Transparency & methodology
How we research, verify
and compare prop firms.
PropScouting turns prop firm information into structured, comparable data. We check the current information each firm publishes, keep programmes on sale apart from retired ones, and leave anything that cannot be confirmed empty rather than guess. The tools are built to show you how firms differ, not to tell you which one to buy.
20 firms59 current programmes31 rankings
Foundation
Our principles
Five rules decide what goes into the database, what stays out of it, and how the commercial side of the site is kept away from the facts.
Accuracy over assumptions
We check the current information each firm publishes: its website, help centre, rules pages and checkout. Where nothing can be confirmed, we leave the field empty instead of inventing a value to fill it. An empty field is information too: it tells you to check that number at the firm before you pay.
Structured information
Firms describe the same mechanics in different words. We record targets, drawdowns, daily limits, payouts, prices and trading rules in one consistent structure so two firms can be read against each other.
Current over outdated
Programmes on sale today are kept apart from retired ones. When a re-check or a reported error shows that a firm has changed its products or rules, its record is updated. Each firm page carries the date its record was last checked.
Trader reviews
Ratings come from reviews submitted by people who confirm they have traded with the firm. We do not write reviews or seed ratings.
Commercial transparency
We can earn a commission when a reader buys through a partner link or uses a partner code, and partner codes are shown where they exist. That relationship is kept out of the factual data: it does not change a rule, a price, a rating or a firm's place in the directory or a ranking.
Process
How firm data is handled
Every firm goes through the same five steps, from reading the firm's own material to deciding what the site does when something cannot be confirmed.
Research
A record starts with what the firm publishes: the website, help centre, programme pages, rule documents, FAQs, and the checkout itself where that is the only place a price or size is stated. Where nothing can be confirmed, the field stays empty.
Normalisation
Different terminology is mapped onto consistent fields: how the loss line moves, the daily limit and what it is measured from, profit targets per phase, payout cadence, programme status and asset classes. Where a firm's rule genuinely differs, the difference is kept rather than flattened to make the columns match.
Programme-level separation
Rules are attached to the programme they belong to. A consistency rule on one plan is not applied to the rest of a firm's line-up, which is why a firm page can show a cap on one programme and none on another.
Legacy handling
A programme a firm has withdrawn stays on its firm page for reference, clearly labelled and with no price or buy action, and is left out of the directory, the challenge listings, the rankings and the counters that describe what can be bought today.
Unknown information
Where nothing can be confirmed, the field stays empty and the page says so, for example Not verified or Not published, instead of showing an estimate or an average of competitors. A fee published only in euros shows as Priced in EUR. It is never converted, so rankings and price sorting treat it as having no US dollar price.
Side by side
Comparison methodology
The comparison tools put firms and programmes next to each other across the same standardised fields, so a difference you see in a row is a real difference in the terms rather than a difference in how two firms write their marketing.
- Account sizes
- Pricing
- Profit targets
- Drawdown model
- Daily loss limits
- Trading restrictions
- Payouts
- Platforms
- Asset classes
- Programme structure
- Country restrictions
The aim is comparability, not the pretence that two programmes are the same thing. No row marks a winner: the tables set out the figures side by side and leave the judgement to you. Comparisons use the programmes a firm sells today, and anything retired is labelled as such.
Rankings
User ratings and ranking pages are two different things
User rating
The user rating on a firm page is the average star rating from reviews submitted by PropScouting users, shown in half-star steps. It is the only rating on the site, and we do not write one of our own.
User ratings also decide the default order of the firm directory. Firms with at least one published review come first, highest average rating first. Ties go to the firm with more published reviews, then to the one founded earlier, then alphabetically. Firms without a published review follow, oldest first by founding year, with unknown founding years last. Ranking pages do not use this order: each follows its own criteria. The five firms featured on the homepage do not use it either: they are a fixed selection in a fixed order.
- Only published reviews count, both for the rating and for the order. Nothing is seeded and nothing is imported.
- A firm with no reviews shows no rating, not a placeholder or a default.
- Reviews can name the programme traded and the trading style, and say whether the reviewer received a payout, so a rating can be read in context.
- The trader confirmation is the reviewer's own statement: we do not check identities, trading accounts or payouts. A review that is unpublished or deleted stops counting.
Ranking and collection pages
Rankings and challenge pages are generated from the firm records, not hand-picked, and each one states its inclusion rule. Challenge pages for an account size, the cheapest ranking and the account-size rankings are sorted by price, cheapest first. The profit split ranking is sorted by split, the fastest payout ranking by payout frequency, and the futures and static drawdown rankings by maximum loss, widest first. All other rankings, including the main ranking, list firms by founding year, oldest first, with firms that publish no founding year last. Founding year also settles ties.
- Inclusion rules cover asset class, account size, platform, price, trading rules, payouts, drawdown model and programme type.
- Most platform, asset-class and account-size rankings are created automatically and appear only when at least three firms qualify. Automatic platform and asset-class rankings are also dropped if every firm would qualify. Other rankings have no minimum, and some list every firm, such as the main ranking and the profit split ranking.
- Where a rule leaves firms out, they are listed further down the page, so you can see what was excluded.
What we do not do
- No score of our own
- There is no PropScouting index, grade or seal. Compressing a rule book into one number implies a comparison the data cannot support. The Find my firm quiz shows a fit percentage, but it only measures how well a firm matches your five answers.
- No ratings we did not collect
- Nothing is seeded and no aggregate rating is imported from another site.
- No payout-reliability sentiment
- Where a firm publishes payout data we report what it publishes. Community sentiment is not a measurable input.
- No marketing claims as data
- A headline number enters the database only as the field it actually is. When an advertised 95% split costs extra at checkout, the record keeps the split included in the price and the page notes the paid add-on.
Corrections
PropScouting reviews reported errors and updates the information when a correction can be confirmed. To report an issue, email contact@propscouting.com.
Commercial
Affiliate relationships
PropScouting has affiliate relationships with some of the firms in the database. Where one exists, we can earn a commission when you buy through our link or use our partner code. A deal, whether a partner code or a promotion the firm runs itself, is shown with its discount and the conditions that apply. Firms we have no arrangement with stay in the database and are researched the same way.
A commercial relationship does not change a rule, a price or a programme record, or where a firm appears in the directory or in a ranking. It cannot produce a rating either: ratings only come from reviews submitted on PropScouting.
Questions about the methodology
How often is the data re-verified?
There is no fixed timetable. Each firm record carries its own checked date, shown on its firm page and in the comparison tool. Prop firm terms change often, so an older record keeps its older date rather than being presented as current.
How do I report an error?
Email contact@propscouting.com with the firm page and the field that looks wrong or out of date. We check it against the firm's own published information, and if it is wrong, we correct the firm's record, so the fix carries through to every page built from it.