Apiary Fund review: Pros, Cons, and Traders Ratings.

4.141 • 79 REVIEWS
Prop Firm
Updated: Feb 8, 2024
ApiaryFund.com

What is Apiary Fund?

Apiary Fund is a proprietary trading fund and forex training company where traders should go through the Trader Development System - Beeline to Funding.

Please read Apiary Fund Reviews below and share your prop trading experiences with this company.

Note:  This company provides a forex education program for a fee.  The company says that those meeting certain standards will be provided with funds to trade for a share of the profits.

Other websites of this company include ApiaryFunds.com

4.141 • 79 REVIEWS

Recent User Reviews of Apiary Fund

T
Tedwilson
Nashville, TN, USA,
Oct 9, 2023,
Registered user

Honest, Open, and Real

Service use: Live
I have been associated with Apiary Fund for 7 or 8 years. I have attended many of the online life classes and onsite boot camps. The content is there to learn and practice and the coaches and staff are all very personable and genuine and I have enjoyed the relationship immensely.
D
Deborah
Arizona, USA,
Sep 20, 2021,
Guest

Wonderful people, great concept, horribly executed

Service use: Live Length of use: over 1 Year
Having progressed over several years to become a full time trader of my own money, here is my assessment of Apiary.
The Apiary model is essentially sound (although there are other sites offering a better split for trading their money) and the people on staff are really good people. Trading Apiary Fund lets people trade without all the FIFO and other crazy new rules. As you trade successfully, Apiary Fund grows and makes Shawn richer and you share in the returns. It's a great model. And if you get in on the frequent specials, the cost to play can be respectable.

But the company desperately needs a skilled operations manager. Things are so horribly disorganized, mishandled, and miscommunicated that the experience requires customers to be over-the-top patient.

The Alveo trading platform they provide is an alpha version at best. It has a lot of great features for the serious trader, but is so clunky and buggy it simply doesn't work. The supposed web version has been almost complete for about 4 years.

The Beeline training content is great for beginners, but it's provided as a poorly organized hodgepodge of information. I wish they would let me revamp it so people can actually learn it well. And the trading tests you have to pass are confusing. As a now successful trader I have to wonder how many of the tests help a trader and why so many essential skills are ignored. In many cases, there appears to be no rhyme or reason, so learners rely on tricks provided by others to pass the tests.

There is a huge gap between finishing the Beeline all the way to being funded and actually trading to make money. Apiary doesn't really give you all the tools to trade successfully. It does give you a foundation, but you will have to learn trading techniques somewhere else. In fact, the best training I obtained was free from other sources. Consequently, almost nobody seems to make any money after being funded, as far as I can tell (they are very secretive about this, which should tell you something). It appears to me that the only people trading successfully with Apiary are those who learned from Shawn Lucas directly early on and those who were already successful traders who simply wanted to be able to trade without all the Obama-imposed trading restrictions that make trading for a living nearly impossible.

Once funded, you move from $10000 dummy accounts to a $1500 or so live account. I found that almost impossible to succeed in with what I had been taught, although I understand why they want to start you at that level.

I also paid $4000 for their Trading Partner program where I was to work directly with an expert trader. It was a total waste of money and I'm still peeved about it. They gave me a guy who made no sense and was certainly not an expert. He ignored my calls and emails and confused me so much when we met that I was trading worse than when I started. I complained after 4 or 5 months and was told to try longer. After another few months I told them I needed a change. I was given to somebody who was very good and very responsive but I only had 1 one-on-one meeting left at that point. I will say, however, he helped me a lot. In this program I had access to a few additional classes. I was told they would work with me until I reached my goals, but after a while it felt like I was getting the brush off and I was not anywhere close to trading for a living much less achieving my beginning goals that I was told were very reasonable.

Now they are trying something new: Trader On The Street, and Beeline is an option in it. It's a hodgepodge of group programs from the same people in Beeline. The group fees are very expensive (over $1k a pop). Not surprisingly, they charged me for the free trial and had to refund it when I called. Most of the site wasn't even functional or had the content it was supposed to have. In any case, it appears that they lost focus from their original business model and are now all over the map trying to make money from all sorts of trading and investment classes. Frankly, the site set up for this makes no sense to me and it's hard to believe it will succeed.

It's too bad because I really like the people and I believe the business could be highly successful in training people to trade for a living, but it's not going there anytime soon.
3 traders have found this review helpful
M
mikelkbunn
California, USA,
Jun 26, 2020,
Registered user

Not all they claim to be

Service use: Live Length of use: over 1 Year
As a funded trader with the Apiary Fund I am finally completely fed up with them. Their training is not good, their software (Alveo) is horrible and buggy and money for training seems to be their mantra. And don't believe the money back guarantee they advertise because it is not worth the paper it is printed on. Wish I could report better but after trying for over 3 years with this company I am finally saying enough is enough. And don't believe all the good review you may read. Most of their member posts in their member portal goes something like this "Is anyone actually making any money doing this???"
3 traders have found this review helpful
B
Benita Martin Boley
WV, USA,
Mar 1, 2020,
Guest

I am so Pleased To Be A Member!

Service use: Live Length of use: 3-6 Months
I have been Enabled, and Allowed To Learn At My Own Pace. Quizzes Repeated As Many Times As Needs To Be Taken To Achive Understanding AND A Passing Grade. Allows For Continuing Personal Understanding And Growth Of The Forex Trading Platform Through The Apiary Fund.
R
Richard
Atlanta, USA,
Dec 21, 2019,
Guest

cancel membership

Service use: Demo Length of use: 0-3 Months
To subscribe is very easy, Apiary with friendly customer service and give you what they promises.
The only problem is that they dont care if you learn to trade
only object is getting buying and buying all their products.
and when you see expenses over 5K and did not get results,
You decided to cancel the membership and things will became ugly, Their customer service transformed to very rude, they gave you excuses and delays, like , "We did not get email to right place", and mean time, You continue getting bank charges for their service.
In few words is very difficult cancel account with apiary funds.
1 trader has found this review helpful
D
Dave
Vancouver, Canada,
Nov 18, 2019,
Guest

Apiary Fund Forex is NOT a scam!

Service use: Live Length of use: 6-12 Months
But neither is it a get-rich-quick scheme and I found it darned hard work!

I was enrolled for about a year and found it really tough going - I don't consider myself dim. I have a degree - and I had to drop out as my fixed-income was feeling the strain and I ended up being only partly qualified despite giving it a couple of hours a day for a year. Like many others, I really think that the ALVEO platform needs streamlining, but that said, the 'Net is full of success stories with Apiary and very few negatives so they must be doing something right
2 traders have found this review helpful
M
Mcrious
Guwahati, India,
Aug 21, 2019,
Registered user

funded after about a year with 1K

Service use: Live Length of use: over 1 Year
To be clear what you pay for :
The 97$/month is for the use of the platform ALVEO,wich is same for practice AND live trading,and the data feed.OF COURSE you dont get your money back for this.It is NOT for education,as the whole education process called beeline is completly up to the person registering and free,you can read what you want,share what you want in the forum,and put together your system totrade with,all while going through the beeline process.(12 levels called bronce,copper silver and gold.1,2,3 each)In gold 3 peopleget an 1000$ account real money with 60% profit to get for them.Increasing when consistently profitable,wich can be a small amount of profit also.
I got funded after about a year,messed it up going down a few hundred $,got back to practice since then.struggle with the platform wich is difficult to handle for me ,with limited risk features and hedging is possible only with a small percentage of the capital.
I did NOT had to pay a penny for the loss,and I paid about 12 month in fee,with one month free trial.In total about 1100%minus the loss I had to cover if trading my own money.
The trading platform needs to be upgraded definitely,as there are some issues with execution.
Pro is definitely the fact that you meet all kinds of traders,also ex pros,and there is exchange of knowledge for free.Its a great way to adjust your trading to a risk parameter they put,being forced to trade small positions.
And its definitely cheaper than all the other education out there.Learning a language at a school is more expensive.The measures are profit,loss position size and expectancy,wich is enough to know to become profitable consistently.
I never had any trouble with getting funded or how they put you back to practice,they are really pros in this,take it as part of the deal and thats it.
And there are a few reaching gold every week and being funded.
Con is the platform and personal coaching is paid extra with about 1k one time payment.Updates about what the company is planning are missed,and many things released or changed come by surprise.
C
clockz71
Columbus, Ohio, USA,
Jul 27, 2019,
Registered user

I an funded with them. Never had an issue.

Service use: Live Length of use: over 1 Year
First off - the reason for only 4 stars. I HATE THE PLATFORM. They need to get rid of it basically. I use a demo MT4 account for charting and execute through Alveo. That's the reason for losing a star. (Please God get another platform. If they did, I would make this a 5 star rating right away.)

Beyond that, the costs go down the further you get into the program. The funded account starts out small, but they DO increase it. (I have already seen three.) The company may or may not be a great educational resource, but that isn't why I was there. I was essentially 'jumping through the hoops' to get funded. That's all. Is it the best education? No. But a lot of people are missing the point: They are trying to teach people that don't even know what a pip is. What you need is probably different and more advanced if you are here.

As far as getting paid, I have never had a check not show up. The liquidity provider has tight spreads, but they are variable like any other real pool will be. I would say the spreads are a bit better than most other places in general.

I like Apiary, and they have given me everything they promised. That's really all that matters.
2 traders have found this review helpful
L
Livingston Frost
GA, USA,
May 5, 2019,
Registered user

I'm totally happy with my experience at Apiary

Apiary Fund has been a great experience for me. The program is perfect for people like me who come in with little to no knowledge of Forex and want to learn how to trade. Face it, you're going to pay for an education in Forex. Whether you blow up 1 or more small accounts in a trial and error approach or if you pay outright for some educational programs (there are MANY on the net). Neither of those options come with the potential to recoup that expense with no risk to your own capital. Apiary does. The fees decrease as you progress, and to get your first level of funding you only need to demonstrate a basic level of consistency in your trading and stats. If you maintain consistent profitability over time (even as little as $1 profitable), the level of funding will more than double annually. Up to $250K over +/- 4 years if you do everything right. Of course they're not 'giving' you anything more than an opportunity to earn a funded account. How much funding depends only on your dedication and profitability over time.
W
William
California, USA,
Apr 1, 2019,
Guest

So far, so good.

Hi. I'm currently in Apiary Fund. I just joined a few months ago. So far, I think it's a good program especially compared to others. I've done it over the years.
The cost is low, about $ 97 a month. The web teaching is good, both written, video, and streamed.
The service when you call with questions is excellent. You talk to a real person, also a trader, and wait time is zip. Very good.
There are no hidden costs or "bait and switch" tricks other programs often have. It all seems very honest and up front.
Now, is it perfect? Well, there's always something that pisses you off, right? I'm an experienced trader and can move quickly through much of the materials. However, Apiary does tend to treat all students the same. If you'
For example, I finished all the tasks at a certain level but could not move to the next level until after weeks of more practice. Does not make sense but I understand they want all students to go slowly regardless of experience. Still, frustrating after you pass all the tests.
This brings me to the last complaint. The entire progress of getting a funded account is slow. Even if you complete the practice accounts (Copper, Bronze, Silver, Gold) in 3-6 months, and get a funded beginning of $ 2,500, it will take about a year to get to the next level of funding.
There are 4 kinds of funded accounts.
A. $ 2,500 to $ 10,000
B. $ 10,000 to $ 50,000
C. $ 50,000 to $ 100,000
D. $ 100,000 to $ 250,000
Each level takes about a year if you are profitable every 3 months.
If not, you stay at that level. So, if you do everything right, you're looking at about 4 years to finish everything. That's okay if you're 25, but at 60 it's quite a bit to ask.
To be fair, you do not get to keep most of your profits while going through the funded levels. But, keep in mind, even with a $ 10,000 funded account after one year, you're looking at making about $ 10 to $ 100 a day. But, I understand Apiary Fund business model ... "Slow and steady wins the race". Just so you know. Have fun.
1 trader has found this review helpful