What's Fintokei's Expected Value? A 1-Year Simulation of Challenge vs. SwiftTrader: SwiftTrader If You Have Edge, Challenge If You Don't [September 2026]

📢 Advertising / affiliate disclosure: This article contains a prop-memo.com affiliate link (marked 🎁, for Fintokei). The simulation's assumptions and numbers are calculated under the same conditions regardless of any affiliate relationship.

⚠ Rules and pricing were confirmed on Fintokei's official site and official help center on September 27, 2026. Since Fintokei prices in yen, fees have been normalized to "a percentage of account size" and shown at the equivalent of a $100K account (for a ¥20M account, multiply the amounts in the tables by 200 to get yen).

Conclusion

• At 1% risk per trade and "medium" edge, Challenge and SwiftTrader come out nearly even (+$21,609 vs. +$21,285, both on ¥20M accounts). SwiftTrader Diamond, with a 100% profit split, came out on top at +$23,739.
• The more edge you have, the more SwiftTrader pulls ahead. It's a single step that gets you to payout faster, and the split is 90% (100% for Diamond).
• With zero edge (50% win rate), Challenge is the least bad option at every lot size. Because SwiftTrader's overall loss limit is only 3%, you end up rebuying it many times over the year.
• On both plans, the Scaling Dojo's White Belt tier (20 trading days + 2 payouts) refunds a contract fee equal to what you paid. This is what lifts the numbers at "medium" edge and above.
• SwiftTrader has conditions this model doesn't include (a 3% daily profit cap during evaluation, and a maximum 60-day evaluation period). The numbers shown for SwiftTrader at 1.5% risk, or for anyone trading slowly, look better here than they would in reality.

Fintokei's plans (at $100K equivalent)

"Overall loss after payout" doesn't move on any plan. The official help center states that "the overall loss rate is always based on initial capital and does not change even after a payout is made."

The "Scaling Dojo" is a program that launched on June 3, 2026. At the first rank, "White Belt," once you satisfy 20 active trading days (days with a new order) and 2 payouts received, you receive a contract fee refund equal to what you paid at purchase. Promotion isn't automatic — it requires an application. SwiftTrader is only eligible for accounts opened on or after August 18, 2025; StartTrader is not eligible. In the simulation, the fee is refunded once a funded account trades for 20+ days and receives its 2nd payout.

StartTrader is not included in this simulation. During evaluation, its daily profit is capped at 40% of the profit target (0.8% at Step 1), and its split varies between 50–100%, so it can't be represented correctly in the same model.

Simulation assumptions

Fixed

• 1 year (250 trading days), max 3 trades/day, take-profit and stop-loss at 1:1
• Daily loss is capped at 2.5% of starting balance across all plans (if the next loss would exceed 2.5% or the firm's own daily limit, stop trading for the rest of that day)
• Risk per trade, floating loss, and daily loss never exceed 3% (assumed not to trigger Fintokei's "max allowed risk of 3% on open positions" rule)
• Lot size is fixed at r% of starting balance; one position at a time
• Cost is 5% of risk per trade (win = +0.95R, loss = −1.05R)
• On failure, rebuy the same plan; no scaling; payouts every 14 days; profit left in the account at year-end isn't counted
• 20,000 runs per condition

Varied

• Plan
• Edge: win rate 50% (zero) / 52% (small) / 55% (medium) / 58% (strong)
• Risk per trade r (0.5% / 1.0% / 1.5%)
• Amount of profit left in the account at payout time (the best amount was chosen for each plan)

SwiftTrader's daily limit is 2%, so in practice it stops at the daily 2% limit before hitting "2.5% per day." At 1.5% risk per trade, a single loss ends trading for that day.

Not included in this model

• SwiftTrader's daily profit cap during evaluation (3% of initial capital). Hitting the cap auto-closes all positions and blocks trading until 00:00 UTC the next day (9:00 JST). At 0.5% and 1.0% risk per trade, the maximum daily profit stays under 3% so this never triggers, but at 1.5% risk, a day with 3 straight wins hits it — so the 1.5% SwiftTrader numbers look better here than they would in reality.
• SwiftTrader's evaluation time limit (max 60 days). Failing to hit the target within that window means disqualification. Smaller risk per trade takes longer to reach the target, so the 0.5% SwiftTrader numbers look better here than they would in reality.
• The number of trading days required to request a payout (the official help center says 3 days; the article on how to request a payout says SwiftTrader requires 5). The model trades every day, so this is satisfied for a biweekly request regardless.
• Challenge's minimum payout amount of ¥20,000 (0.1% of a ¥20M account). Two weeks' worth of profit almost always clears this, so the effect on results is small.
• News-time trading, weekend carry, swap, and Scaling Dojo tiers above Yellow Belt (increases in allocated capital).

The expected-value formulas

Expected value per trade

With take-profit and stop-loss at 1:1, and cost set at 5% of risk per trade (0.05R), a win is +0.95R and a loss is −1.05R. With win rate p,

Expected value per trade = p × 0.95R − (1 − p) × 1.05R = (2p − 1.05) × R

Expected value for the year

Expected value for the year = average payout received over the year + average fee refunded − average fee paid

• Payout received = withdrawal amount × profit split (Challenge 80%, SwiftTrader 90%, Diamond 100%)
• Fee refunded: equal to what was paid, at the Scaling Dojo's White Belt (2nd payout)
• Fee paid = fee × number of times purchased over the year (rebuying on every failure)

Losses are capped at "fee × number of times purchased," while payouts from passed accounts have no ceiling. Because of this shape, even a slightly negative expected value per trade can turn positive over a full year. These three averages can't be derived with a formula, so I ran a full year of trading 20,000 times under the actual rules and took the average (a Monte Carlo method).

A concrete example in USD/JPY

On a ¥20M account at 1% risk per trade, the risk is ¥200,000. Since 1 pip on USD/JPY is worth ¥1,000 for 1 lot (100,000 units), a 30-pip stop-loss means 200,000 ÷ (30 pips × ¥1,000) = about 6.7 lots. With a round-trip cost of 1.5 pips, the cost comes to 5% of risk — the same weight as this article's assumption. Details on lot sizing, effective leverage, and the fine-grained cost math are covered in the 4-firm comparison article.

0.5% risk per trade: average annual take-home minus fees

At "medium" edge, the probability of ending in the black was 71% for Challenge, 90% for SwiftTrader, and 90% for Diamond.

1.0% risk per trade

At "medium" edge, the probability of ending in the black was 92% for Challenge, 93% for SwiftTrader, and 93% for Diamond.

1.5% risk per trade

At 1.5% risk per trade, SwiftTrader's day ends after a single loss (daily limit 2%). Two losing days in a row drops you below the overall 3% and disqualifies you.

This table's SwiftTrader numbers don't include the daily profit cap during evaluation (3%). In reality, these would come out lower.

Why the gap appears

SwiftTrader's weakness is how often you rebuy. At 1% risk per trade and "medium" edge, the average fee paid over the year was $1,741 for Challenge versus $6,268 for SwiftTrader. At zero edge, that climbs to $9,119. You only make that back through faster payouts if you actually have edge.

SwiftTrader requires "at least 3% profit on initial capital" for every single payout. Since a payout removes that profit from the account, you have to build up another 3% before the next one. And because overall loss is capped at only 3%, an account right after a payout is disqualified by a 3% loss from initial capital.

Which should you buy?

SwiftTrader's funded accounts are capped at ¥35M combined. Holding a Diamond account (¥35M) means you can't hold any other SwiftTrader funded accounts.

👉 🎁 Fintokei affiliate link

FAQ

Q. Is Fintokei's expected value positive?

At 1% risk per trade and a 55% win rate (expected value +0.05R per trade), Challenge came to +$21,609 over the year — roughly ¥4.32M on a ¥20M account. At a 50% win rate (zero edge), it was negative except at 1.5% risk. Even the positive number at 1.5% would disappear with a slightly higher cost. Choosing a plan doesn't manufacture edge.

Q. Is Fintokei's fee refundable?

Yes, at the Scaling Dojo's White Belt tier, you receive a contract fee refund equal to what you paid at purchase. The requirements are 20 active trading days and 2 payouts received. An application to support is required. This applies to the Challenge plan (including Swing and Slim) and the SwiftTrader plan (accounts from August 18, 2025 onward); StartTrader is not eligible.

Q. When and how much can I withdraw (get paid) from Fintokei?

You can submit your first request 2 weeks after your first trade on a funded account, and every 2 weeks after that. Challenge's minimum request amount is ¥20,000. SwiftTrader requires "at least 3% of initial capital in profit" every time — that's ¥600,000 on a ¥20M account. All positions must be closed when requesting.

Q. Which is the better deal, SwiftTrader or Challenge?

In this simulation, SwiftTrader (especially Diamond) came out ahead at a 52%+ win rate, while Challenge came out ahead at a 50% win rate. At 1% risk per trade and a 55% win rate, they're nearly tied. SwiftTrader has a 60-day evaluation deadline and a 3% daily profit cap during evaluation, so anyone trading slowly or at large risk per trade will do worse than these tables suggest. See also Is SwiftTrader Worth Buying? for more detail.

Q. It's priced in yen — why are the numbers shown in USD?

To compare against other firms on the same yardstick. Fee, target, and loss caps were all normalized to a percentage of account size. Sapphire's (¥20M) ¥109,800 is 0.549% of the account, which comes to $549 at $100K-equivalent. To convert back to yen, multiply the table's amounts by (account size ÷ $100K) — for ¥20M, that's ×200.

Q. I want to run this with my own assumptions

I've published the simulation script and this article's plan config file. Run python sim-prop-ev.py fintokei.json to reproduce the same tables. You can vary win rate, lot size, cost, and the daily loss cap (requires Python and numba).

Related

• 🏢 Fintokei's plans and rules
• 📊 Compare Fintokei's pricing
• 📊 Expected value comparison: FTMO, The5ers, Fintokei, Hantec
• 📊 Is Fintokei's SwiftTrader worth buying?
• 📊 Fintokei vs. FTMO comparison

Sources: Fintokei "Challenge plan", "SwiftTrader plan", "StartTrader plan", "Scaling Dojo"; official help center: "Challenge plan step rules", "SwiftTrader plan step rules", "SwiftTrader data fee", "StartTrader plan step rules", "How loss rates are calculated", "Payout request requirements", "Can I open multiple trading accounts?". All confirmed September 27, 2026.