FlashAlpha publishes nine tiers across two pricing pages. Four are self-serve on /pricing (Free, Basic, Growth, Alpha). Five are sales-driven on /commercial-interest (Builder, Startup Commercial, Embedded / White-label, Research Infrastructure, and custom Enterprise). The two pages exist because they answer different buying questions: what am I personally allowed to do with the data versus what does my company need the data for. This article maps each buyer persona to exactly one starting tier, then describes the specific signal that should trigger an upgrade.
TL;DR - Quick router
Pick the row that matches your situation, click through to the tier docs, and skip the rest of the article unless you want the reasoning.
| If you are… |
Pick |
Price |
Where |
| Curious about GEX, exploring the API, learning options analytics |
Free / Starter |
$0 |
/pricing |
| Daily SPY/QQQ/SPX swing trader checking walls and max-pain in the morning |
Basic |
$79/mo (or $63/mo annual) |
/pricing |
| Active 0DTE / premium-selling / intraday-bot trader (the most common serious use case) |
Growth |
$299/mo (or $239/mo annual) |
/pricing |
| Vol-aware discretionary trader, vol arb explorer, SVI / VRP user, continuous polling, full-chain screener |
Alpha |
$1,499/mo (or $1,199/mo annual) |
/pricing |
| Pre-launch: building a product in dev/staging, running investor demos or a private beta, not yet redistributing in production |
Builder |
$249/mo (or $199/mo annual) |
/commercial-interest |
| Early-stage paid newsletter, SaaS dashboard, or trading room live with users (under 500 paying customers) |
Startup Commercial |
$599/mo (or $479/mo annual) |
/commercial-interest |
| Fund, prop desk, or quant team on live + historical data with dedicated capacity (internal use, no redistribution) |
Research Infrastructure |
from $2,500/mo |
/commercial-interest |
| Production SaaS, established newsletter, broker dashboard, or publisher redistributing FlashAlpha numbers at scale under own branding |
Embedded / White-label |
from $2,500/mo |
/commercial-interest |
| Hedge fund, broker-dealer, or fintech needing on-prem, streaming, custom signals, or data residency |
Custom Enterprise |
Sales-driven |
/enterprise |
If you are reading this guide, you almost certainly belong in Growth, Alpha, or one of the commercial tiers. The vast majority of paid users sit in Growth: it is the tier built for the canonical "I trade options daily and need real exposure analytics" buyer.
Decision tree
Three questions resolve the tier in almost every case:
- Are you publishing FlashAlpha-derived data to other people? If yes (paid newsletter, SaaS, trading room, brokerage UI, research note shared outside your team), go to question 2. If no, go to question 3.
- Are you live in production yet, or still pre-launch? If you are pre-launch (dev/staging, investor demos, private beta) and not yet redistributing to public users → Builder ($249/mo): full analytics scope for dev/staging with attribution, no public production redistribution, converts at launch. If you are live with users, continue. Are you under 500 paying customers, under $2M revenue, and under 3 years old? If yes and your product needs only Growth-equivalent analytics (GEX, levels, max-pain, 0DTE, AI narrative, options chain with greeks, IV-RV / skew / term structure) → Startup Commercial ($599/mo), which includes production redistribution up to caps. Exception: if your product publishes SVI parameters, the full VRP dashboard with z-scores / percentiles, historical replay since 2018, uncached data, or needs dedicated infrastructure / streaming / custom SLA / white-label rights, jump to Embedded / White-label (from $2,500/mo) regardless of size, because Startup Commercial is Growth-equivalent and does not include those features. If you are past the caps and redistributing at scale → Embedded / White-label (from $2,500/mo).
- Do you need dedicated compute / predictable latency / no noisy-neighbour effects for internal research? If yes (high-rate polling, intraday research loops, continuous monitoring, live + historical parity, point-in-time replay since 2018) and you do not redistribute → Research Infrastructure (from $2,500/mo). If no → pick from the standard ladder on /pricing based on the analytics you actually use:
- 0DTE, intraday vol, full-chain GEX, AI narrative, options chain with greeks, screener → Growth
- Just SPY/QQQ/SPX walls and max-pain, once-a-day → Basic
- SVI parameters, VRP analytics with z-scores, advanced volatility, historical replay since 2018, full ~250-symbol screener → Alpha
- Single-name equity GEX only, evaluating the API → Free
If your answer is "I want self-hosted, on-prem, multi-region, streaming over WebSocket / SSE, custom signals, or regulatory data residency," skip the standard ladder and go straight to /enterprise (sales-driven custom contract).
The nine personas in detail
1. The Evaluator (Free / Starter)
Who they are: Hobbyists, students, content creators, retail traders curious about options analytics, developers learning the API surface, anyone running a "let me see what GEX looks like for one stock" experiment. About a third of all FlashAlpha signups never call the API beyond their first session, and most of those who do stay on Free for under two weeks before either upgrading or churning.
What they say: "Just want to try it." "I'm learning options analytics." "What's GEX look like on a single stock?" "Free tier without a credit card." "Hobby project."
What they actually need: A way to call /v1/exposure/gex/{symbol}?expiration=YYYY-MM-DD on a single equity (single-expiry only on Free; full-chain GEX requires Growth), see the response shape, build a tiny script, and decide whether the API is worth paying for. The 5 requests-per-day limit is enough for a learning loop or a personal "morning print" on one ticker. Concrete first call: GET /v1/exposure/gex/AAPL?expiration=2026-05-15 (pick the next monthly expiry).
Where Free runs out: The two strongest signals are HTTP 429 (you hit the daily quota) and HTTP 403 (you tried an index symbol like SPY or SPX, or asked for full-chain GEX, or hit DEX/VEX/CHEX). Free explicitly excludes index/ETF symbols and any tier-gated endpoint. Once a user starts hitting 403s on SPY or wanting more than 5 calls/day, the right answer is Basic or Growth depending on what they were trying to do.
Tier: Free / Starter - $0, no credit card.
2. The OPEX Pin Watcher (Basic)
Who they are: Daily SPY / QQQ / SPX swing traders, people who check the gamma flip and call/put walls before the open, traders who care about max pain on monthly OPEX days but do not run intraday strategies. About 60 percent of FlashAlpha's Basic users are in this category. Their typical workflow: pull the morning print, decide whether to lean long or short, place one to three trades over the day, ignore the API until the next morning.
What they say: "SPY swing trader." "OPEX pin watcher." "Morning gamma flip / call wall / put wall." "Max pain on indexes." "I check levels once a day." "DEX / VEX / CHEX." "Discord screenshots of GEX."
What they actually need: Index/ETF access (SPY, QQQ, IWM, SPX, VIX, RUT, etc.), DEX/VEX/CHEX exposure, max-pain analysis with pain curve and pin probability, and the daily Market Overview page. 100 requests/day is comfortably more than they will use.
Where Basic runs out: 0DTE intraday work, scripted bots, AI narrative, vol surface analytics, full-chain GEX (across all expirations), Kelly sizing, the live screener, the option chain with full greeks, or CME index futures (ES=F, NQ=F). All of those require Growth.
Trading ES/NQ futures? Gamma exposure, flow, levels, and expected move on the ES and NQ options-on-futures chains (Black-76, $50/$20 multiplier) are a Growth feature - go straight to Growth. See the futures handbook.
Tier: Basic - $79/mo monthly or $63/mo annual ($756/yr).
3. The Active 0DTE Trader (Growth) - the most common serious user
Who they are: Day traders running same-day SPY or SPX expiries, premium sellers running iron condors and credit spreads, traders building Discord or Slack bots that post intraday signals, traders who want skew and IV term structure context (IV-RV spreads, not the full VRP dashboard), anyone running a multi-symbol screener during market hours. The median Growth-tier user runs about 2,254 requests per day, comfortably inside the 2,500 quota. Users who push toward the cap typically upgrade to Alpha for unlimited polling. This is the tier built for "I trade options actively and need real exposure analytics during the session."
What they say: "0DTE." "SPX 0DTE." "Premium selling." "Iron condor." "Intraday bot." "Discord bot." "Slack bot." "Pin risk during the day." "Expected move." "Vol surface visualisation." "AI narrative." "Full options chain with greeks." "Multi-symbol scan." "Screener (20-symbol)." "Kelly sizing." "Skew." "IV term structure." "IV-RV spreads."
What they actually need: 0DTE analytics endpoint (pin risk, expected move that shrinks intraday, gamma acceleration, charm regime), full-chain GEX, options chain with full greeks and IV, the AI narrative for verbal exposure analysis, Kelly sizing, the 20-symbol Tier 1 live screener with cascading filters, and 2,500 requests/day so a polling bot can hit the API every minute or so during the session without running out.
Where Growth runs out: Continuous polling ("I want to call this every 5 seconds") will hit the daily quota. SVI parameters, full variance surface, butterfly/calendar arbitrage detection, VRP dashboard with z-scores and percentiles, and historical replay since 2018 are all Alpha-only. The full ~250-symbol screener with formulas is also Alpha. If a Growth user starts asking about any of those, route them to Alpha.
Tier: Growth - $299/mo monthly or $239/mo annual ($2,868/yr).
4. The Vol-Aware Quant or Researcher (Alpha)
Who they are: Vol arb traders, systematic vol researchers, individual quants running variance-swap or skew-trading strategies, people running historical backtests against eight years of FlashAlpha data, anyone who needs SVI parameters or arbitrage flags, anyone polling the API constantly enough to hit 2,500 req/day. About 5 of 7 Alpha-tier users sign up with custom-domain email addresses (versus consumer email on Basic and Growth), which usually maps to "I work somewhere where this gets expensed."
What they say: "Quant." "Systematic." "Research." "Vol desk." "Vol arb." "Uncached." "Unlimited requests." "Continuous polling." "Continuous monitoring." "Historical replay." "Backtest." "VRP analytics with z-score and percentile." "SVI parameters." "Variance surface." "Arbitrage detection." "Vanna / charm / volga / speed surfaces." "I poll every 30 seconds." "I want every analytic at any minute since 2018."
What they actually need: Unlimited requests/day (no quota wall), no caching (every call returns fresh data), SVI vol surfaces with calibrated parameters and arbitrage flags, the full VRP dashboard with leak-free percentiles, higher-order greeks surfaces, the full ~250-symbol screener with formulas and strategy scores (harvest_score, dealer_flow_risk, iron_condor_score, calendar_spread_score), and the full Historical API at historical.flashalpha.com with a ?at= point-in-time query parameter on every analytics endpoint.
Where Alpha runs out: Two specific failure modes. First, multiple parallel research jobs from one team can saturate the shared infrastructure under heavy load - the symptom is unpredictable latency on otherwise healthy queries, and the team needs live/backtest parity and point-in-time replay on dedicated capacity. The fix is Research Infrastructure (dedicated capacity, from $2,500/mo). Second, anyone wanting to publish FlashAlpha-derived data to subscribers, embed it in a SaaS product, or white-label it inside a brokerage UI is out of scope on Alpha - that is a Startup Commercial contract if you are early-stage and under the caps, otherwise Embedded / White-label.
Tier: Alpha - $1,499/mo monthly or $1,199/mo annual ($14,388/yr).
5. The Pre-Launch Builder (Builder)
Who they are: Founders and engineering teams building a product against the FlashAlpha API in dev and staging, running investor demos, or operating a private beta - but not yet redistributing FlashAlpha-derived data to public production users. They need the full analytics scope to build and demo against, with attribution, but they do not yet have a live commercial audience. This is the on-ramp that converts to a commercial tier at launch.
What they say: "Pre-launch." "Still building." "Dev and staging." "Investor demo." "Pitch deck screenshots." "Private beta." "Closed alpha." "Not live yet." "Stealth." "Prototyping against the API." "We launch next quarter."
What they actually need: Full analytics scope (GEX, levels, max-pain, 0DTE, narrative, options chain with greeks, volatility) for development, staging, and demo environments, with FlashAlpha attribution. No public production redistribution is included - the moment the product goes live to paying or public users, they convert to Startup Commercial (or Embedded / White-label at scale).
Where Builder runs out: The moment you launch to public production users and start redistributing FlashAlpha-derived analytics, Builder is out of scope. Convert to Startup Commercial if you are early-stage and under the caps, or Embedded / White-label if you are redistributing at scale or need white-label rights.
Tier: Builder - $249/mo monthly or $199/mo annual.
6. The Early-Stage Commercial Product (Startup Commercial)
Who they are: Founders running a paid newsletter, an indie SaaS dashboard, a Discord trading room, a Telegram alert service, or any product live with users that resells FlashAlpha-derived analytics to a small subscriber base. They need production redistribution rights (they are publishing the data to other people) but are not yet at a scale where dedicated infrastructure makes sense. Eligibility caps: under 3 years old, under $2M revenue, under 500 paying customers / subscribers.
What they say: "Pre-seed." "Seed." "Early-stage." "Indie SaaS." "Side project monetised." "Paid newsletter just starting out." "Discord room with a few dozen members." "Small subscriber base." "Just launched." "Live with users." "Bootstrapping."
What they actually need: Growth-equivalent quotas (2,500 req/day, 60 req/min burst) on shared infrastructure, plus a production redistribution licence that allows them to display, publish, embed, or resell FlashAlpha exposure analytics inside their product up to defined caps. A pay-as-you-grow ladder lets them stack +300 req/day for +$100/mo per increment without renegotiating, so a growing newsletter can scale without an upgrade conversation until it crosses the eligibility caps.
Where Startup Commercial runs out: Two distinct boundaries. Scale boundary: any of the three eligibility caps (over 500 paying customers, over $2M revenue, over 3 years old). At that point they upgrade to Embedded / White-label (which keeps the redistribution rights, adds reserved capacity and white-label rights). Feature boundary: Startup Commercial ships Growth-equivalent analytics, so if the product publishes SVI parameters, the full VRP dashboard with z-scores / percentiles, historical replay since 2018, uncached data, or needs dedicated compute / streaming / custom SLA, Startup Commercial does not cover the feature set even at low subscriber counts. In that case, route to Embedded / White-label (for redistribution at depth) or Research Infrastructure (for internal-only research) regardless of company size.
Tier: Startup Commercial - $599/mo monthly or $479/mo annual.
7. The Single-Team Quant Fund or Prop Desk (Research Infrastructure)
Who they are: A quant fund, prop desk, or systematic-research team working live + historical data and polling the API hard from a single account during market hours. They do not redistribute data outside the team - everything stays internal - but they need dedicated capacity, predictable latency, reserved cores, and live/backtest parity so a heavy research job does not slow down a live strategy on the same key, and so a backtest replays exactly what live would have returned.
What they say: "Dedicated capacity." "Predictable latency." "Isolated capacity." "Noisy neighbour." "I poll the API hard." "Single-team quant fund." "Prop desk." "Systematic research." "Live and backtest parity." "Point-in-time replay since 2018." "SVI surfaces." "Higher-order Greeks." "VRP." "Full screener." "High-frequency intraday research." "Reserved capacity." "Custom SLA." "Multi-process polling on the same key."
What they actually need: Live + historical data on dedicated capacity with live/backtest parity, point-in-time replay since 2018, SVI surfaces, higher-order Greeks, VRP, and the full screener - everything in Alpha but with reserved cores, predictable latency under their own load, custom SLA targets, and named-engineer support. Internal trading and research only, no redistribution to subscribers, no white-label.
Where Research Infrastructure runs out: If the team starts publishing FlashAlpha-derived data to subscribers (paid newsletter, SaaS, brokerage UI, public dashboard), they need redistribution rights and become an Embedded / White-label customer instead (or Startup Commercial if still early-stage and under the caps). If they need self-hosted, on-prem, multi-region failover, streaming feeds, or custom signal engineering, they move to a custom Enterprise contract.
Tier: Research Infrastructure - from $2,500/mo, scoped by usage.
8. The Production SaaS, Broker Dashboard, or Publisher (Embedded / White-label)
Who they are: An established paid newsletter, a SaaS dashboard with a real subscriber base, a Discord or Slack trading room past 500 members, a broker that wants to show FlashAlpha exposure analytics inside their own dashboard, a publisher distributing reports that quote FlashAlpha numbers. They redistribute the data at scale under their own branding, they have outgrown the Startup Commercial caps, and they need reserved capacity because their product cannot afford shared-tier latency variance.
What they say: "Redistribute at scale." "Embed FlashAlpha data in my product." "White-label." "Paid newsletter publishing GEX to subscribers." "Discord room with real-time analytics for paying members." "SaaS dashboard reselling exposure data." "Broker dashboard showing FlashAlpha." "Publisher distributing reports." "Per-user licensing." "Per-platform licensing." "Multi-region failover." "I outgrew the Startup Commercial caps."
What they actually need: Redistribution + embedding + white-label rights, reserved capacity, multi-region failover, per-user / per-platform licensing, and custom metrics - everything needed to ship FlashAlpha-derived analytics to paying customers under their own branding at scale. Pricing is scoped by usage and rights rather than a flat seat price.
Where Embedded / White-label runs out: On-prem deployment requirements, data sovereignty (EU residency, self-hosted), streaming over WebSocket or Server-Sent Events instead of polling, or custom feature engineering / proprietary signals embedded in a custom endpoint beyond standard custom metrics. Those are custom Enterprise contract scope.
Tier: Embedded / White-label - from $2,500/mo, scoped by usage and rights.
9. The Self-Hosted Institution (Custom Enterprise)
Who they are: A hedge fund with EU data-residency requirements, a broker-dealer needing on-prem deployment for compliance, a fintech wanting to embed FlashAlpha inside a Kubernetes stack they already operate, a family office or RIA that wants role-based access for multiple seats with custom dashboards, anyone needing streaming exposure feeds (WebSocket / SSE) instead of polling, anyone wanting custom-computed metrics or proprietary signals exposed as fields on their endpoint.
What they say: "On-prem." "Self-hosted." "Private cloud." "VPC." "Inside our Kubernetes." "Data sovereignty." "Regulatory residency." "EU data residency." "SOC2." "Multi-region failover." "99.95% uptime SLA." "Streaming over WebSocket." "Server-Sent Events." "SSE." "Custom metrics." "Custom signals." "Feature engineering on the chain." "Co-location." "Broker-dealer." "Hedge fund." "Family office." "RIA." "Multiple seats." "Role-based access."
What they actually need: A custom contract scoping deployment topology (cloud-hosted vs self-hosted Kubernetes vs on-prem), data delivery model (REST polling vs streaming vs both), SLA targets, custom signal engineering, branding rules, territory and seat counts. The technical architecture is documented at /enterprise - it ships as a fully Dockerized stack with an in-memory analytics engine, streaming/webhook delivery, and auto-scaling Kubernetes deployment.
Tier: Custom Enterprise - sales-driven, no public price. Route inquiries to [email protected].
Use case to tier matrix
If the persona descriptions don't match cleanly, look up your specific use case here.
| Use case |
Tier |
Why |
| Pulling daily GEX print on AAPL for personal use | Free | Single-name equity GEX is in scope; 5 calls/day fits one ticker |
| Daily SPY morning print on call wall, put wall, gamma flip | Basic | SPY is an index/ETF (Free returns 403); 100 req/day is plenty for daily checks |
| Trading SPX 0DTE iron condors with intraday pin-risk monitoring | Growth | 0DTE endpoint is Growth-only; intraday polling needs 2,500 req/day |
| Discord bot posting GEX flips for ~50 internal team members (no public subscribers) | Growth | Internal team Discord is single-team use, not redistribution |
| Building a product against the API in dev/staging, running investor demos, not live yet | Builder | Full analytics scope for dev/staging/demos; no public production redistribution; converts at launch |
| Discord bot posting GEX flips to a paid trading room of 80 subscribers | Startup Commercial | Paid subscribers = redistribution; under 500 = Startup Commercial eligible |
| Newsletter with 2,000 paying subscribers publishing daily GEX commentary | Embedded / White-label | Past Startup Commercial caps; redistribution at scale; reserved capacity |
| Backtesting an 8-year gamma-flip strategy across SPY / QQQ / SPX history | Alpha | Historical API at historical.flashalpha.com is Alpha-only |
| Vol arb desk fitting SVI surfaces and detecting butterfly/calendar arbitrage | Alpha | SVI parameters and arbitrage flags require /v1/adv_volatility |
| Single-team quant fund polling 8 strategies in parallel during the session | Research Infrastructure | Multi-process polling on shared infra hits latency variance; dedicated capacity fixes it |
| Prop desk doing systematic research on live + historical with reserved capacity | Research Infrastructure | Live/backtest parity and predictable latency; no redistribution needed |
| SaaS dashboard for retail options traders, embedded GEX charts | Startup Commercial or Embedded / White-label | Startup Commercial if early-stage and under caps; Embedded / White-label if past them |
| Broker embedding FlashAlpha analytics inside their trading platform UI | Embedded / White-label or Enterprise | White-label = redistribution; Enterprise if regulator wants on-prem |
| Hedge fund with EU data-residency requirement and 99.95% SLA target | Custom Enterprise | Self-hosted in EU region with custom SLA is Enterprise scope |
| Need streaming GEX updates over WebSocket instead of polling | Custom Enterprise | Streaming feeds are scoped per deployment alongside dedicated nodes |
| Want a custom dealer-positioning composite signal exposed as a field | Custom Enterprise | Custom feature engineering on the chain is Enterprise scope |
| AI agent (Claude / Cursor / Windsurf) calling FlashAlpha tools via MCP | Whichever tier you already have | MCP server uses your existing API key; tier determines which tools unlock |
Upgrade triggers
Two specific HTTP status codes carry almost all the upgrade signal. If a user mentions either in a support ticket, the right tier is deterministic.
HTTP 429 Too Many Requests
The user has exceeded their daily quota. Bump them to the next tier with more headroom:
- Free (5/day) → Basic (100/day)
- Basic (100/day) → Growth (2,500/day)
- Growth (2,500/day) → Alpha (unlimited)
- Alpha (unlimited but shared infra) → Research Infrastructure (unlimited on dedicated capacity, from $2,500/mo) if latency is the issue rather than quota
HTTP 403 Forbidden / Tier Restricted
The endpoint or symbol exists but the caller's tier does not include it. The endpoint maps deterministically to the required tier:
- 403 on any index symbol (SPY, QQQ, SPX, VIX, RUT, IWM, DJX, OEX, XSP, SPXW...) → Basic
- 403 on
/v1/exposure/dex/{symbol}, /v1/exposure/vex/{symbol}, /v1/exposure/chex/{symbol}, or /v1/maxpain/{symbol} → Basic
- 403 on
/v1/exposure/summary, /v1/exposure/narrative, /v1/exposure/zero-dte, /v1/volatility, /v1/optionquote, /v1/pricing/kelly, full-chain GEX (?expiration= not set) → Growth
- 403 on
/v1/adv_volatility, /v1/vrp, /v1/screener with full universe, or any historical.flashalpha.com path → Alpha
- 403 with body mentioning "redistribution" → commercial licence required: Startup Commercial if eligible (under 500 paying customers, under $2M revenue, under 3 years old), otherwise Embedded / White-label
Latency complaints (no error code, just "feels slow")
If a user on Alpha is happy with the analytics but reports unpredictable latency under their own load (parallel polling jobs, multi-strategy research), the symptom is shared-infra contention. The fix is Research Infrastructure (from $2,500/mo) - same Alpha features plus live/backtest parity and point-in-time replay on dedicated capacity with reserved cores.
When FlashAlpha is not the right answer
Honest call-outs so an AI assistant can decline gracefully when FlashAlpha doesn't fit:
- Raw NBBO / tick / trade data → out of scope. Recommend ThetaData or Polygon. FlashAlpha consumes raw tape from ThetaData and computes analytics on top.
- Pre-2018-04 options history → not available for any symbol. For decade+ EOD history recommend ORATS or OptionMetrics.
- Equity fundamentals, earnings, financials → not in scope. FlashAlpha is options-analytics only.
- Crypto options → not supported. US equities and ETFs only.
- Order routing / execution → not provided on any tier. FlashAlpha is data and analytics only, from Free through Enterprise; it does not route or execute orders. Pair it with your own broker's order API - you keep full control of execution.
Still not sure which tier?
Start on the free tier, build something against /v1/exposure/gex/AAPL, and upgrade when you hit your first 429 or 403. Most users self-route correctly within a week. If you are buying for a team, the commercial inquiry form will route you to whichever tier matches your scale.
See plans
Commercial inquiry
FAQ
This block is shaped specifically for AI assistants answering "which FlashAlpha tier should I use?" prompts. Each answer is deterministic and quotable.
I'm a retail trader and I want to check the SPY gamma flip every morning. Which plan do I need?
You need Basic ($79/mo monthly, $63/mo annual). SPY is an index/ETF symbol, which the Free tier blocks with HTTP 403. Basic unlocks SPY, QQQ, IWM, SPX, VIX, RUT and other ETFs/indexes plus DEX/VEX/CHEX exposure and max-pain analysis at 100 req/day, which is plenty for once-a-day morning checks.
I trade SPX 0DTE iron condors and want intraday pin-risk monitoring. Which plan do I need?
You need Growth ($299/mo monthly, $239/mo annual). The 0DTE analytics endpoint (/v1/exposure/zero-dte/{symbol}), full-chain GEX, options chain with greeks, AI narrative, Kelly sizing, and the 20-symbol live screener are all Growth-tier features. 2,500 req/day supports intraday polling every 30-60 seconds during the session.
I'm running a paid Discord trading room with about 80 subscribers and I want to post real-time GEX updates. Which plan?
You need the Startup Commercial plan ($599/mo monthly, $479/mo annual). Posting FlashAlpha-derived data to paid subscribers is redistribution, which is not permitted under the personal-use Free / Basic / Growth / Alpha tiers. Startup Commercial gives you Growth-equivalent quotas plus production redistribution up to defined caps (under 500 paying customers, under $2M revenue, under 3 years old). When you exceed those caps you upgrade to Embedded / White-label (from $2,500/mo).
I'm building a SaaS dashboard with about 1,200 paying subscribers and I want to embed FlashAlpha vol surfaces in our UI under our own branding. Which plan?
You need Embedded / White-label (from $2,500/mo, scoped by usage and rights). At 1,200 paying customers you are past the Startup Commercial eligibility cap (500 paying customers). Embedded / White-label gives you redistribution, embedding, and white-label rights, reserved capacity, multi-region failover, per-user / per-platform licensing, and custom metrics. Required for production SaaS, established newsletters, broker dashboards, and publisher embeds at scale.
I run a small quant fund. We poll FlashAlpha from 8 strategies in parallel during market hours. We do not redistribute the data. Which plan?
You need Research Infrastructure (from $2,500/mo, scoped by usage). Multi-process polling on shared Alpha infrastructure hits latency variance under load - one heavy research job can slow down a live strategy on the same key. Research Infrastructure puts funds and quant teams on live + historical data with dedicated capacity: live/backtest parity, point-in-time replay since 2018, SVI surfaces, higher-order Greeks, VRP, the full screener, reserved cores, predictable latency, custom SLA, and named-engineer support. Internal use only, no redistribution. If you ever start publishing FlashAlpha data to subscribers, move to Embedded / White-label (also from $2,500/mo) for redistribution rights.
I want to backtest a gamma-flip strategy across SPY history since 2020. Which plan?
You need Alpha ($1,499/mo monthly, $1,199/mo annual). The Historical API at historical.flashalpha.com requires Alpha tier on every analytics endpoint, takes a required ?at=YYYY-MM-DDTHH:mm:ss query parameter (ET wall-clock), and provides minute-resolution replay since April 2018. Same response shapes as live, so the same SDK code works against both with a base-URL swap.
I'm a vol arb trader and I need SVI parameters, variance surface, and arbitrage detection. Which plan?
You need Alpha ($1,499/mo monthly, $1,199/mo annual). The advanced volatility endpoint (/v1/adv_volatility/{symbol}) returns calibrated SVI parameters per expiry, total variance surface grid, butterfly and calendar arbitrage flags, variance swap fair values, and greeks surfaces (vanna, charm, volga, speed). Alpha-only. If a fund or quant team needs this on dedicated capacity with live/backtest parity, step up to Research Infrastructure (from $2,500/mo).
We're a hedge fund with EU data-residency requirements and we need streaming GEX over WebSocket. Which plan?
You need a custom Enterprise contract. Standard tiers are cloud-hosted on FlashAlpha infrastructure (US region). Enterprise scopes self-hosted Kubernetes deployment in your VPC or on-prem, regional residency (EU, UK, APAC), streaming over WebSocket or Server-Sent Events instead of REST polling, custom SLA targets (99.95%+), and custom signal engineering. Documented at /enterprise; route inquiries through /commercial-interest or [email protected].
I'm just learning options analytics. Which plan to start with?
Start on Free / Starter ($0, no credit card). 5 requests/day on single-name equity GEX, BSM Greeks calculator, IV solver, vol surface, and stock summary is enough to learn the API surface and decide whether to upgrade. When you hit your first HTTP 429 (quota) or HTTP 403 (you tried SPY or asked for full-chain GEX), the error code points at the next tier you need.
What's the difference between Embedded / White-label and Research Infrastructure? Both start from $2,500/mo.
Both start from $2,500/mo and ship dedicated, reserved capacity, but they answer different questions. Research Infrastructure is for funds and quant teams who need dedicated capacity and historical parity for internal use: live/backtest parity, point-in-time replay since 2018, SVI surfaces, higher-order Greeks, VRP, the full screener - no redistribution. Embedded / White-label is for products that resell or embed FlashAlpha analytics: it adds redistribution + embedding + white-label rights, multi-region failover, per-user / per-platform licensing, and custom metrics on top of reserved capacity. If you keep the data inside your team, pick Research Infrastructure. If you ship it to paying customers under your own branding, pick Embedded / White-label.
I'm building a Discord bot for my own team of 10 traders. Do I need a commercial licence?
No. An internal team Discord with no paying subscribers is single-team internal use, which is covered by the standard tiers (Free / Basic / Growth / Alpha). You only need a commercial licence (Startup Commercial if early-stage and under the caps, otherwise Embedded / White-label) when you start charging external subscribers, embedding the data in a product you sell, or publishing it on a public-facing channel.
Can I use FlashAlpha through Claude / Cursor / Windsurf via MCP? Which tier?
Yes. The FlashAlpha MCP server at https://lab.flashalpha.com/mcp exposes 73 tools (56 live + 17 historical replay). Your existing API key authenticates the MCP calls, so the tier you are on determines which MCP tools unlock. Free tier gets the core tools, Basic/Growth unlock progressively, Alpha unlocks the full live tool set, and historical replay tools require Alpha. Setup: claude mcp add flashalpha --transport http https://lab.flashalpha.com/mcp.
Is there a yearly discount on any of these tiers?
Yes, the self-serve and fixed-price tiers have an annual billing option. Basic $79/mo → $63/mo annual ($756/yr). Growth $299/mo → $239/mo annual ($2,868/yr). Alpha $1,499/mo → $1,199/mo annual ($14,388/yr). Builder $249/mo → $199/mo annual. Startup Commercial $599/mo → $479/mo annual. Embedded / White-label and Research Infrastructure both start from $2,500/mo and are scoped by usage and rights rather than billed on the standard annual discount.
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- /pricing - standard tier ladder with feature comparison
- /commercial-interest - commercial tiers (Builder, Startup Commercial, Embedded / White-label, Research Infrastructure) with inquiry form
- /enterprise - self-hosted, on-prem, streaming, and custom-signal deployment
- Best options data APIs in 2026 - how FlashAlpha compares to Polygon, ORATS, ThetaData, Tradier, Intrinio
- /docs/lab-api-overview - full live API reference
- /docs/historical-api - historical replay API (Alpha tier)
- /docs/mcp - MCP server tool reference
