Frequently Asked Questions

We have three membership options for you if you're looking to join us as an individual (not as part of a corporate team).

Our Standard membership gives you 12 months' access to our training and community platform, all of our training content, live events, public bootcamps, and our incredible global community of Full Stack members. What you do not get is access to the three-stage accreditation programme; the part where you submit case studies at each level for us to review and pass / fail you (and provide you with a Full Stack Modeller certificate). You also receive less one-to-one support within your 12-month membership. You can upgrade your membership to include this at any time by reaching out to us, or you can purchase entry into each individual accreditation programme as you go (for a fee of $200 at each level).

Our Premium membership also gives you 12 months' access to all of the same content and activity listed above, but this time you get additional guidance and support from us (a one-to-one induction meeting, quarterly one-to-one check ins, a closing meeting with one of our founders at the end of your first year), plus access to the full accreditation programme. "Access to the full accreditation programme" means you submit case study solutions to us at the end of each of our three core training levels (Excel Mastery, Advanced Financial Modelling, and Data Visualisation & Analytics), we give you personal feedback and the either pass you for the level (and send you a nice, shiny certificate) or tell you what you need to improve on in order to pass on your next attempt. 

The All-In Full Stack Bundle gives you a 12-month Premium membership with Full Stack Modeller, a 12-month membership with the FMI including an AFM exam sitting, a 12-month membership with Maven Analytics, and a season pass for the Financial Modeling World Cup and the Excel Battle Series. Have a read through the Bundle page here for even more information.

All of our membership options for individuals are for 12 months. At the end of your initial 12-month membership with us, you'll have the option to renew for another 12 month period. It's an opt-in process, so we assume you don't want to renew if we don't hear from you. This is important to us; we don't want anyone to feel "caught out" by a recurring renewal. We want active, satisfied members who decide very deliberately to remain a part of the Full Stack community.

No matter what membership package you started with (Standard, Premium, or the Bundle), you renew with us for your second year and all subsequent years for $480 - on the Standard membership package. We only offer the supported Premium package for your first year to help you progress quickly through the accreditation programme.

Yes. Discounts are available via two routes:

At certain points in time we will offer exclusive discounts to people who attend our live events and public webinars.

We offer group booking discounts for companies looking to sign up more than one member of their team to the Full Stack programme.

Please contact Giles at giles@fullstackmodeller.com to find out more about our group booking process.

The accreditation process tests the most important aspects of our technical training content. Members are assessed through the successful completion of key case studies at each level of the Full Stack programme. Members must also peer review other modellers’ submissions and provide feedback as part of the accreditation process.

If you joined us on our Premium membership package, or you are paying for each accreditation level by level as part of our Standard membership, you can attempt and submit your accreditation solutions at any point in time within your membership period.

The membership cost is for an individual member. There are group booking discounts available for companies seeking to enroll multiple people into our training programme.

We think of ourselves as more than just an online training course provider. We are building a community of finance professionals who want to engage with others and are prepared to take the time to develop themselves in a meaningful way. So we believe twelve months is about the right length of time for our new members to settle in, connect with others, work through all of the content and gain Full Stack accreditation.

If you are genuinely looking for a quick fix on a particular element of modelling knowledge, you might want to keep an eye on our public bootcamps. We run these through a platform called Maven.com, and it's our intention to build a handful of these which we run throughout the year. Here's a link to our Month End Excel Automation bootcamp.

If you do that, firstly – well done! It’s still a twelve-month membership though, and we’d like to see you engage with the community even more if you manage to finish early. You would essentially be seen as an expert / experienced modeller within the group, and that means there will be lots of members on their journey who could learn a lot from you.

We’re open to our members coming to us with suggestions for content, challenges, events, and more. 

“Renewing” probably isn’t the right term for what happens at the end of the initial twelve-month membership period.

You are choosing to remain a part of an incredible community; one that will only grow and evolve over time. This gives you ongoing access to an amazing group of modellers from all corners of the world, and continued access to all of our live events – essentially keeping you up to date with the latest updates in the industry year after year.

Yes. Well, if you have literally zero experience with Excel then you may want to wait a little while and pick up some basic skills before you join us. But if you understand the basics of functions and you’re comfortable with Excel’s general structure then you’re very much wanted in our community.

Honestly just wait until you hear some of Giles’ questions!

We run our business and our community with two key underlying principles: honesty and teamwork. Nobody will expect you to suddenly transform into a modelling Jedi, and no question will be too basic for our group. Our more experienced members are challenged to be supportive leaders, and our less experienced members are encouraged to be vocal and open with their thoughts, ideas, and questions.

We are all about engagement. The more we talk and share with each other, the more we all stand to gain from this.

You can expect to have the following technical skills:

Excel fundamentals including functions, shortcuts and navigation skills, Excel Tables, Pivot Tables and Charting, Power Query, Modelling Standards and general best-practice modelling principles, actuals + forecast modelling

Advanced financial modelling including three statement modelling, valuations modelling, debt and equity financing and scenario modelling.

Data visualisation and analytics skills.  We'll help you understand how to effectively share the insights of your analysis with your stakeholders - a vital part of a modellers skills set, and one which is quite often missing.  We also look at the fundamentals of data analytics through our Power BI training course.

Tech skills including modular spreadsheet design tools, Excel review tools, Cloud accounting add-ins, scenario tools, and much more. As new tech comes onto our radar we will continue to expand our training in this area.

Yes - we just can't promise to be available for one-to-one support all the time. You will have a huge amount of engagement with us as a team, and we have regular check-in sessions at all levels of training as part of our live event series. One of the Full Stack team will be able to answer specific modelling questions for you if you post them on the platform, just as any other member of the community could.

If you sign up on our Premium membership then you do get one-to-one time with us throughout your first year.

Giles also offers a limited number of private coaching packages for those of you interested in moving really fast with your training progress. You can add your name to the waiting list here.

Not at all. If you want to become an accredited member by the end of your initial membership then you will have to successfully complete the key case studies within twelve months. But beyond that, you can work through the content at your own pace.

If you do want to continue working towards your accreditation and remain a part of the community then you can choose to extend your membership by renewing your annual membership.

However, accreditation is not obligatory. You are equally free to call it a day after twelve months and leave us (hopefully having learned an enormous amount even if you have not gained that accreditation certificate!)

The core training journey content is delivered through pre-recorded videos, with supporting exercises and case studies. Access to all content is given to members after a short Induction phase at the start of the membership period.

Live events and community engagement facilitated by the Full Stack team are there to add even more avenues for members to learn as they progress through their membership period. Live events will often include specialist trainers and guest speakers who we will have brought in specifically to teach our members on a particular subject area. We want the best of the best for our Full Stack community.

Live events take place almost every week of the year. You are not obligated to attend any (attendance is not part of your accreditation assessment), and most sessions are recorded and available to watch back in your own time.

Although we recommend going through each lesson regardless, it is certainly not an obligation and you are free to skip modules if you believe you are comfortable with the skills being taught already.

Training videos and live session recordings are not available for download. They are available via our bespoke app throughout the membership period (all you need is an internet connection).

This is almost impossible to answer because we have members with such varied levels of experience. For inexperienced modellers, please assume that it will take roughly half a day a week to gain accreditation within the initial twelve-month membership period.

However, we typically see members dipping in and out throughout the year as other work commitments and life take over. This is absolutely fine, and we understand most people have busy periods and less busy periods. Do what you can, when you can, and we'll do our best to support you.

FMI is similar to Full Stack in some respects, and different in others. FMI run a three-level certification programme with live, proctored exams scheduled at certain points throughout the year. They also have a community platform for people signed up to take their exams.

Full Stack is a broad training programme covering Excel, financial modelling, data visualisation & analytics, with a community of modellers from all over the world, and access to weekly live events delivered by our team and external experts.

To be very clear, we really love what the FMI offer. We are an accredited training provider for the FMI, and we always suggest to our members to go for the FMI's AFM certification alongside our Advanced Financial Modelling training.

Our best suggestion if you're looking at both organisations is to consider our All-In Bundle package which you'll find in the Training dropdown menu here on our website (it includes both Full Stack and FMI memberships together).

You will be sick of our voices and faces by the end of the year….

Seriously, you’ll have lots of contact with us. This really is more than a set of recorded videos. This is our passion project and we love being involved in the community. If you attend enough live events, you’ll see us very regularly indeed (we’ll leave you to judge whether that’s a good or a bad thing).

Coding languages are not a core element of our training journey, and Python and C++ are not covered at all.