Prop firm marketing pages lead with the challenge fee and the profit split. Almost none of them put a number on what it actually costs to get money OUT once you pass. That gap is where a "70% split, low fee" firm quietly ends up worse than a firm advertising 50%.
The three costs that never make the comparison table
1. Payout processing fees. Several firms charge a flat fee (commonly $15-40) or a percentage (1-5%) on every withdrawal, deducted from the payout itself, not disclosed next to the split percentage.
2. Payout cadence, not payout speed. A firm can advertise "24-hour payouts" while only opening a withdrawal window every 14 or 30 days. The 24 hours is real; it just starts from whenever the window opens, not from when you request it.
3. Reset/re-entry fees that reset to zero. Firms that let you "reset" a breached challenge often charge close to the original challenge fee again, and some do not credit any unused time or progress from the failed attempt. Two resets can cost more than the original challenge.
Why this matters more than the split number
A trader comparing "80% split, $5 payout fee" against "70% split, $0 payout fee" needs to know their own expected payout size before the split number means anything. On a $2,000 monthly payout, the fee is noise; on a $200 payout during a slow month, a flat $20-40 fee is 10-20% of the payout, worse than choosing the lower split.
The same shape of gap exists in the exchange world: crypto exchanges quote a trading fee tier as if it is the whole cost, while the maker/taker spread, funding rate, and withdrawal fee do more damage over a month than the trading fee tier ever does. We wrote a fee-rate table that tracks that gap across exchanges (BTCUSDT perpetual, 6 exchanges, updated daily) — same instinct as this post: read the number the marketing page didn't put on the page.
If you're trading crypto rather than a funded prop account, the same "who actually pays you the most, not who advertises the biggest number" question applies to exchange fee rebates. We run a rebate comparison on OKX and Bitget for exactly this: check current OKX/Bitget rebate rates.
Before signing a prop firm's challenge, ask for three numbers they don't put on the pricing page: the payout processing fee, the payout window frequency (not "processing time"), and whether a reset fee is a percentage of the original challenge fee or a flat rate. Get all three in writing before you pay for the challenge, not after you pass it.
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