Case study · Fintech media

Building a prop firm review site from the data up

prop-firm.review compares prop trading firms, the companies that fund traders after an evaluation. We researched its market, extracted and analysed the data of 72 firms, designed its brand and owl mascot, built and run its website, and set up its YouTube channel.

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Overview

The brief

Challenge

prop-firm.review was entering a crowded market. The terms that decide whether a trader keeps a funded account sit deep in each firm's help centre and pricing pages, and rival review sites copy each other's tables.

The client needed reviews a trader could check, and a brand that made that obvious.

What we did

We ran the project across all four of our service lines. Research and data came first; the brand, the website and the YouTube channel were built on top of them.

Client
prop-firm.review
Sector
Fintech media
Timeline
July to September 2026
Service lines
Research, Branding, Web, Social Media
Status
Site live; YouTube channel in production
Prop firms whose data we extracted
72
Account tiers we compared
1,419
Of published figures linked to their source
96.7%
Of our 18 services delivered
15

Research

5 of 5 services

We started with the market: what each firm really offers, what traders search for and what they say about the firms.

  1. Data extraction

    Data extracted from 72 firms’ own websites

    We captured each firm's website, help centre and pricing pages included, and turned it into one structured record per firm. Every figure was reviewed against its source page and checked once more before it went live.

    What we delivered

    • 72 firms, 415 programmes and 1,419 account tiers on record
    • 96.7% of published figures linked to their source page
    • Contradictions shown when a firm's own pages disagree
    • A weekly audit: 0 errors after the 22 September 2026 pass

  2. Data analysis

    Analysis that answers traders’ five questions

    We turned the data into answers to the five things traders ask before they pay for a challenge: what fits a budget, what it really costs, which rule closes accounts, when they get paid and whether they can skip the evaluation.

    We also built a ranking that scores each firm out of 100 on four published criteria.

    What we delivered

    • A ranking per market: cost 30%, difficulty 30%, payouts 25%, substance 15%
    • No guessing: a figure a firm does not publish is left out, never scored as zero
    • Loss-limit rules compared across 415 programmes
    A section of the prop-firm.review home page: a bar splits the 415 programmes on file by how they set their loss limit (164 static, 116 end-of-day trailing, 94 trailing, 3 with no overall limit, 38 not stated), above a chart of one $50,000 account over five trading days.
    From the client's live home page: how 415 programmes set their loss limit, and what each rule leaves on the same account.

  3. Competitor Analysis

    A market map and a study of 534 competitor thumbnails

    About the service

    We mapped the forex and futures firm markets and graded every figure as measured, disclosed or estimated. The industry's most quoted market size traced back to one source with no survey behind it, so we left it out.

    For the YouTube channel, we studied 534 thumbnails from 21 competitor channels to learn what earns a click.

    What we delivered

    • A market brief for two segments, every figure graded
    • A study of 534 competitor thumbnails, coded on 16 features
    • A finding the channel now follows: a calm face earned 1.19 times the median views, a shocked one 0.85

  4. Market Research & Voice of Customer

    Voice-of-customer research from reviews and comments

    About the service

    We sorted every firm's Trustpilot reviews by topic and sentiment into a monthly summary, without republishing them. We turned comments under trading videos into briefs written in the audience's own words.

    What we delivered

    • Reviews sorted into seven topics and three sentiments
    • A note beside every review figure: firms ask for reviews right after a payout
    • Two audiences: traders chasing a first funded account, and funded traders spreading across firms

  5. Keyword Research for Web & YouTube

    Keyword research across 17,580 US searches

    About the service

    We combined twelve US keyword exports into one demand map, worth 561,660 searches a month. The five questions on the client's home page come from how those searches group. For YouTube, we collect search suggestions every day.

    What we delivered

    • A demand map of 17,580 queries
    • Daily snapshots of YouTube's search suggestions
    • A research file for every video topic

  6. Keyword Clustering

    A site plan with one page per search intent

    About the service

    We grouped the keywords by intent and gave each group one page, or none. That is why the site compares only the 21 pairs of firms people actually search for, not all 381 look-alike pairs.

    What we delivered

    • One page per search intent
    • 21 comparison pairs with real demand, in place of 381 look-alikes
    • A blog plan: 921 terms in 14 clusters, about 1,600 titles

  7. Competitor & Trend Monitoring

    Weekly monitoring of firms, daily monitoring of competitors

    About the service

    We set up a weekly check of every firm's pages, which flags a firm only when a price, a percentage or a day count moves. A daily check reads competitor channels, trading communities and YouTube suggestions.

    The monitors only collect and compare; a person decides what changes on the site.

    What we delivered

    • A weekly queue of firms whose terms changed
    • A daily reading of competitor channels and communities
    • A video idea board, scored on six criteria

Branding

4 of 4 services

We built the brand around one promise the client can keep: every figure can be checked.

  1. Brand Strategy

    A position built on sourced figures

    About the service

    We wrote the client's position: the one place where every prop firm figure carries its source and its date. We chose two archetypes for it: the Sage for its evidence, and the Guardian for protecting traders from rules they were never shown.

    What we delivered

    • Position and brand essence
    • Personality: analytical, impartial, authoritative, protective, modern
    • Two audiences, with their needs and objections
    • Seven red lines, starting with: never sell a ranking

  2. Verbal Identity

    A tone of voice, a name and a narrator

    About the service

    We wrote a voice that makes a recommendation and backs it with a source and a date, with no hype words. We named the site after its domain, prop-firm.review, and wrote the channel's line: "Prop firm reviews you can check."

    What we delivered

    • Tone of voice, with the words the brand never uses
    • The site name, chosen with Google's site-name guidance in mind
    • Clara, the channel's narrator: a fact voice, a verdict voice and an honest note that her voice is synthetic

  3. Logo Design

    Two marks: brackets for the site, an owl for the channel

    About the service

    For the site's first identity we tested four directions at browser-tab size and shipped a value in square brackets, with every favicon and app icon.

    When the brand moved to the owl, we made the owl's face the channel's mark: two colours, true circles, perfectly mirrored.

    What we delivered

    • Four directions, tested at 16 pixels
    • The first site mark in three stroke weights, with favicons and app icons
    • The owl mark, rebuilt as exact vector geometry
    The prop-firm.review channel avatar: an owl's face in marker yellow on ink, with round glasses, large pupils and a kite-shaped beak.
    The channel mark we made: yellow on ink, 800 by 800 pixels.

  4. Visual Identity

    A marker-yellow identity and an owl in 36 poses

    About the service

    We built the identity on one image: a marker line drawn over the firm's own sentence. Marker yellow on ink is the only accent, and red is kept for the one rule that ends an account.

    We gave the owl mascot 36 poses, all built from one master, so it never drifts off model.

    What we delivered

    • Marker yellow on ink, with Inter Tight 800 for display
    • The owl in 36 poses: expressions, gestures, props and gifts
    • Thumbnail rules taken from the competitor study
    • A website design system in light and dark
    The prop-firm.review owl mascot standing, holding a yellow highlighter, on an ink ground.
    The mascot we designed, highlighter in hand.
    Four poses of the owl mascot: raising a wing for emphasis, pointing to the side, holding a magnifier and offering a gift box.
    Four of its 36 poses, one from each set.

Nobody should lose a funded account to a rule they were never shown.

The brand essence we wroteprop-firm.review brand strategy

Web

4 of 5 services

We designed, built and run a site that answers a trader's first five questions in a minute.

  1. Custom Website Design

    A website designed around five trader questions

    About the service

    We designed the home page to open with the five questions and a real figure under each. Every firm got a review and pages for its fees, payouts and rules, with every figure linked to its source.

    We check each page at three screen widths, in light and dark, before it ships.

    What we delivered

    • A directory, a review per firm, comparisons and a methodology
    • A home page built around five questions
    • A design system in light and dark
    The prop-firm.review home page: the headline Best Prop Firms 2026, 72 firms judged on the terms they publish, and five question cards, each with a figure from the roster.
    The home page we designed: five questions, each answered with a figure.

  2. Web Tools

    Comparison and calculation tools on live data

    About the service

    We built a comparison desk that filters every programme by budget and rules. Our charts show how much profit wins a fee back, what a trailing limit does to the same account and how long each firm makes a trader wait for a payout.

    What we delivered

    • A programme comparison desk with filters
    • Breakeven, drawdown and payout-wait charts from live data
    • A ranking board per market
    • A directory filtered by programme, rules, drawdown and platform
    A section of the prop-firm.review home page titled Static vs. Trailing Drawdown: The Real Math. Two cards run the same $100,000 account with a $10,000 loss limit: after a peak at $105,000 the static limit stays at $90,000 and leaves $10,000 of room, while the trailing limit rises to $95,000 and leaves $5,000.
    A drawdown explainer we built: one account, a static limit against a trailing one.

  3. End-to-end Website Management

    Hosting, releases and 1,637 automated tests

    About the service

    We host and release the site, and every release is tried on a copy before it goes live. Five scheduled jobs keep reviews, firm pages and video research fresh, and 1,637 automated tests stop any release that breaks something.

    What we delivered

    • Hosting, with every release tested on a copy first
    • Five scheduled jobs, with a status report and a record of any failure
    • 1,637 automated tests

  4. Technical Site Audit

    A technical audit against search demand

    About the service

    We checked the site's structure against search demand and removed what did not earn a page. We added redirects for every changed address and moved the structured data to a single source.

    What we delivered

    • An address structure decided from search demand
    • Redirects for every changed address
    • One source for the site's structured data

Social Media

2 of 4 services

We designed the client's YouTube channel and built its production system. The first videos are being scripted.

  1. Social Media Page Design

    A YouTube channel page built around the owl

    About the service

    We made the owl's face the channel's avatar and put the brand's one marked line on the banner. We laid the banner out for YouTube's crops, so the line reads on a phone, a desktop and a TV.

    What we delivered

    • Avatar and banner, sized for every YouTube crop
    • Thumbnail rules: the owl on every one, one marked element, three elements at most
    • Eight content forms, from a ranking to a rule change
    The prop-firm.review YouTube banner: on an ink ground with faint rows of bars, the headline Prop firm reviews you can check, its second half on a yellow highlight, the subline Costs, rules, payouts and trust across 72 firms. Every figure cited, and the owl's face at the right.
    The channel banner we designed. The text sits where a phone crops it; the owl shows on desktop and TV.

  2. Long & Short Video

    A video system that checks every claim

    About the service

    We built a script process that checks every claim against the firm data before production. Each long video gets two or three Shorts, and checkpoints at 48 hours and 7 days show which thumbnail or title to change.

    What we delivered

    • A script process that checks every claim against the data
    • A narrator with eight tones
    • Shorts cut from every long video
    • Tracked links and 48-hour and 7-day checkpoints

Start a project

Have facts your market should see?

Tell us what you know that your competitors do not, and we will build the research, brand and site around it. We reply within two working days. Sending a formal RFP? Email it to [email protected].

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