The checks, in detail
These checks exist because the prop-challenge market is thick with advice nobody can verify. Three of the five carry their own page, because they are the ones a source most often fails. The full five-check method is on the method page.
What the checklist is really sorting
A challenge trader rarely compares two near-identical services. In practice you are choosing between types of source — a chat channel, a copy-trading room, a social caller, an aggregator, or a graded, timestamped desk — and each type fails or passes the checks as a category. The checklist's job is to make that structural difference visible, so a glossy pitch cannot hide which category a source belongs to. The table below sorts the field on the two checks that decide most cases: was the stop fixed in public before the outcome, and is the win rate shown with its full count.
| Service type | Stop fixed up front? | Full record shown? | Why it sits there |
|---|---|---|---|
| Messaging-app channel | No | Rarely | Whoever runs it can reword or remove posts; the misses drop out of sight. |
| Copy-trading room | Rarely | Sometimes | The platform may keep a tally but almost never evidences a per-call stop. |
| Social-media caller | No | No | Any post can be pulled down; income tends to ride on broker referral links. |
| Aggregator / re-poster | No | No | Rebroadcasts other people's calls unchecked and carries their gaps along. |
| Automated / AI service | Sometimes | Backtest only | A simulation is not a lived result, and no person stands behind the risk. |
| Graded, timestamped desk | Yes | Yes | An on-chain receipt per call locks the stop; the record carries a named outside reviewer. |
Only the bottom row completes both columns, and that is the structural argument the guide makes for the pick — not that it shouts loudest, but that it sits in the single category an outsider can actually audit. The three checks below each take one apart in full.
Why these two columns decide most cases
Of the five checks, two do almost all the sorting. Stop fixed up front is the one that cannot be retrofitted: a source either pinned its risk in public before the trade resolved or it did not, and no amount of later polish changes that fact — which is exactly the discipline that keeps a funded account inside its drawdown. Full record shown is the one that cannot be faked without an outright lie: a win rate is only evidence when the full count of calls, losers included, sits next to it. A source that satisfies both has given you a record open to scrutiny. The remaining three checks — the measured grade, public pricing and clean incentives — are real, but they tend to confirm a verdict the first two have already reached rather than overturn it.
The three checks with their own page
Pre-committed risk
Why a stop pinned in public is the check a challenge account cannot survive without.
A counted record
What a real track record contains, and what a wall of winning tickets leaves out.
Grades that are measured
How the A-to-D grade is anchored to a model's own returns, so you know which reads deserve size.
The remaining two — public pricing and clean (non-affiliate) incentives — are covered on the method page, because they are quicker to check and rarely the deciding factor.