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Prop Firm Eval Readiness Simulator
A SaaS platform that replicates the exact evaluation conditions of major prop firms (trailing drawdowns, profit targets, daily loss limits, time constraints) using paper trading APIs. Traders practice under real eval pressure before spending money on actual evaluations, get a readiness score, and receive behavioral diagnostics on which habits are causing failures.
Why this matters
You have spent hundreds or thousands of dollars on prop firm evaluations and you keep failing. Each time you tell yourself you understand the rules now — trailing drawdown, daily loss limit, profit target — but when the market moves against you, the same habits resurface. You move your stop loss. You add to a loser. You revenge trade after a hit. The eval clock ticks down and you press harder, taking worse setups. After six or twelve attempts you start wondering if you are just paying the firm's payroll. What you need is to practice under those exact pressure conditions without paying for the privilege, to see whether your strategy and discipline actually hold up, and to get told which specific behaviors are killing your evaluations before you spend another dollar.
- · Built for Retail day traders and futures traders who spend money on prop firm evaluations (FTMO, Topstep, Apex, etc.) and fail repeatedly — especially those who have spent hundreds to thousands on evals without passing..
- · Most likely monetization: SaaS subscription with tiered plans — free tier with 1 simulated eval per month, $39/month for unlimited simulations and behavioral diagnostics, $79/month for personalized readiness coaching reports.
The Pain · Narrative
You have spent hundreds or thousands of dollars on prop firm evaluations and you keep failing. Each time you tell yourself you understand the rules now — trailing drawdown, daily loss limit, profit target — but when the market moves against you, the same habits resurface. You move your stop loss. You add to a loser. You revenge trade after a hit. The eval clock ticks down and you press harder, taking worse setups. After six or twelve attempts you start wondering if you are just paying the firm's payroll. What you need is to practice under those exact pressure conditions without paying for the privilege, to see whether your strategy and discipline actually hold up, and to get told which specific behaviors are killing your evaluations before you spend another dollar.
Score Breakdown
Market Signal
Go-to-Market
Retail futures and forex traders who have purchased at least 2 prop firm evaluations in the past 6 months and failed at least one
~150K globally actively purchasing prop firm evaluations, with rapid growth in futures prop firms especially
Organic content in day trading communities — sharing free readiness scorecards and behavioral diagnostic reports that naturally showcase the product
$29/month for unlimited simulations during launch; $49/month post-launch with full diagnostics
50 paying subscribers within 30 days, driven by organic community posts and a free single-eval trial that demonstrates behavioral diagnostic value
MVP Scope · 1–2 weeks
- Research and document exact evaluation rule sets for top 3 prop firms — drawdown types, profit targets, scaling rules, time limits
- Set up Alpaca paper trading API integration and verify real-time position and PnL data can be polled at 1-second intervals
- Build the core evaluation engine — rule evaluation loop that checks trailing drawdown, daily loss limit, and profit target against live paper trading state
- Create a minimal web UI for starting a simulation, selecting a prop firm profile, and viewing live PnL and rule status during the sim
- Implement basic pass/fail and time-elapsed reporting at simulation end
- Add behavioral event tracking — log every stop-loss modification, every position add to a loser, every trade within 60 seconds of a loss, every oversized position relative to configured max
- Build the readiness scorecard combining pass/fail outcome with behavioral violation count and severity weighting
- Create a historical dashboard showing all past simulations, readiness trend over time, and top recurring behavioral weaknesses
- Add a free-tier gate — one simulation per month free, with behavioral diagnostic locked behind signup, to drive conversion
- Write 3-4 organic community posts sharing anonymized behavioral insights from beta simulations to test demand signal
Differentiation
Why This Might Fail
Self-rebuttal — the most important trust signal
- 1Paper trading fundamentally lacks the emotional stakes of real evals, so users who pass simulations may still fail real evaluations and conclude the tool is useless — the core value proposition of 'readiness' may not transfer from simulation to reality.
- 2Prop firms may change their evaluation rules frequently or pursue legal action if rule sets are too closely replicated, making the simulator stale or legally risky to maintain.
- 3The target users — traders who repeatedly fail evaluations — may have deeper psychological or strategic deficits that a simulator cannot address, leading to churn after a few failed real evals despite simulation practice.
Evidence Summary
How AI synthesized this insight — no verbatim quotes
Multiple commenters described spending significant sums on prop firm evaluations without passing, with one stating they have spent thousands and feel they are just funding the firm's payroll. Another noted that prop firm trading is harder than personal trading and a trader could be profitable personally yet fail every evaluation. This signals a clear willingness to pay for anything that reduces eval spend or improves pass rates. The pain is recurring, quantifiable, and currently addressed only by repeating the same expensive evals.
Action Plan
Validate this opportunity before writing code
Recommended Next Step
Build
Strong demand signals detected. Real pain, real willingness to pay — start building an MVP.
Landing Page Copy Kit
Ready-to-paste copy based on real Reddit community language — no editing required
Headline
Prop Firm Eval Readiness Simulator
Sub-headline
A SaaS platform that replicates the exact evaluation conditions of major prop firms (trailing drawdowns, profit targets, daily loss limits, time constraints) using paper trading APIs. Traders practice under real eval pressure before spending money on actual evaluations, get a readiness score, and receive behavioral diagnostics on which habits are causing failures.
Who It's For
For Retail day traders and futures traders who spend money on prop firm evaluations (FTMO, Topstep, Apex, etc.) and fail repeatedly — especially those who have spent hundreds to thousands on evals without passing.
Feature List
✓ Configurable evaluation simulator matching major prop firm rule sets (trailing/max drawdown, profit target, daily loss limit, max position size, time limit) ✓ Paper trading integration via Alpaca or similar API for realistic order execution ✓ Behavioral tracking during simulation — flags stop-loss moves, revenge trades, oversizing, rule violations in real-time ✓ Readiness scorecard after each simulation showing pass/fail probability and top behavioral weaknesses ✓ Historical progress dashboard tracking readiness improvement across simulation attempts
Where to Validate
Share your landing page in r/r/Daytrading — that's exactly where these pain points were discovered.
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