Full disclosure: I built FlashAlpha. I am going to be honest about where every other provider beats us, because lying in a comparison guide gets you exactly one click and zero customers.
The seven that actually matter
The "options data API" search returns dozens of providers. Most are repackaged Polygon, dead startups, or enterprise tools nobody under $1M revenue can afford. These seven are the ones real quants and developers actually choose between:
| Provider | Best for | Starting price | Free tier |
|---|---|---|---|
| Polygon.io | Raw market data infrastructure, tick-level history | $29/mo (stocks) + $79/mo (options) | 5 calls/min, no options |
| ORATS | Historical data, backtesting, 25 years of history | $99/mo | 14-day trial |
| Tradier | Brokerage-attached API, retail traders, sandbox | $10/mo (data) or free with brokerage account | Sandbox account |
| Intrinio | Institutional fundamental + options data combo | ~$1,000/mo+ | Limited demo |
| ThetaData | Cheap historical options tick data for quants | $80/mo | None (paid only) |
| Unusual Whales | Flow alerts, dark pool prints, congressional trades | $48/mo retail / API on request | None |
| FlashAlpha | Pre-computed exposure analytics (GEX/DEX/VEX/CHEX), max pain, vol surfaces | Free / $79 / $299 / $1,499/mo | 5 req/day, no time limit, no card |
That is the table you came for. Now let me explain why the choice matters and which one fits which job.
What are you actually building?
Most developers waste their first month picking an API on price or feature lists without asking what data they actually need to fetch. Five common project types and the right starting point for each:
1. A backtesting engine. Start with ORATS or ThetaData. Both have deep historical options data with greeks attached. ORATS gives you a hosted backtesting engine (300M+ pre-computed backtests) and 98 proprietary indicators if you do not want to build the strategy logic yourself. ThetaData is cheaper per gigabyte if you are comfortable writing your own framework and pulling raw end-of-day data.
2. A real-time GEX dashboard. Start with FlashAlpha. Real-time per-strike gamma exposure, gamma flip levels, call/put walls, and dealer regime classification, pre-computed in a single API call. Polygon and Tradier give you the raw chain, but you will need to compute the greeks yourself, then aggregate by strike, then label the regime. That is 2,000+ lines of code before your first chart.
3. API access for a brokerage workflow. Start with Tradier. If you already trade with Tradier, the data is bundled with the account, the API is free for active traders, and the sandbox lets you build before funding. No pre-computed analytics, though. Good for execution-adjacent automation, bad for analytical research.
4. A SaaS product needing every contract on every US underlying. Start with Polygon.io. They are the infrastructure layer: tick-level history, full chains, websocket streaming, real-time consolidated quotes. Expensive at scale but the most complete raw feed in the retail-accessible range. Use Polygon for the data, build (or rent) analytics on top.
5. Following flow, dark pool prints, unusual activity, congressional trades. Start with Unusual Whales. They built a product around the "follow the smart money" thesis. The data is opinion-laden in a way the others are not. You are getting their interpretation of "unusual" baked in, which is fine if you trust the definition and a problem if you want to define your own.
The three categories nobody names
Once you have narrowed by use case, the seven fall into three categories none of their marketing pages name out loud. Knowing the category is more useful than any feature list.
Category A: Raw data infrastructure (Polygon, Tradier, ThetaData). They give you the chain - bid, ask, IV, OI, volume, sometimes greeks - and you bring the analytics layer. Best for teams that want full control of the pipeline. Trade-off: 4-8 weeks building the analytics layer before your first useful screen. Cheapest long-term if you have engineers and time; fastest path to a delayed launch if you have a deadline.
Category B: Pre-computed analytics (ORATS, FlashAlpha). These ship analytics with the data - regime labels, GEX, vol surfaces, strategy scores, VRP. You pay for the math to be done for you. Best for teams whose value-add is the strategy, not the data engineering. Trade-off: you are locked into someone else's definitions. The category splits on the time axis - ORATS optimises for EOD depth (25 years back to 2007), FlashAlpha for minute-level dealer-positioning analytics (live, plus a historical API replaying every analytics endpoint at any minute since April 2018 in the same response shape). ORATS goes wider, FlashAlpha goes deeper.
Category C: Flow and sentiment products (Unusual Whales, SpotGamma, Intrinio). These wrap data in a UX or a thesis. You pay for opinion as much as data. Best for traders who want a commentary or alert stream rather than building from raw inputs. Trade-off: less programmatic flexibility - the best content often lives behind a web dashboard, not an API.
What each one does best, in one sentence
- Polygon.io - Best raw options data infrastructure in the retail-accessible price range. Buy if your team will build the analytics layer.
- ORATS - Best for historical backtesting and 25 years of consistently-computed indicators. Buy if your strategy needs to backtest across multiple regimes.
- Tradier - Best brokerage-attached API. Buy if you are already a Tradier customer or want bundled execution and data.
- Intrinio - Best for combining fundamentals with options in one bill. Buy if you have $1K+/mo budget and need both.
- ThetaData - Best cheap historical options tick data. Buy if you are a price-sensitive quant comfortable with raw data engineering.
- Unusual Whales - Best flow alerts and "follow the smart money" product. Buy if you want opinion-laden alerts rather than building from raw data.
- FlashAlpha - Best pre-computed dealer-positioning analytics (GEX, DEX, VEX, CHEX, max pain, regime, VRP) with a matched live + historical API. Buy if you want to ship a GEX dashboard or premium-selling scanner this week instead of next quarter.
The stacks that actually work
Most serious teams combine two providers. The three I see most often:
Backtest + live execution. If you need pre-2018 EOD depth or ORATS's proprietary indicators, use ORATS for deep-history validation and FlashAlpha for live signals plus intraday research since 2018. If your strategy is dealer-positioning-driven, FlashAlpha alone works - the historical API replays every live endpoint at any minute since April 2018 in the same shape, so backtest and production run the same code path.
Raw data + custom analytics. Polygon for the raw chain, in-house Python for everything else. Full methodology control, slowest to first value, cheapest at scale.
Flow alerts + positioning context. Unusual Whales for the alerts, FlashAlpha for the positioning. When the alert fires "TSLA unusual call activity," check whether TSLA is in positive or negative gamma, where the call wall is, and what the VRP looks like. The alert tells you something is happening; the positioning tells you whether to fade or follow it.
Decide in under five minutes
Work down this list and stop at the first match:
- EOD backtesting engine needing pre-2018 data → ORATS
- Backtesting a dealer-positioning or intraday strategy since 2018 → FlashAlpha (Alpha tier, historical API)
- Every options contract on every US underlying with full tick history → Polygon.io
- Retail trader already on Tradier → Tradier API (free for you)
- Ship a GEX dashboard or VRP scanner this week → FlashAlpha (free tier, no card)
- Flow alerts and "what are the smart traders doing today" → Unusual Whales
- Fundamentals + options in one bill, $1K+/mo budget → Intrinio
- Cheap quant who will write your own pipeline against raw tick data → ThetaData
If two or more match, read the dedicated pairwise comparison - the headline difference is rarely the actual decision driver.
What changed in 2026
- Free tiers are table stakes. The "no credit card" free tier used to be a differentiator. Now Polygon, Tradier sandbox, and newer entrants all offer one. The bar for "show me before you charge me" is permanently higher.
- Pre-computed analytics is a category. Until 2024, most providers shipped raw data and expected you to build analytics (ORATS aside). Buyers now ask "what do you compute for me?" not just "what data do you ship?"
- Point-in-time analytics replay is new. A historical API mirroring every live analytics endpoint at minute resolution since April 2018, in the same response shape, is a shape that did not exist before. Raw historical data is still a commodity; the minute-level computed-analytics replay is the new part.
- MCP servers are an unlock. Model Context Protocol lets LLM assistants (Claude, Cursor, Windsurf) query providers directly. If your dev workflow involves an LLM - and most do in 2026 - MCP support is a real differentiator.
- 0DTE is its own product. Same-day expiry now drives enough volume that providers ship dedicated 0DTE endpoints returning pin risk, expected move, and gamma acceleration in real time.
The TL;DR
For the most common case - a developer who wants to build something useful with options data this week without getting locked into a $299/mo bill before validating the idea - start with a free tier (5 calls/day, no card, no time limit) covering GEX, IV, BSM greeks, key levels, and stock quotes for 6,000+ symbols. Prototype a whole premium-selling screener before deciding whether to scale up.
Then pair it with the right second provider. ORATS for backtesting depth. Polygon for raw data scale. Unusual Whales for flow context. The single-vendor stack rarely wins; the two-vendor stack does.
Originally published at flashalpha.com. FlashAlpha provides pre-computed options analytics - GEX, DEX, VEX, CHEX, SVI surfaces, max pain, VRP, and dealer positioning - as a live and historical API for 6,000+ US equities and ETFs.
