How We Calculate Our Scores

Reliability Score

Every broker, prop firm, and trading tool on DayTrade101 gets a Reliability Score out of 100. It's built from several real-world trust signals rather than any one number on its own:

• Trustpilot rating — the single biggest factor. A stronger Trustpilot score pulls the Reliability Score up more than a mediocre one.
• Years in operation — longer-established companies score higher, up to a cap — a company with a decade-plus track record scores as well on this measure as one that's been around even longer.
• Review volume — a rating backed by thousands of reviews counts for more than the same rating backed by a handful.
• Regulation (brokers only) — brokers regulated by more recognised bodies score higher here. Prop firms and trading tools don't have an equivalent regulatory signal, so this component doesn't apply to them.
• Public presence (prop firms only) — having an active, verifiable public presence adds a small amount for prop firms specifically.

Not every signal applies to every vertical — brokers don't have a "public presence" component, and prop firms and trading tools don't have a regulator to check. So each vertical's score is rescaled to land on the same 0–100 scale using only the signals that actually apply to it. A broker's score and a prop firm's score aren't built from identical ingredients, but both are still directly comparable at a glance.

We're upfront that this is a work in progress: a couple of inputs — most notably some trading-tool Trustpilot data — are still being corrected and refined as we improve our data pipeline. Treat these scores as a strong starting point for your own research, not the final word.

Fund:Cost Ratio

For prop-firm challenges, the Fund:Cost Ratio answers a simple question: how much funded trading capital do you get for every dollar you actually pay? We compare the account size you'd be funded with against the effective cost of the challenge — using the active discount price where one applies, not just the sticker price.

A higher ratio means better value: more funded capital for the same money, or the same funded capital for less.

Colour Banding in Our Tables

Throughout our comparison and challenge tables, you'll see certain numbers colour-coded on a four-step scale — green, yellow, orange, then red — running from best for you as a trader down to worst. It's a quick visual shortcut so you can scan a wide table and immediately see where a firm or broker stands out, without reading every column carefully.

Best for you as a trader → worst for you as a trader

The important thing to understand is that "best" is judged from your side of the deal, not by whether a number is big or small. Sometimes a bigger number is better — a broker's leverage, a prop firm's profit split, or a challenge's Fund:Cost Ratio are all things you generally want to be higher, so a higher value bands green. But sometimes it's the opposite: a lower profit target is easier to reach, so a smaller target bands green and a larger one bands red. Likewise, a bigger allowed drawdown gives you more breathing room to trade through a losing streak, so a larger drawdown allowance bands green too — even though it's the bigger number, it's the better one for you, not the worse one.

We apply this banding to a handful of field types across the site: company longevity (years in operation), broker leverage, and — on prop-firm challenges — profit split, profit targets, daily and total drawdown limits, payout speed, and the Fund:Cost Ratio described above.

We're deliberately not publishing the exact cut-offs behind each colour band here — they're tuned as we see more real-world data, and we don't want you anchoring on a number that might shift. What won't change is the meaning: green is always the end of the scale that's good for you as a trader, red is always the end that isn't, with yellow and orange in between.

Overall Challenge Score Coming soon

We're also working on a single combined Challenge Score that folds several challenge-level factors — profit targets, drawdown limits, payout terms, and more — into one number. That work hasn't shipped yet, so you won't see it on the site today. When it's ready, we'll be just as clear about what goes into it as we are above.