Prop Firm Evaluation Cost: Fees, Resets, Activation and Codes

Every prop firm quotes one number: the evaluation fee. It is the number in the ad, the number on the comparison sites, and the number you will remember when you tell a friend what you paid. It is also, for most traders, less than half of what they actually spend.

This post lays out the full cost of a prop firm evaluation at Bold Funded: the list fee, the launch codes, the reset, the activation fee, the refund and the one cost nobody puts on a card, which is the number of attempts it takes you. Every price comes from the Bold Funded plan cards as checked on 1 November 2026, worked on a $50K simulated account. By the end you will be able to put a real number on any plan, ours or anyone else's.

The five costs, and which cards show them

A prop firm evaluation can carry up to five separate costs. Some firms show all of them, some show one and bury the rest in a help centre.

The evaluation fee is the headline. The promo code is the discount on it, which at launch firms tends to be large enough to change which plan is cheapest. The reset fee is what you pay to restart the same evaluation after a breach, and it is the cost most traders never price until they need it. The activation fee is a one-time charge some firms add when you pass, before the funded account is issued. And the refund, where there is one, is money that comes back, which makes it a negative cost on the plans that offer it.

At Bold Funded all five sit on the plan card or on the promo codes page. Evaluations are priced per account, not per month, and there is no time limit on any of them, so there is no second month to pay for. The table below has every $50K figure in one place.

Every $50K plan, priced in full

Three things stand out before any arithmetic. The cheapest futures evaluation (Bolt at $107 with the code) becomes the second cheapest once the $99 activation is added, because Bold's BOLD code takes 35% off rather than 10%. The Two-Step is the only plan where the fee comes back, which makes its true cost zero for a trader who passes and gets paid once. And the Instant plans cost four to ten times an evaluation because there is nothing to pass; you are paying for the funded rules from the first trade, a trade-off we worked through in instant funding vs evaluation.

Cost to funded on the first attempt

Start with the happy path: you buy once, pass, and get funded. The cost to funded is the code price plus any activation fee, minus the refund if you then take a payout.

On the happy path the futures plans are the cheapest route to a funded account at around $200, and the Two-Step is the cheapest of all for anyone who reaches a payout, because it ends at zero. The One-Step is the most expensive evaluation to pass, which is the price of a single phase and a faster route; whether that speed is worth $64 more than the Two-Step is the subject of one-step vs two-step.

The happy path is, however, not the path most traders walk.

The cost nobody puts on the card: attempts

The largest line in most traders' prop firm spending is the second and third attempt. A firm that charges $100 per attempt to a trader who needs four attempts has charged $400, and the ad still says $100.

This is where the reset price matters more than the list price. At Bold Funded a reset restarts the same evaluation with a fresh balance at 60% of the list price. Codes do not apply to resets, because the 60% is already the discount, and resets exist only on evaluations: an Instant account that breaches is closed, and the way back is a new account. The mechanics, and when a new account on a different plan beats a reset, are in what happens when you breach.

Here is the $50K cost across one, two and three attempts, assuming the first purchase uses the code and later attempts are resets.

Two patterns fall out. First, the gap between plans widens with every attempt, because resets are priced from the list fee: a Two-Step reset is $179 but a Bold reset is $90. A trader who expects to need three attempts should weigh that more heavily than the first-attempt price. Second, the refund only helps if you eventually pass and get paid, and it refunds the fee you paid for the account that passed, not the resets before it. Three attempts at the Two-Step that end in a funded payout cost $358 net, not zero.

Expected cost: pricing your own pass rate

The honest way to compare plans is expected cost, which is the cost of an attempt divided by the probability you pass it. If a plan costs $239 and you pass one attempt in three, the expected cost of getting funded is roughly $239 for the first attempt plus two resets at $179, or about $597, and the expected value calculation that most traders skip is the one that decides whether the evaluation is worth buying at all.

Take an illustrative trader with a 35% chance of passing any single attempt. That figure is an assumption for the worked example, not a published pass rate; use your own record. With a 35% pass rate the expected number of attempts is about 2.9, so expected cost is the code price plus about 1.9 resets.

The numbers assume the pass rate is the same on every plan, which it is not: a tighter drawdown lowers it, a static floor raises it for most traders, and that is exactly why the plan comparison belongs on the rules row and not the price row. But the shape of the result holds. At that pass rate the futures evaluations cost roughly $340 to $360 to reach funded and the forex evaluations $570 to $725, and the plan with the lowest first-attempt price (Bold with the 35% code) is also the plan with the lowest expected cost, because its reset is cheap.

Where the rest of the money goes at other firms

Bold Funded prices are the ones above, but if you are comparing us with other firms, these are the costs to look for before trusting a headline fee. We are not quoting any firm's figures here; check the firm's own pricing page and note the date you checked it.

Monthly subscriptions. Many futures evaluations are priced per month rather than per attempt, so a slow pass costs two or three fees. Ask whether the fee is one-off or recurring and whether there is a time limit that forces the second month. Bold Funded evaluations are one-off with no time limit.

Platform and data fees. Some firms charge for the trading platform, for live data or for a specific data feed on top of the evaluation. Check what the fee includes.

Payout fees and minimums. A firm can charge the fee once and recover it on the way out: a fixed deduction per payout, a minimum withdrawal that delays the first one, or a currency conversion spread. At Bold Funded payouts are processed via crypto (USDT or USDC) or Rise within 24 hours of approval, and the amount that reaches you is worked through in prop firm profit split explained.

Add-ons sold as rules. Removing a daily loss limit, raising the split or switching to a static drawdown is sometimes sold as a paid add-on at checkout. Our version is the Build Your Own option under every plan card: friendlier rules cost more, stricter rules cost less, and the price updates before you pay. It is a real cost and worth pricing, but it is on the card, not in the help centre.

How to decide what to spend

Three rules, in order.

Price the plan on its rules first and its fee second. A $50K Bold evaluation at $97 is a bargain only if you can trade inside a $2,000 end-of-day trailing drawdown with five minis; if you cannot, the $90 resets will add up faster than the saving. The futures plans page and the forex plans page show every rule next to every price for any account size.

Then price the reset before you buy, not after you breach. If the reset is more than you would comfortably pay a second time, buy the smaller size. A $25K Bold at $64 with the code and a $59 reset teaches the same lessons as the $50K for less than half the money.

Finally, count the refund only if you will reach a payout. The Two-Step's fee refund is the best deal on the board for a trader who gets funded and gets paid; for everyone else it is a line on a card. The full route from purchase to first payout, including the 14-day wait on the forex evaluation plans, is on how it works.

The short version

A prop firm evaluation costs the fee, less the code, plus the resets you need, plus any activation, minus any refund. On a $50K Bold Funded account that is $97 to $303 for one attempt, about $200 to funded on the futures plans if you pass first time, and at a 35% pass rate somewhere between $340 and $725 depending on the plan. The headline fee is the smallest part of that, and the reset price is the number that decides the rest. Pick the plan whose rules you can actually trade, price the reset before you buy, and the fee takes care of itself.