Desk Rating is your long-term career score. ELO-style 1000-3000+, earned through Floor competition and consistent quality. Higher Rating unlocks higher tiers and bigger funded capital. And as long as your Rating sustains your tier threshold, your capital grows +10% of tier floor every month, automatically. $2,500/mo at Junior, $10K at Pro, $25K at Elite, $100K at Master. Attached to your trader profile, your Rating follows you across every funded account you ever hold.
Rating unlocks the tier.
Sustained, it grows the capital.
Cycle after cycle.
Desk Rating and Meritix Quality Score work together but answer different questions. Confusing them costs you traction; understanding them gives you a clean mental model for everything else on the platform.
The mental model: Rating unlocks the tier and grows the capital. Meritix governs the share you keep inside each cycle. You climb tiers via Rating; you earn share via Meritix. Both update on different cadences and serve different functions.
Self-directed trading is valid Rating activity. Floor competition contributes more heavily because it provides comparative evidence under pressure. The Desk rewards both, but Floors carry the larger weight per event.
Why Floors weigh more: private trading shows your process. Floors show your process under pressure, against a field, on a common clock. That comparative evidence is what makes Rating credible as a public career score.
| Factor | Role | Direction |
|---|---|---|
| Floor performance | Main progression driver | ↑↑ |
| Self-directed quality | Secondary progression driver | ↑ |
| Consistency over time | Rewards sustained activity | ↑ |
| Discipline metrics | Keeps progression professional | ↑ |
| Field strength | Rewards beating stronger competition | ↑ |
| Integrity flags | Multi-account, wash trading, gaming | ↓↓↓ |
The Desk rewards meaningful performance, not volume gaming. A trader who enters 50 low-effort Snap Rooms per cycle should not out-rank a trader who places well in 5 serious Floors. Rating contribution is capped per cycle, with later events counting at reduced weight.
First few events count at full weight, meaningful performance impact.
Subsequent events count at 25%, you can keep playing, but you can't farm Rating through volume alone.
Specific thresholds may evolve as the platform grows. The principle is locked: volume cannot replace quality.
After every Floor closes, whether a 1-hour Snap or a month-long Major, your dashboard shows exactly how Rating moved. Placement against your small 20-40-trader Room, quality factor (Sharpe + drawdown), field strength multiplier, concentration penalty, and the net Rating delta. No black box. Every component is visible. Every Room is a clean, auditable career event.
An illustrative post-Room Rating breakdown for a Daily Room on NQ futures: a 28-trader field, Rating-matched, top 6 take the pool. In production, the full audit trail is downloadable and includes the opponent reference set, your placement record, and the Meritix quality contribution.
Your Rating dashboard is the home base for career progression. Current Rating, current tier, next capital threshold, Floors required for next unlock, biggest positive and negative drivers for the period.
Each tier has a Rating threshold paired with quality gates and Floor participation requirements. Hit all of them, and the next funded capital level opens. Rating thresholds shown below are directional targets and may be refined as the platform grows.
Two-dimensional Quality gating: we require both consistent average quality (you don't crater) and demonstrated peak quality (you've proven you can trade at this level). Demonstrating that you can trade at high quality is a stronger signal of repeat success than averaging at moderate quality, the rare trader with one exceptional month is more likely to repeat than the trader with consistently middling quality.
Start free at Open. Begin building the ELO-style career score that lives on your trader profile, climbs with every Room, and follows you across every funded account you'll ever hold on The Desk.