The financial structure is crucial for your profitability:

• Profit Split: Look for 80-90 percent to go to the trader. Early in your prop firm career, this is less critical, but if you reach the point you are getting consistent payouts, then obviously it is more important.
• Evaluation Fee: One-time cost to prove your skills. Well, one-time if you pass in the first month of the subscription.
• Activation Fees: Activation fees are to be strongly avoided! There are enough other companies not charging activation fees that you should not do business with one that does - activation fees usually mean much higher costs for getting to funded stages.
• Monthly Fees: Norm is to charge monthly subscription fees during evaluations; watch out for any other ongoing fees.
• Scaling: Can you increase your allocation over time?

Match the account size to your trading style:

• Starting Size: $10K-$200K+ options available
• Leverage: Higher leverage = more buying power
• Drawdown Limits: Daily and overall loss limits
• Profit Targets: Goals to unlock larger accounts

Important: Your practical trading capital is the max drawdown, not the advertised account size. Example: a "$50K account" with a $2K max drawdown should be risk-sized as if you have $2K of capital, not $50K.

Understand the constraints before you start:

• Holding Periods: Overnight and weekend position rules. Many firms require you to be flat during the daily futures maintenance/bookkeeping window (typically 4-6pm EST or 5-6pm EST), and often no weekend holds: usually flat by Friday 4-5pm EST, then trading resumes Sunday at 6pm EST.
• News Trading: Restrictions around economic events. The firm will usually provide a list or calendar of which events (if any) you cannot hold trades during.
• Consistency: Some require consistent daily profits. Example: with a 50% consistency rule, your best profit day can be at most 50% of your total target. If your target is $3,000 and you make $1,600 in one day, your required target effectively becomes $3,200 (2 x $1,600), not $3,000.
• Max Position: Usually defined as a max number of mini contracts (often 3), plus a mini-to-micro conversion rule (commonly 10:1, sometimes 5:1). So a 3-mini cap typically means 30 micros at 10:1, or 15 micros at 5:1.

Ensure the firm supports your preferred setup:

• Trading Platform: MetaTrader, cTrader, TradingView, NinjaTrader
• Data Quality: Low latency, accurate pricing
• Analytics: Performance tracking and reporting
• Support: Check response speed and contact channels. Some firms handle support mainly through website tickets/forms, while others are active via Discord (and sometimes chat or email).