Creating a challenge people want

A challenge works best when it fits a kind of trader. A few questions help:

• What do they trade? Crypto traders often prefer a Standard account, which costs less per trade on crypto today. Forex and gold traders who trade often may prefer Raw. See Spreads, commissions and overnight fees.
• How long do they hold? Day traders care most about the daily limit. Swing traders care about overnight fees and whether the max loss trails.
• How much do they want to spend? Size changes the price, because it changes every reward in dollars. How to pick a challenge size shows the trader's side of this choice.

The profit target is the first thing buyers look at. Each step's target counts from the full starting size, and each step starts again at that size.

What matters is the target next to the max loss. A 10% target with a 10% max loss gives a trader as much room to lose as they need to gain. A 15% target with a 5% max loss asks for three times as much gain as the room to lose, which is a lot to ask of anyone.

Common practice in the industry is a first step of about 8% to 10%, a second of about 5%, and a max loss of about 8% to 10%. You don't have to follow it, but buyers will compare against it.

• Max loss. Static is the easiest to understand: the line never moves. Trailing lines rise with the account's high, once a day at 00:00 UTC or live, which is stricter. Lock at starting balance stops a trailing line from rising above the start, which many traders find fairer. Trailing vs static drawdown explains the difference.
• Daily limit. None, or a limit from 0.5% to 10%, always below the max loss. When it's reached it can either end the account or pause trading until 00:00 UTC. A pause is kinder to a trader having one bad day.
• Trading days. A minimum of a few days stops a challenge being passed on one lucky trade. You can also count only days with a set profit, which is stricter.
• Time limit. None, 30, 60 or 90 days. A limit adds pressure, and pressure leads to bigger trades. Many traders prefer none.
• Consistency. A rule that no single day can be more than a share of the profit, to pass, to claim, or both. It rewards steady trading but is one more thing to track. Consistency rules explained covers it.

Each rule makes the challenge either easier for traders or cheaper to buy. You can't have the most of both.

There's no single best line. A cheap challenge with tight rules can suit a confident trader who wants to try often. A generous one at a higher price suits a trader who wants room. What people dislike is a challenge that looks generous and hides a rule that makes it hard to pass.

You don't set the price. It's worked out from the rules and shown live as you build the challenge, with the change each answer makes (for example "Price +$7"). Once the challenge is created, it keeps its price unless Runtiler improves its pricing. How rules change the price goes through which choices raise or lower it.

A good name is short and tells the truth. Names that describe the challenge, such as its size, style or pace, help buyers more than names that promise an outcome.

• One or two words, up to 10 letters or numbers each. Only English letters and digits are kept, and each word starts with a capital.
• Each of your challenges needs its own name.
• A name shouldn't copy another challenge or suggest something the rules don't do.

On Runtiler, creating a challenge is buying the first account on it. The review screen's button reads Buy for and the price. You can save a draft at any point and come back to it.

The review has a Publish on your profile switch, on by default. With it on, the challenge goes on your profile once your purchase is confirmed, and anyone can buy it. With it off, only you can buy it, and you can publish it later.

Two things to know:

• No duplicates. If another creator already has a public challenge with the same size and rules, yours can't be public too. The editor warns you with Already exists while you build. Change one rule or the size to make it yours.
• Rules are final. A created challenge's rules and price never change. To offer something different, make a new one. Unpublishing takes it off your profile, and people who bought it keep their accounts.

The exact steps are in Create a challenge and Publish and share.

• The challenge link. A public challenge has a Share button that copies its link. Links you copy from Runtiler carry your referral code by default.
• Your referral link. runtiler.com/?via= plus your username works on any page. New accounts made after clicking it count as yours, and if someone clicks more than one person's link, the last one counts.
• Discount codes. Once you have a published challenge, you can make codes for your followers: a percent off, up to your current share of each sale, or a dollar amount. You choose who can use it, which of your challenges it covers, and when it ends. Up to five can run at once. See Codes for your followers.

A percent code comes out of your own share. At a 10% share, a 5% code on a $100 challenge gives the buyer $5 off and leaves you $5 from that sale.

You earn 10% of each sale from your first, and 15% once you've made 100 sales. Partners, who apply from 100 sales, earn an agreed share of 10% to 20%. On a $100 challenge, that's $10 a sale, or $15 once you've made 100 sales. You earn nothing on your own purchases.

Your share is paid to your Runtiler wallet once the buyer starts trading. A buyer who gets a refund before trading cancels it. See Earn as a creator.

The people you share with trust you. A few habits keep that trust:

• Describe the rules plainly, including the strict ones.
• Don't promise results. Passing a challenge is hard, and many who try don't. People deserve to know that going in.
• Say you earn from sales when you recommend your own challenge.