Frequently asked questions
Some of these answers are less flattering than marketing copy usually is. That is deliberate. If ACondor is wrong for you, the cheapest time for both of us to find out is before you subscribe.
Will ACondor make me money?
We do not know, and anyone who tells you otherwise about any trading product is not being straight with you. ACondor executes a defined options premium selling strategy consistently and without emotion. Consistent execution is an edge over discretionary trading for most people, but it is not a guarantee of profit. Premium selling produces many small wins and occasional large losses, so a strategy can work as designed and still lose money over any given month, quarter, or year. You can lose your entire account.
Is this suitable for beginners?
No. ACondor assumes you already understand options, specifically what it means to be short premium, how assignment and early exercise work, what buying power reduction does to your account, and how a defined-risk spread differs from an undefined-risk position. If any of those are unfamiliar, learn options first on your own, in a paper account. Automating a strategy you cannot evaluate means you will not recognize when it is behaving badly.
How much capital do I need?
There is no hard minimum, but the math sets a practical floor. ACondor ships with a default cap of 700 dollars of risk per trade, and its percentage-based sizing mode targets 2 percent of net liquidating value per position. For those two defaults to agree, an account is around 35,000 dollars. Smaller accounts are workable, but you must lower the per-trade risk cap so a single loss is not an outsized share of your account. The default allocation cap deploys 10 percent of net liq to start and the bot holds up to 20 concurrent positions, so accounts too small to spread across several positions concentrate risk in a way premium selling does not tolerate well.
What account types does ACondor support?
Margin accounts get access to every structure ACondor trades. IRA and cash accounts are supported, and in those the bot automatically restricts itself to defined-risk structures such as iron condors, credit spreads, and debit spreads, and never places undefined-risk trades. That restriction is enforced in software based on the account type reported by your broker, not left to your configuration.
Which brokers work with ACondor?
tastytrade only, today. ACondor uses the official tastytrade OAuth API for authentication, market data, and order placement. More brokers are planned but none are supported yet, so a tastytrade account is currently a hard requirement.
Can ACondor withdraw money from my account?
No. ACondor reads market data, reads your positions and balances, and places, modifies, and cancels options orders. It never calls any money movement endpoint. It cannot initiate withdrawals, deposits, transfers, or wires, and it cannot change your linked bank account. You can also enforce this at the broker by granting only the OAuth scopes needed to read data and trade when you create the application.
What happens if the software breaks while I have positions open?
Your positions remain open in your brokerage account and remain your responsibility. A bot that is stopped, crashed, or disconnected does not manage existing positions and does not close them. This is the single most important thing to understand before automating: the software is not a safety net, and you need to be able to take over manually. Verify positions and fills directly with your broker rather than trusting the dashboard as a complete picture.
Do I still need to watch my account?
Yes. Automation removes the emotion from execution, not the need for oversight. You are responsible for starting and stopping the bot, reviewing its settings, monitoring your positions, and verifying orders with your broker. ACondor only trades while you have it running, during market hours.
Can I try it without risking real money?
Yes, and we recommend it. ACondor supports a tastytrade sandbox configuration where the full system runs against simulated orders and no real money moves. Run there first. It costs nothing and it surfaces most configuration questions in the first few sessions.
Is my tastytrade login safe?
ACondor never receives your tastytrade password or two-factor code, and we will never ask for either. It authenticates with an OAuth refresh token and client secret that you generate and can revoke at any time from my.tastytrade.com. Revocation happens at the broker, so it works instantly even if our software is malfunctioning. Full details of how credentials are stored are on our security page.
Does an AI decide my trades?
No. Every entry and exit rule the engines run is deterministic. Claude is used to classify news headlines for the defensive news gate, and to power the chat panel in the dashboard where you can ask questions and change settings. It is not in the automated trade entry or exit path.
Can I get a refund?
Yes. First-time subscribers can request a full refund of their first subscription payment within 30 days, no explanation needed. The refund covers the subscription fee only and never covers trading losses, since we never hold your trading capital. You can cancel at any time and access continues to the end of the period you already paid for.
Still have a question?
The documentation covers every setting individually. For anything else, get in touch. We answer questions about how the software works. We do not answer questions about what you should trade, which would be personalized advice we are not registered to give.
Options trading involves substantial risk of loss and is not suitable for every investor. See our full risk disclosure.