refund the evaluation fee once you hit your first payout, which means the attempt that actually worked costs you nothing net — you only ever pay for the failed attempts along the way. Two firms with identical sticker prices and identical pass rates can have a very different true cost if only one of them refunds on success.

Recurring funded-account fees are the second overlooked cost. Some firms charge a monthly activation, platform or data fee once you are funded, separate from the original evaluation price, while others charge nothing ongoing. A modest $50 monthly fee sustained over a year adds $600 to the true cost of that account — often more than the original evaluation price itself — so it deserves the same scrutiny as the entry fee.

Reset fees are a related trap on trailing-drawdown accounts: rather than buying a brand-new evaluation after a breach, some firms let you 'reset' the same account for a fee that is a fraction of the full price. That can look cheap in isolation but adds up the same way across multiple resets, and belongs in the same expected-cost bucket as buying a new evaluation.

None of this means cheap evaluations are a bad idea — a firm charging $37 for an evaluation with a 15% pass rate can still have a lower true expected cost than a firm charging $300 with a 40% pass rate, once you run the numbers rather than compare sticker prices. That comparison is exactly what this calculator does, and it is worth running before you commit to a firm on price alone.

This is an expected-value planning estimate, not a guarantee of your personal pass rate. Confirm current pricing, refund terms and reset fees on the firm's own site before purchasing.