What to use instead of thinkorswim

The product

thinkorswim is a trading platform in three pieces — a downloadable desktop application with installers for Windows, Mac and Linux, a browser version and a phone app. It came to Charles Schwab with TD Ameritrade, whose acquisition Schwab completed on 6 October 2020; Schwab put it in front of its own clients in 2023, and its annual report for 2024 records the last Ameritrade client transition group converting in May 2024.

What people use it for is described plainly on Schwab's own pages, read on 26 September 2026: 400-plus technical studies and chart types down to Monkey Bars and Renko; scans across fundamental, technical and option-related data; "what-if" simulations on real and hypothetical trades, volatility and probability analyses and options back-testing; thinkScript, the platform's own language, with a Condition Wizard for building conditions without code; and paperMoney, a simulated account that runs on live market data.

Nothing has happened to it. The page exists because of how it is sold. Schwab's FAQ says the suite costs clients nothing and that a Schwab account is required to log in. There is no deposit minimum to open one, but there is no route to the software that does not pass through a brokerage account either, and the price of it is the brokerage relationship — which is exactly why this catalogue does not carry a card for it. The one exception is the 30-day Guest Pass, introduced in January 2024: paperMoney only, not extendable, and nothing set up under it transfers to an account opened later.

So the readers of this page are specific. They are moving their brokerage somewhere without thinkorswim, or they want their analysis tool to stop depending on where their money is held, or they are outside the account and have used up the Guest Pass. What they want is the analysis half, sold on its own terms.

What to use instead

thinkorswim is a broker's platform, and nothing here is. Each pick below sells software at a published price, which means none of them places your orders the way thinkorswim did — that is the one piece this page cannot replace, and it is covered under what you give up. Split what you actually used into jobs.

The charts and the language. TradingView is the widest single replacement: charts across stocks, options, futures and more, Pine Script with a strategy tester, screeners, an options chain with a strategy builder and paper trading, with desktop apps on the same three operating systems thinkorswim supports. Plans run from a free Basic to 199.95 a month billed annually. TrendSpider is the browser alternative with custom indicators in JavaScript and a point-and-click backtester, from 82 dollars.

The scans. thinkorswim's scanner came with the account. TC2000 is the closest in shape — EasyScan runs across the market in real time and pushes matches to a chart — but it needs Premium at 49.99, because Basic has no scanner. TrendSpider scans in real time too, with the catch that the 82-dollar plan will not scan below two-hour bars. If the scans you ran were fundamental rather than technical, Stock Rover is built for that job.

The options analysis. This is the part that splits furthest. The chain-and-screen side is covered by Barchart.com Premier at 29.95 — IV rank and percentile, unusual activity, options flow and pre-built covered call, naked put and vertical spread screeners — and by Market Chameleon at 99, whose reason to exist is ten years of earnings dates with the implied move beside the realised one, plus screeners for most standard structures. Market Chameleon is 15 minutes delayed throughout, and Barchart.com everywhere except Cboe BZX prints. If what you used was the numbers themselves — greeks and implied volatility to compute against — that is a data purchase rather than a platform: ORATS sells a smoothed volatility surface over REST from 199 a month.

The testing. If what you used thinkScript for was testing rules, and the next question is how a rule behaves across a whole universe of symbols rather than on one chart, the move is a proper backtester rather than another charting platform. AmiBroker tests rules across a whole symbol universe with shared equity, for 299 dollars once; WealthLab does the same in C# or drag-and-drop blocks, from 49.95 a month. Neither analyses options. The wider field is in backtesting frameworks.

paperMoney. TradingView carries paper trading, TC2000's free mode is a simulator on delayed data, and MotiveWave's free Community edition simulates too. What changes is the link: paperMoney's simulated account sat beside the real one at the same broker, and a simulator on an analysis platform is attached to nothing you will trade.

If a brokerage account stays. Some platforms here connect to a broker you already use rather than bringing their own. Of the cards in this catalogue, WealthLab and MotiveWave both list Schwab among their connections — the path for someone who keeps the account but wants the analysis somewhere with its own price.

What you give up

The price. Zero. thinkorswim charges clients nothing for the platform, and every pick on this page charges for the software instead of for the trades. The realistic comparison for someone who used scans and options data is TC2000 Premium at 49.99 plus 9.99 for real-time options, or TrendSpider at 82 plus 9.50 for OPRA — before anything for options analytics. The free tiers that exist, TradingView's, TC2000's and Barchart.com's, are the smallest versions of their products.

The order ticket in the analysis window. thinkorswim analyses a trade and places it in the same application, against the same account. Here, Barchart.com and Market Chameleon place no orders at all; TC2000 trades only through TC2000 Brokerage, a separate broker-dealer under common ownership; TrendSpider routes through SignalStack; AmiBroker reaches Interactive Brokers only. Analysis and execution become two windows and two logins.

Options analysis on the positions you hold. Schwab describes thinkorswim's what-if simulations as running on real trades as well as hypothetical ones, inside the account they sit on. The options tools on this page work on a symbol or a hypothetical structure — Market Chameleon has no portfolio at all, and Barchart.com's linked portfolio is a read-only mirror refreshed overnight. None of the cards here documents modelling a change in volatility or time against your actual open positions.

One language for everything. thinkScript drove studies, custom scan criteria, conditions and strategy tests in one place. The picks divide that up: Pine on TradingView, JavaScript for TrendSpider's indicators, PCF for TC2000's scans, AFL for AmiBroker's tests. Choose where the scripts go before choosing where the charts go.

Migration notes

Export the thinkScript before the login goes. The thinkScript IDE lists export and share in the right-click menu of the script list, and imports scripts back as files. Nothing on this page will run them, but a study's exact formula and default inputs are what you will be checking the rewrite against, and they are gone when the account is.

A watchlist exported to Excel is live formulas, not values. thinkorswim's Export to Excel pastes RTD formulas that pull each field from a running copy of thinkorswim on Windows. When thinkorswim stops running they stop updating. Paste the sheet as values before the account closes; the symbols survive inside the formulas, the prices do not.

The Guest Pass is not an exit ramp. It is 30 days of paperMoney, it cannot be extended, and Schwab states that its settings and data are not reachable from a real account. Rebuilding a workspace inside it to keep using thinkorswim after leaving buys a month.

Implied volatility will not match to the decimal. Greeks and IV depend on the pricing model, the rate and dividend assumptions, and which price was fed in — mid, mark or last. ORATS, for one, fits a smoothed surface and takes its daily snapshot 14 minutes before the close. A different number on the new platform is usually a different convention rather than an error; compare on a liquid at-the-money contract before trusting either.

Check what "real-time" means on each pick for options. TC2000 bills real-time options separately, TrendSpider bills OPRA separately, and Barchart.com and Market Chameleon are delayed on most prices at every tier. Schwab's pricing guide mentions market-data fees only at some futures exchanges; on the other side of the move, the options feed is a line item of its own.