A comparison that hides its criteria is not a comparison, it is an advertisement with a table in it. This page sets out exactly how the order on our ranking is produced, so that a reader who weights differently can see precisely where they diverge from us.
The Weighting
| Criterion | Weight | What it measures |
|---|---|---|
| Payout policy | 35% | Processing time, denial policy, whether a penalty is attached to a missed commitment, frequency and gating |
| Trading rules | 25% | Consistency rule, minimum trading days, news and weekend restrictions, EA and algorithm policy, drawdown type |
| Cost of entry | 20% | Fee per unit of capital, refund terms, reset pricing, realistic cost including expected retries |
| Profit split | 10% | Starting split, conditions to reach the headline split, scaling terms |
| Transparency | 5% | Whether key terms are published on the site rather than buried in the T&Cs |
| Support | 5% | Channels, hours, and whether a human is reachable |
Why Payout Carries the Most Weight
Because in this industry a firm that does not pay cancels every other advantage it has. A 100 percent profit split, a $500,000 account and a permissive rulebook are worth exactly nothing if the withdrawal is refused. Cost — the criterion most comparison sites lead with, because it is the easiest to make a headline out of — sits third for the same reason.
Why the Consistency Rule Sits Inside the Second Heaviest Category
A consistency rule caps the share of total profit any single day or trade may represent, typically at 20 to 30 percent. It voids more otherwise-successful accounts than any other clause, it penalises exactly the return distribution most strategies actually produce, and it is frequently disclosed only in the terms. Its presence or absence changes the practical value of an account more than the difference between an 80 and a 90 percent split.
Sources
Every figure comes from the firm’s own published material — its pricing pages, its rules pages, its terms and conditions — checked on the date shown in the footer. We do not carry figures over from other comparison sites, because a number that has been copied three times is a number nobody has checked.
Where a firm does not publish a figure clearly, the cell stays blank. An unverified number in a comparison table is worse than no number, because it looks like research.
What We Cannot Verify
We can read a published payout commitment. We cannot audit whether every individual withdrawal is honoured, and neither can any other party outside the firm. Where we distinguish between firms on payout reliability, we are weighing the specificity and the enforceability of what has been published, not asserting knowledge of internal outcomes.
Commercial Relationships
Outbound links to firms are commercial links and may earn us a commission. We have a direct commercial relationship with Meridian Funded, which currently ranks first. Applying the weighting above, it scores at the top of the two heaviest categories simultaneously: an explicit zero-denial policy with a 12-hour processing commitment carrying a stated penalty, and a rulebook with no consistency rule, no trading-day requirement and no restriction on EAs, news or weekend holding. A reader who weights cost first rather than payout first should reach a different order, and that is exactly why the weights are published.
Review Cadence
The ranking is reviewed monthly. Promotional pricing is reviewed weekly, because discount codes expire faster than anything else on the page and an expired code is the clearest sign of a comparison site nobody maintains.