Questions, answered straight.

No. There are no entry fees, prize pools, peer-to-peer wagers, or money flowing through Podium League at all. We are a scorekeeper for trades you place in your own brokerage account. Think of it like a fantasy league for tracking who's having the best year — except the trades are real.

The core app is free — create unlimited leagues, place trades in sandbox or your real brokerage, see leaderboards, earn badges. There's an optional Pro subscription ($10/mo) for advanced analytics and commissioner tools, but every competitive feature is free.

Your positions (which tickers, how many shares) and your daily portfolio percentage return. That's it. We never see account numbers, dollar balances, your bank info, or your brokerage password — those stay at your brokerage. The connection is read-only at the API level: we can't place trades or move money even if we wanted to.

Not by using Podium League. We don't have your money — your brokerage does. The trades you place are between you and your brokerage; we just record the percentage returns for the leaderboard. Of course you can lose money trading at your brokerage, but that risk is the same whether you use this app or not.

On purpose. A $500 account and a $500K account should compete on identical terms — what matters is who's the better trader, not who has the bigger starting balance. Hiding dollar amounts also reduces the regulatory surface area: we're not a brokerage, not a wealth-management product, just a scorecard.

Time-Weighted Return (TWR), the industry-standard method that adjusts for deposits and withdrawals. The math is identical to what your brokerage uses to report your performance. We compute it daily from holdings snapshots — see /disclaimer for the technical detail.

Any time. Settings → Delete account → done. Your profile, snapshots, league history, and badges are permanently removed. Disconnecting a brokerage from /accounts immediately revokes our read access; deletion does the rest.

Season closes, the final leaderboard locks, top finishers get permanent badges in their trophy case, and a shareable recap card is generated. Your season stats stay in your career history. Public seasons run quarterly (90 days). Private leagues are commissioner-set.

No. Sandbox is simulated — every order fills at a real-time market quote (Alpaca's live price feed) but no money moves. Sandbox positions show up on league leaderboards with a DEMO badge so other members can tell the difference. Sandbox accounts cannot finish in the top 3 of any league, by design.

Age verification only. The app is 18+ — competing on real-money trade performance is a regulated activity, and we have to confirm you're an adult. Your DOB is also part of the one-account-per-person hash that prevents people from creating multiple accounts to game leaderboards. Never displayed publicly.

United States only at launch. Some states (those with restrictive trading-app laws) may be additionally geofenced. We have no plans to support international users until the regulatory picture is clearer outside the US.

Calvin Whitaker — solo founder. Texas LLC. Engaged with Baker Botts on regulatory counsel. The team is genuinely small: if something is broken or you have an idea, the in-app feedback button goes directly to me, and I read every message.