Does one APEX equal a month of patron though? can you even buy patron status with it? i cant seem to find anywhere to do it. I see some going for 60 gold, which is very reasonable if that would be enough for a month.
Still have my small plot of land from free patron, which will last a while so thats atleast something.
On their website, once you log into the account, at the bottom of the page there is a part that says "30 day patron pass". From my understanding, you buy the APEX packs which gives you gems, 1 pack gives you 1,250 gems, and the 30 day patron passes needs 2,400 gems. So, you'll need 2 packs for 30 days of patron.
You redeem the APEX in game & then do it through the website. That's my understanding anyway. It's perfectly viable, and I think the markets will equalise giving a reasonable price in gold. Even now at the 100 gold price tag, it's easily do-able to make 200 gold for 30 days even as a free player without a farm. Naturally it'll just take a bit longer to reach that goal.
Edit: Checked Shatigon's marketplace, at current there are plenty of APEX packs listed for 50 gold. 100 gold a month is easily do-able. I run four trade packs per day which takes me about an hour to do, that rakes in 20 gold (if I farm everything). For a free to play you could expect to double that time frame realistically, given the fact that you'd need to buy the items.