Prop Firm EV Calculator
The expected value of challenges over many attempts, not just one
Cost of one evaluation attempt, including reset if you count them separately.
Your realistic chance one attempt converts to a funded account. Be honest, this number dominates everything.
Typical profit per payout cycle on a funded account, before the split.
Funded accounts die. The chance yours survives from one payout to the next sets its lifetime value.
The Funded Account as Inventory
The whole business in one comparison: lifetime value $0.00 vs acquisition cost $0. If the first number is not clearly bigger, no amount of volume fixes it.
Over 10 Attempts
Expected profit is an average across many runs of this plan. Any single run can land far from it, which is what the failure chance is telling you. A positive EV and a losing streak are entirely compatible.
Prop Firms Are an Inventory Business
The mistake most traders make is judging a prop firm challenge as a single event: pay the fee, pass or fail, done. That is not how the economics work. Running challenges is an inventory business. You buy evaluation attempts, some fraction convert into funded accounts, and each funded account pays out for a while before it dies. The trading is only the conversion step.
Seen that way, exactly two numbers decide whether the whole operation makes money: what it costs you to acquire one funded account, and how much that account pays you before it blows. The acquisition cost is your fee divided by your funded rate; at a 30 percent funded rate and a $500 fee, a funded account really costs you about $1,667, because the failed attempts are part of the price. The lifetime value is your share of a typical payout times the number of payouts the account survives to collect.
If lifetime value exceeds acquisition cost, every attempt has positive expected value and buying more attempts scales your edge. If it does not, more volume just loses money faster, and no discount code changes that. This calculator puts those two numbers side by side and then projects the plan across however many attempts you intend to fund.
Already funded and planning a payout? The prop firm payout calculator covers the split, fees, and break-even on a single account.
Getting the Inputs Honest
The funded rate dominates everything. Halve it and you double the cost of every funded account. Most traders guess theirs far too high, and a two-phase evaluation passes much less often than its phase one rate suggests, because you must clear both phases back to back. If you have real history, use your measured rate across all attempts, including resets. If you have no history, assume you are average, and the average challenge buyer fails.
Funded accounts die, and that is normal. The survival input models the chance your account lives from one payout to the next. At 60 percent, the expected number of payouts is 1.5, not 10. Payout caps, consistency rules, and one bad week all end funded accounts, and pretending an account pays forever is the second most common way this math gets flattered, right after the inflated funded rate.
The asymmetry is the point. When a funded account blows, you lose future payouts but keep every payout already received, and your only cash loss is the fee. That capped downside with an uncapped-ish upside is the honest reason to trade a firm's capital instead of your own, and it is why a plan can be rational even when most individual attempts fail.
Expected value is an average, not a promise. The over-N-attempts view shows the chance that every single attempt fails. With a 30 percent funded rate, ten attempts leave about a 3 percent chance of nothing at all, and short losing streaks are routine. Fund the plan with money that can survive its own variance, or the math never gets the chance to work.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the expected value of a prop firm challenge?
EV per attempt equals your funded rate times the lifetime value of a funded account, minus the challenge fee. Example: a 30% funded rate, a $2,000 average payout at an 80% split, and a 60% chance of surviving each payout cycle gives a lifetime value of $2,400 per funded account, so EV = 0.30 × $2,400 − $500 = $220 per attempt. Change the funded rate to 15% and the same plan loses $140 per attempt.
Why should I think in multiple attempts instead of one challenge?
Because a single attempt is dominated by luck: even a trader with a genuine 30% funded rate fails any single attempt 70% of the time. Across ten attempts the failed fees are simply the cost of acquiring roughly three funded accounts, and the plan stands or falls on whether those accounts pay more than all ten fees combined. Judging the plan on one attempt is like judging a shop on one customer.
What is a realistic funded rate?
Whatever your own history says, measured across every attempt and reset. Industry pass rates are low: most buyers fail, and two-phase evaluations compound (a 40% phase one and 60% phase two is a 24% funded rate, before payout eligibility). If you have no history, model conservatively and treat your first attempts as buying data about your real rate, not as the profit phase.
How many payouts does a funded account survive?
Fewer than most people assume. If your account has a 60% chance of living from one payout to the next, the expected total is 1.5 payouts; at 75% it is 3. Consistency rules, drawdown after a payout, and normal losing streaks end funded accounts constantly. The good news is the asymmetry: a blown account keeps every payout it already made, and your cash loss is only ever the fee.
Can a prop firm plan have positive EV and still lose money?
Yes, and over short runs it often will. EV is the average over many repetitions; any ten attempts can all fail (about a 3% chance at a 30% funded rate). This is variance, not proof the plan is wrong. The practical rule: only fund a challenge plan with a budget that survives the failure chance this calculator shows, and re-measure your funded rate as real results come in.
Methodology
Cost per funded account is Fee ÷ Funded Rate. Expected payouts per funded account uses geometric survival: with chance q of reaching each next payout, expected payouts equal q ÷ (1 − q). Lifetime value multiplies that by your share of an average payout. EV per attempt is Funded Rate × Lifetime Value − Fee. Over N attempts, expected profit is N times the per-attempt EV, and the chance every attempt fails is (1 − Funded Rate)^N.
The model treats attempts as independent and every payout as identical, which real trading is not; treat the outputs as a structural check on whether a plan can work, not a forecast that it will. All calculations run in your browser and nothing you enter is stored. More on our approach is on the methodology page.