Apiary Fund Review
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Education
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Funded Account Program
Summary
The potential to receive a trading account funded by someone else… Has that garnered your attention? Apiary Fund, a funded trading program and education service, is offering just that, along with a variety of other features. So, is Apiary Fund really all they say? Read our review to fund out.
Pros
- Offers traders the ability to achieve a funded trading account
- Three-month tiered educational program teaches traders risk management strategy
- Top-tier funded traders keep 85% of profit with no risk to themselves
- Clean interface makes it easy to track progress through Beeline to Funding
Cons
- Very expensive when Trader Live upgrade is factored in
- No way to reset account statistics after violating funded account eligibility
Review Navigation
About Apiary Fund
Apiary Fund is a platform that offers traders the potential to receive a trading account funded with Apiary Fund’s money. The service blends education and competition, guiding aspiring traders through a series of programs in which they learn to trade profitably. Traders who successfully complete this program and maintain high scores in Apiary Fund’s testing are eligible to receive funded trading accounts.
However, much like other funded trading account platforms, the catch is that very few traders can successfully achieve a funded trading account. Even those that do receive funded accounts report making very slim profits. Therefore, the majority of traders will want to approach Apiary Fund as an educational platform rather than as a route for making money.
Apiary Fund Pricing Options
Apiary Fund makes money by charging a subscription fee for all users, including traders who are still in the educational program and those who have achieved a funded account. This subscription fee is waived for the first month, then costs $97 per month.
In addition, Apiary Fund offers two optional account upgrades. Trader Live, which costs a one-time fee of $697, gives traders access to live and recorded webinars with Apiary Fund’s instructors and access to the Trader on the Street library of instructional videos. The Trader Pro upgrade costs a one-time fee of $994 and includes an additional education course on creating a trading business, in addition to all the services of Trader Live.
Apiary Fund notes that 85% of funded traders have upgraded to Trader Live. So, traders aiming to achieve a funded account should factor this upgrade into the cost of using Apiary Fund.
Beeline to Funding
At the heart of Apiary Fund is the “Beeline to Funding” educational program. This program is designed to teach traders the risk management strategy that Apiary Fund wants its funded traders to use and includes the testing that traders must pass in order to achieve a funded account.
The Beeline to Funding program is designed to take about three months, spending about one hour per day on the program. The program is divided into four levels, and at the end of each level is a trading test that gets progressively more difficult. In the first level, for example, traders need to win two consecutive trades to pass. In the fourth level, traders need to place 100 trades and not lose more than 2% on any of them.
Beeline to Funding Interface
The interface that traders use for the educational program is relatively straightforward. The program consists of a series of videos that traders need to watch, and the platform keeps track of progress through the videos.
At the end of each program level, traders can use Apiary Fund’s Alveo trading software to get access to real-time stock data and to place practice trades. Compared to technical trading platforms such as ThinkorSwim, Alveo is relatively simplistic – there is no custom coding capability to take full advantage of unique trading strategies. However, Alveo’s charts are comprehensive and the platform is capable of most common technical analyses.
Funded Accounts
How to Get a Funded Account
Funded trading accounts are the ultimate objective of most traders using Apiary Fund, although only a small percentage of traders who go through the educational program will actually qualify for one. In addition to passing the entirety of the Beeline to Funding program, Apiary Fund has three specifications that traders must meet throughout the educational program to be eligible for a funded account:
- Average profit over the educational period must be greater than average loss.
- Traders must profit off more trades than they lose money on.
- Traders must not exceed a 2% loss per trade or a 5% loss in a single day.
Note that the last requirement is extremely difficult to satisfy, since a single down day in the stock market broadly can cause a short-term loss of more than 5%.
In addition, keep in mind that the passing requirements for each level of the Beeline to Funding program alone are somewhat deceiving. Eligibility for a funded account keeps cumulative track of traders’ performance in the practice tests, so simply passing a level after trying multiple times may not be enough to achieve a funded account.
Worse for traders who have invested heavily in the program, there is no way to reset an account after failing one or more of Apiary Fund’s funded account requirements.
Funded Account Levels
For traders who do achieve funded accounts, the competition does not relax. There are four levels of funded accounts. Traders in the first level receive $2,500 to $10,000 to trade and keep only 60% of their profits. Apiary Fund advertises that in the fourth account level, traders manage up to $250,000 and keep 85% of their profits. However, Apiary Fund does not publish any specific requirements about how funded traders can progress through the funded trading account levels.
How Does Apiary Fund Stand Out?
Apiary Fund is similar to other competitive funded trading platforms such as TopStepTrader, but it does have a few important differences. Apiary Fund focuses much more on educating traders about the strategy that Apiary Fund prefers, rather than enabling traders to bring their own strategies to the platform. This focus on education is also important because it means that traders can use Apiary Fund to develop their own skills without necessarily needing to compete for a funded trading account. However, at the end of the day, Apiary Fund is similar to other funded trading platforms in that achieving a funded account is extraordinarily difficult and the rules for progressing in profit after achieving a funded trading account are unclear.
Should You Try Apiary Fund?
Apiary Fund is designed for day traders who want to compete for a funded trading account. This is most likely to appeal to mid-level traders who want to increase their profitability, but are not comfortable doing so by risking their own money. More advanced day traders who are already profitable are more likely to be successful on their own than by switching to trading with Apiary Fund. In addition, beginning traders can use Apiary Fund as an educational platform, although the monthly cost and narrow strategic focus of the platform means that there are significantly better options for learning how to day trade profitably.
I am a funded trader with Apiary and there are a few things I think could use clarification in your review: 1) The inability to reset account statistics only really happens at the Gold 1 and Gold 2 levels right before funding. 2) The monthly cost drops throughout the beeline as you progress through various milestones. 3) there is a very clear description of how to progress after funding… it requires 3 consecutive months of profitability for each account increase. The amount of the increase is at the discretion of the risk manager (you could get advanced faster based on performance). 4) You are allowed to use any trading method you like. Shawn Lucas does have a particular style (short term scalping) but there are others in the fund who teach longer term strategies and there is never any pressure to conform to any particular style… in fact throughout the training they said many times that each trader needs to find the style that works for them.
I really believe the education is top notch. I had never traded Forex before and I was funded in 88 days, and then after funding it took about a year for me to start being profitable, but they stuck with me throughout the process. Charging for the trading sessions is new since I joined, but I do think those are absolutely key to being successful. It is where you can see the concepts you have learned being applied and there is so much to learn just from the random unscripted comments of seasoned traders.
As another funded trader at Apiary I can confirm that everything John F. said above is exactly correct. Their trader support and education makes them a standout in the industry. They are not a fast path to massive capital. The focus is on long term skill development and sustainable consistency, using whatever strategy or method works for you. **There are no reset fees** if you hit risk limits. Their top traders in the office are accessible, friendly, and talented. A daily schedule of live discussions led by pro traders offers a constant supply of education as well as a sense of community and a chance to connect with other traders. While I would not turn up my nose at other good funding opportunities (some really aren’t) I consider Apiary my trading home base and I’ll never leave.
I was with Apiary fund three years ago. I am a beginner. Their videos are not of good quality, I found better on youtube for free. They claim to be education, but they drag it out and you don’t learn very much, not in a time frame I found acceptable. They do this intentionally to charge you their monthly fee, which is steep for just using their education program (and not even using their money yet!). I never got to the stage of fully funded, the videos were just not good enough, and I refused to keep paying for their education when I found better for free.
As a funded trader with the Apiary Fund (and getting ready to leave them) there are some things you should know based on my 3 years of experience with them. First, there is a lot of pressure to pay for training. I finally succumbed after their free training didn’t work and paid almost $4,000 (I believe it was $3,9000) for 8 weeks of individual hands on training. Each session was an hour long so that puts each session at over $480 a session. There was also homework assigned each week and a guarantee that I would learn enough to be funded after a short period. However, this was not the case. I tried the techniques I was taught and actually my trading was worse than before I took the training. So I studied and practiced for over two years on my own and was finally funded. However, once funded I discovered a HUGE flaw in the Alveo software that Apiary fund uses to trade which is why I will be discontinuing my trading with Apiary Fund and requesting a full refund of my training fees. Typically when you place a trade and set stop losses and take profit stops the software is supposed to honor those stops and close out your trades with either a win or a loss based on where you set your stops. Alveo does not do this. If you place a trade and then walk away from your computer (still logged into Alveo) and come back hours later, you will find that Alveo did not honor your stop loss or take profit but closed your trades no where near your stop loss or take profit. In the past 8 months this has happened to me on several occasions and I have had to get customer support to reverse the losses incurred by this Alveo issue. However, in the last week I have had to do this twice. A trade which should have only lost a few pips based on my stop loss, was closed 17 pips below where my stop loss was set. Another trade I made this week I should have made a 13 pip profit when price went over 4 pips above my take profit and stayed above my take profit for over 25 minutes. Alveo completely ignored my take profit and instead of getting 13 pips I had to manually close the trades for only a 3 pip profit. So bottom line, Apiary Fund’s training is not helpful in any way and their software is a complete loser. Personally, if I were you and considering the Apiary Fund I would stay far away and try learning Forex trading from another company. There are plenty of free resources you can find online that can help you learn how to trade Forex without spending a dime. The previous review was spot on and if you look closely there are many more dissatisfied people than there are satisfied.
I am a Funded Trader and looking in from the outside one can see the value Apiary offers mathematically. For example, if a monthly fee is about $99.00 until the upgrade level when the fee drops to only $69.00 a month. Also, one can buy an upgraded account to get more discount as a prefund account. This pre-fund account only took me 3 weeks to complete and receive a funded account. My first year as a funded trader earned me over $11,000 as I caught the 3 month uptrend in the Forex Market. The rest of the time was a zero sum effort. Anyway, figure one year subscriptions total about $1,200 against $11,000 profit potential.
So, no real skill on my part except to stick with a major trend and watch for the D1 Chart Doji reversal Candle. Very simply put it’s more about very small leverage to stay within a 5% per day risk tolerance. Than learning a successful strategy. In other words go through the program to earn the funded trading account, then continue to be profitable to earn higher levels of funding up to $250,000 level. Doing all this without risking your own money. Since FX markets swing with much volatility, many many traders lose their own money! I’ve been a funded trader since 2018
THIS IS A SCAM. 1 STAR. AVOID AT ALL COSTS!
B – What specific evidence led you to your conclusion?
Your review is worthless without real evidence to back it up.