How To Pick Your FPL Captain With Data

1. Decide what you need first: a quick name, a projection to compare, or a call tailored to your own squad.
2. Try the free options before paying; several tools here give you something useful without a subscription.
3. Look for a tool that publishes its past picks, misses included, rather than only its hits.
4. Remember FPL locks picks at the deadline, so any tool reads the squad FPL last locked.
5. Never hand over your FPL password; your team ID is all a tool needs.

At its simplest, a captain picker tells you which player to put the armband on this week. Your captain's points are doubled, so it is the single choice that moves your score the most, and it is worth a few minutes of thought every Gameweek. If you hold the Triple Captain chip, the same decision matters even more, because the stakes go up again.

The better tools do more than name a player. They give you a projection for each candidate, so you can see how close the top two or three really are, and some read your own squad so the suggestion fits the players you actually own.

A picker is an aid, not an oracle. Football is noisy, and the honest way to judge any tool is over many weeks, not one big haul.

Most captain decisions come back to a handful of questions. Who is projected to score the most over the next match? How big is the gap between my first and second choice? Do I own the player, or would I be taking a risk by captaining someone I do not have? And is this a week to play the Triple Captain chip, or save it?

Different tools answer different parts of that. A projection model answers the first two. A tool that reads your team can speak to the third. A chip-aware tool helps with the fourth.

It helps to know which of these you actually struggle with. If you only need a name, a free weekly call may be plenty. If you keep agonising between two players, a projection you can compare side by side is more useful.

Here is how the main alternatives look, as of 25 October 2026, going only on what each lists.

• Fantasy Football Scout: articles, community, podcast and data tools. The free Assistant Scout tier includes key articles, news, community, basic fixture data and a team rating. Chief Scout is £3.25 a month, billed annually. It suits people who like to read opinion and join the conversation. It does not list an AI chat about your team, and it does not publish an accuracy figure.
• Fantasy Football Hub: an AI and expert platform with AI transfers, a team rating, a planner and podcasts. The AI team rating is free (email needed). Starter is £2.49 a month, billed yearly, which is a 50%-off sale price. It does not list AI chat about your team and does not publish accuracy.
• FPL Review: projections, a planner and a transfer solver. The free projection model in the planner is a good starting point for comparing captain options. Paid access is through Patreon. It has no AI chat and does not publish accuracy as a figure.
• LiveFPL: live rank, a price predictor, a planner and a ticker, all free, with an optional subscription to remove ads. No AI chat, and no published accuracy.
• Fantasy Football Fix: data tools, AI transfers, ChatFPL and articles. A free account is available, and Premium is £3.48 a month, billed yearly, a limited-time price. It is the other tool here that lists an AI chat about your team (ChatFPL). It does not publish accuracy.

None of these is wrong. They simply lean in different directions: reading, planning, live tracking or projections.

Fantasy Premier League itself is free to play, and you can pick a captain with nothing more than the official site and your own judgement. Paying only makes sense if a tool saves you time or sharpens a decision you find hard.

Start with what is free. The free projection model at FPL Review, the free tier at Scout, the AI team rating at Hub, a free account at Fix and the free calls at FFIQ all let you test whether a tool's way of thinking suits you before any money changes hands.

If you do pay, check the billing. Several of the prices above are billed annually or yearly, and two are described as a sale or limited-time price, so the figure may not stay the same. Read the small print on how long the price lasts.

The most useful question is whether the tool shows its record. Among the tools we have looked at, the others list accuracy as not published, or not published as a figure. That does not mean they are poor, only that you cannot check their record from their own pages.

Look for picks made before the deadline and scored afterwards on FPL's own results, with the misses left in. A tool that only shows its best weeks tells you very little.

Also be wary of anything that asks for your FPL password. No tool needs it to read your team. Your team ID is enough, and it is the number in the web address of your Points page on the official FPL site.

FFIQ is built around the move for your own team before every deadline: captain, transfers, chips and line-up, plus Ask IQ, an AI you can ask anything about your team. The method line is simple: every call combines 34 calculations with an algorithm that keeps updating as the scenario changes.

Without an account you get a projection for every player six gameweeks ahead, predicted line-ups, the weekly captain and transfer calls, and a free team rater called FPL Rate My Team. Premium adds your personal move in the War Room, IQ for any question about your team, your mini-leagues, and price-rise alerts for your players the night before.

It is not the cheapest option here. Premium is £5.99 a month (the Founding Season price, 60% off the standard £14.99), or £59.99 a year. The offer is your first month free; a card is needed and you can cancel any time. FFIQ publishes its record: picks made before each deadline and scored on FPL's results, misses included. It never asks for your FPL password, and a Scout member can run FFIQ alongside their Scout membership.

If all you want is a name for the armband, the free calls may be enough. If you want a pick that reflects your squad, Premium is where that happens.

Pick one free option and use it for a few Gameweeks, then compare it with your own instinct. Note where you disagreed and who was right. That small record tells you more than any marketing page.

Remember the timing too. FPL publishes every manager's picks only after the deadline passes, so between deadlines any tool reads the squad FPL last locked. If you make a transfer late in the week, check that the tool has caught up before you rely on its suggestion.

Try it on your team →This week's captain picks →