The short version: The mock draft simulator space is more crowded than it's ever been — and more expensive, depending on where you look. Some tools are free. Others lock the single feature that makes mock drafting fun — trades — behind a $10 to $25 per month subscription. We run On The Clock, so we have a side in this, but we've kept the feature and pricing facts straight and let them speak. Here's an honest, money-on-the-table breakdown of every major NFL mock draft simulator in 2026.
The 60-Second Pricing Table
| Simulator | Free to start? | Signup required? | Cost for full features | Trades | Player-for-pick trades |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| On The Clock (Fanspeak) | Yes — unlimited, all day | No | Ultimate GM: $19.95/yr | Yes, live acceptance odds | Yes |
| Pro Football Network | Yes | No | Free | Yes (multi-directional) | No (picks only) |
| PFF | Limited | Yes | PFF+: $24.99/mo or $119.99/yr | Yes | Yes |
| StickToTheModel | 1 draft/day | No | Paid beyond 1/day | Yes | Yes |
| The Draft Network | Yes (basic) | Yes | TDN Premium: ~$9.99/mo or $29.99/yr | Premium only | No |
| A to Z Sports | Yes | No | Free | Yes | No |
| Underdog | Yes | Sign-in to save | Free | Yes | No |
| ESPN | Yes | No | Free | Limited | No |
Prices reflect publicly listed rates at time of writing and shift during draft season. Check each site for current pricing.
The takeaway before we even get into reviews: you do not need to pay $25 a month to run a great mock draft in 2026. The best free and low-cost tools — On The Clock among them — now match or beat the premium suites on the features most people actually use.
What You're Actually Paying For
Mock draft simulators all do the same core thing: you pick for your team, the CPU drafts for the other 31, and you see how the board falls. The differences that justify (or don't justify) a price tag come down to four things:
- Trades — Can you move up, move down, and does the CPU evaluate offers realistically? This is the feature people care about most, and it's the one most often paywalled.
- Custom data — Can you build and save your own big board and team needs, or are you stuck with someone else's rankings?
- Depth — Multi-team drafting, multiple draft years, scouting detail, draft grades.
- Friction — Signup walls, ads, paywalls on saving your work, and caps on how many mocks you can run.
Keep those in mind as you read. A $24.99/mo tool that gates trades is not automatically better than a free tool that includes them — and a tool that's "free" for exactly one draft a day is not the same as one that's free all day, every day.
The Reviews
1. On The Clock by Fanspeak — Best Overall Value
The original "be the GM" mock draft simulator, rebuilt into the most complete free-to-start experience available.
On The Clock has been putting fans in the GM's chair longer than anyone in this space, and the current version is the strongest it's ever been. You click a team logo and you're drafting — no signup, no email wall, and unlimited mocks, all day. Run one or run twenty; there's no daily cap. From there it scales up as far as you want to take it.
What stands out:
- The best trade interface online. Propose a deal and a live acceptance-probability meter updates in real time as you build the package. The CPU evaluates offers using the Jimmy Johnson trade value chart — the same framework NFL front offices reference — weighing pick value, the other team's remaining capital, and which prospects they could still land. One-for-one swaps are deterministic; multi-pick packages run on a realistic probability curve, so you can't fleece the CPU with junk, but a fair overpay gets you up the board.
- Player-for-pick trades. Package a veteran with a pick to move up, just like real draft weekend. Not every simulator allows this — and at least one competitor's marketing still claims to be the only one that does.
- Dozens of big boards, fully customizable. Use any of our official boards or build and save your own. Your board drives both the available-players order and how your picks are scored.
- Compare against 300,000+ drafts. Our Compare page measures your draft against the entire community — a dataset no single analyst can match.
- Multi-year. Run the 2026 and 2027 classes, or redraft past years to grade what teams actually did.
- 1 to 7 rounds, quick scenarios or the full developmental-pick deep dive.
- Multi-team drafting and Force Trade for users who want to run the whole league or pull offers to them on the clock.
The cost: The core simulator — pick a team, run a full mock, use any official big board — is free, with no daily limit. Ultimate GM ($19.95/yr) adds multi-team drafting, custom big boards, advanced trade tools, and an ad-free experience. One subscription, one price, no per-feature nickel-and-diming.
Best for: Everyone from the casual fan running a quick first-round mock to the diehard rebuilding their team with player trades and a custom board. The free tier alone outdoes most paid competitors.
2. Pro Football Network — Best Free Multiplayer
The go-to for drafting live with a group, and it costs nothing.
PFN's simulator is completely free with no signup, and its calling card is scale: up to 32 users drafting simultaneously in public or private password-protected lobbies. Trades move in every direction — user-to-sim, sim-to-user, and sim-to-sim — and you can redraft classes back to 2020. Scouting reports are included free.
Worth knowing: Trades are pick-for-pick only (no player trades), and there are no per-pick draft grades.
The cost: Free.
Best for: Draft parties, league nights, and anyone who wants a large-group live draft without paying.
3. PFF — Most Expensive, Most Paywalled
Deep data and a feature-rich 2026 simulator — behind a steep subscription.
PFF's simulator got a real upgrade for 2026: player and pick trades, multiplayer draft rooms, a custom big-board builder, live ADP leaderboards, and the choice of PFF's internal grades, public consensus, or a blended board. The data underneath is genuinely strong.
The catch: Almost all of it lives behind PFF+, which runs $24.99/mo or $119.99/yr. That's the highest price in this roundup by a wide margin, and the simulator is one feature among many in a broader fantasy/betting subscription. If you're already a PFF+ subscriber for other reasons, it's a nice bonus. As a standalone mock draft tool, it's hard to justify when free options now offer comparable simulator features.
The cost: $24.99/mo or $119.99/yr (PFF+).
Best for: Existing PFF+ subscribers.
4. StickToTheModel — Capable, but One Free Draft a Day
A genuinely capable simulator that's grown fast — just don't mistake it for free.
We'll give credit where it's due: StickToTheModel built a deep product. Player-and-pick trades, a custom data editor with cloud save, a five-year draft archive (2023–2027), per-pick and per-team grades, community consensus data, realtime and async multiplayer, scouting reports, and an analytics dashboard. On features, it's one of the most complete tools here.
The catch most roundups miss: StickToTheModel is not free in the way people assume — the free tier is capped at one draft per day. Run your daily mock and you're done until tomorrow, unless you pay for unlimited access. That's a real difference from On The Clock, where you can run as many mocks as you want, all day, for nothing.
Also worth knowing: STM markets itself heavily as the only simulator with player trades. That hasn't been true for a while — On The Clock and PFF both support player-for-pick deals. Its published comparison also tends to leave established competitors off the list entirely, so take any "only we do this" framing with a grain of salt and try the tools yourself.
The cost: Free for one draft a day; a paid plan unlocks unlimited mocks.
Best for: Players who want a custom board editor and multiplayer, run one mock a day, and don't mind paying once they want more.
5. The Draft Network — Best Scouting Reports, but Trades Cost Extra
Excellent prospect analysis; the fun part is paywalled.
TDN's scouting library is the best in the business — a 6,000+ prospect database with multiple full-length reports on the top several hundred players, plus a Build Your Own Big Board tool. The Mock Draft Machine itself is usable with a free account, and you can control anywhere from one to all 32 teams.
The catch: The feature that makes mocks fun — trades — requires TDN Premium, as does saving your mocks and big boards. Premium has historically run about $9.99/mo or $29.99/yr. So a "free" mock here means no trading and no saving.
The cost: Free account for basic mocks; ~$9.99/mo or $29.99/yr for trades and saving.
Best for: Prospect researchers who value deep scouting reports alongside their mock and are willing to pay to trade.
6–8. A to Z Sports, Underdog, and ESPN — Free and Light
These three are free, fast, and feature-light — fine for a quick mock, thin if you want depth.
- A to Z Sports (free, no signup) — Clean UI with a smart availability-probability readout (the odds a player is still there at your pick), AI pick suggestions, mid-draft speed controls, and unlimited undo. But it's pick-only, no scouting reports, no draft grades, single-player, and 2026 only.
- Underdog (free; sign-in to save) — A competitive, scoring-and-leaderboard spin on mock drafting, plus a shareable Round 1 heatmap and stock-up/stock-down trends. Pick-only, no scouting, single-player, 2026 only.
- ESPN (free, no signup) — Simple, brand-name, with post-draft grades and a Draft Day Predictor. No scouting reports, no rich trade engine. Good for total casuals.
Best for: Quick one-off mocks when you don't need a trade engine, custom boards, or scouting.
So What's Actually Worth Paying For?
Here's the honest framing, even as the team that sells a Premium tier:
- You should never pay for trades alone. On The Clock, Pro Football Network, and A to Z Sports all include trading free and unlimited; StickToTheModel includes it too, but only inside your one free mock a day. Paying TDN purely to unlock trades, or paying PFF $25/mo for a feature you can get free elsewhere, is hard to defend.
- Pay for depth you'll actually use. Multi-team drafting, custom savable big boards, advanced trade controls, and an ad-free run are the things worth a subscription — and at $19.95/yr, On The Clock's Ultimate GM bundles all of them for less than a single month of PFF+.
- Pay for data if data is your thing. TDN's scouting library and PFF's grades are legitimately premium content. If you live in the reports, those subscriptions make sense — for the content, not the simulator.
Frequently Asked Questions
What's the best free NFL mock draft simulator in 2026?
On The Clock's free tier is the most complete starting point — unlimited mocks all day, live trades, official big boards, draft grades, and a Compare page against 300,000+ drafts, all with no signup. Pro Football Network is also a strong fully-free option. StickToTheModel is capable, but its free tier is limited to one draft per day.
Which mock draft simulators charge money?
PFF is the priciest at $24.99/mo or $119.99/yr. The Draft Network gates trades and saving behind a premium tier (historically ~$9.99/mo or $29.99/yr). StickToTheModel is free for only one draft a day and charges for unlimited. On The Clock's Ultimate GM tier ($19.95/yr) adds multi-team drafting, custom boards, advanced trade tools, and ad-free. Pro Football Network, A to Z Sports, Underdog, and ESPN are free.
Which simulators let you trade players, not just picks?
On The Clock, StickToTheModel, and PFF support player-for-pick trades. Most others — The Draft Network, Pro Football Network, A to Z Sports, Underdog, ESPN — are pick-for-pick only.
Do I have to create an account to mock draft?
Not with On The Clock, Pro Football Network, A to Z Sports, or ESPN. The Draft Network, PFF, and Underdog require an account for full functionality or to save.
Can I build my own big board?
On The Clock (Ultimate GM), StickToTheModel, PFF (PFF+), and The Draft Network all offer custom big boards. On The Clock also lets you save multiple named boards.
The Bottom Line
The market has never given fans more options — or more reasons to read the price tag carefully. Free tools have closed the gap on the paid suites, and the single most-wanted feature, trades, is now free almost everywhere worth playing. Just watch the fine print: "free" sometimes means "free once a day."
Our recommendations:
- Best overall value: On The Clock — free to start, unlimited all day, with the deepest paid tier at the lowest serious price.
- Best fully-free experience: On The Clock's free tier or Pro Football Network.
- Best for large live group drafts: Pro Football Network.
- Best scouting content (if you'll pay for it): The Draft Network.
- Skip the $25/mo unless you're buying PFF+ for everything else it does.
Run a few. The right one is the one that gets out of your way and lets you draft.