# What to use instead of Unusual Whales

Unusual Whales sells a flow dashboard and a separate API on two price ladders. What covers its flow, chain analytics, congress trades and raw data elsewhere.

*https://stockmarketstack.com/alternatives/unusual-whales*

## The subject

| Field | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Product | Unusual Whales |
| Status | live |
| Website | https://unusualwhales.com |
| Category | Options Data & Flow Analytics |

A US options-flow vendor with a retail dashboard on top — every option print with sweep and block markers, dark pool prints, Greek exposure and congressional, Form 4 and 13F feeds, from 50 dollars a month.

## Replacements

*Ordered by how much of the original’s job each one covers, closest first. Paid placement does not affect this order.*

1. [Quant Data](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/quant-data.md) — The same shape at near the same prices — a 74.99 flow dashboard and a separate 149.99 API with MCP — with the tape consolidated and per exchange leg.
2. [OptionStrat](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/optionstrat.md) — A flow feed with sweep, split and block labels and congressional and Form 4 feeds beside it, plus a P&L builder; live flow is 99.99, and no API.
3. [Quiver Quantitative](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/quiver-quantitative.md) — The disclosure half alone, over REST — congressional trades from 30 a month, Form 4 and 13F from 75 — non-commercial on both published tiers.
4. [Volland](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/volland.md) — Dealer exposure by strike rebuilt from classified OPRA trades rather than open interest, from 150 for the per-strike charts; an inference, and labelled one.
5. [Market Chameleon](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/market-chameleon.md) — Chain analytics rather than flow — earnings-move history, IV rankings, unusual volume and strategy screeners — at 99 a month, 15 minutes delayed, no API.
6. [ORATS](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/orats.md) — Cleaned NBBO chains, smoothed IV surfaces and greeks over REST back to 2007, from 199 a month, for history the 2022 start of the tape cannot reach.
7. [Cboe DataShop](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/cboe-datashop.md) — Raw OPRA history from the exchange's own storefront back to January 2012, priced per file — every print for a full-market day is 132 dollars.
8. [Capitol Trades](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/capitol-trades.md) — Congressional disclosures free with no account — three rolling years, 15 filters, a filed-after-N-days counter on every row — and no API or export.

## The product

We list Unusual Whales ourselves, and [its card](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/unusual-whales) is the full account of
it: both price ladders, the API, coverage and limits, verified in September 2026. Its retail and
API prices were re-read on the vendor's own pages on 9 October 2026 and had not moved; what had
changed was the free account, which the pricing page now shows with options flow two trading
days behind rather than 15 minutes, and the card has been corrected. This page does not replace
the card. It answers the narrower question an Unusual Whales user asks once the bill or one of its
limits comes up: what else does this job, and what does the switch cost.

Unusual Whales is an options-tape vendor with a retail front end on top. The data is the product:
every US option print carrying sweep, block and multi-leg markers, dark pool prints, per-strike
gamma and Greek exposure, and disclosure feeds — congressional trades, Form 4 insider
transactions, 13F institutional holdings — from one REST API with WebSocket channels alongside, and
a web dashboard with phone apps. It is sold as two products that do not include each other. The
dashboard is Retail Basic at 50 dollars a month, Retail Pro at 75 and Retail Max at 120. The API is
150 a month for Basic, with a two-year lookback, and 375 for Advanced, which adds CME futures and
the premium endpoints. Business plans, the only ones with commercial licensing, start at 625 a
month billed annually.

Options flow here is a record of prints, and this page treats it that way. What a print means
for a trade is not something this catalogue says, of this vendor or of any pick below.

The reasons a holder looks elsewhere:

- **Two bills for one habit.** Someone who wants the screen and a key pays for both: Retail Pro
  plus API Basic is 225 a month.
- **History starts in 2022.** The options tape begins on 1 January 2022, and a plan's lookback
  window, not the archive, decides how much of it a key can reach.
- **The data is for personal use.** The API page read on 9 October 2026 says redistribution is not
  allowed; anything shipped to other people needs a business plan.
- **The framing.** The dashboard is sold on alerts, unusual-activity flags and an AI analyst,
  and the vendor's own published agent skill emits per-ticker verdicts. Some readers want the
  prints without that layer.

## What to use instead

For the nearest competitor head to head, [Unusual Whales vs Quant Data](https://stockmarketstack.com/compare/unusual-whales-vs-quant-data)
goes further than this page; the prices match almost to the cent, so the contents decide.

**If what you use is the flow dashboard.** [Quant Data](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/quant-data) is the same shape: a
74.99 dashboard with phone apps, a separate 149.99 API with an MCP server, dealer Greek exposure
and dark pool prints. Its tape comes both consolidated and one row per exchange leg, and its
sentiment label is a published rule on side of the quote. [OptionStrat](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/optionstrat)
reassembles prints into labelled orders on its 99.99 Live Flow plan and puts congressional and
Form 4 feeds in the same screen, beside a strategy builder; it has no API, and anyone OPRA
classes as a professional cannot buy its live data.

**If what you use is the exposure chart.** [Volland](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/volland) rebuilds dealer exposure strike
by strike from classified OPRA trades rather than from open interest, with per-strike charts from
its 150-dollar Swing plan. The dealer side is an inference from trades the feed does not label,
and its card says so.

**If what you use is chain analytics.** [Market Chameleon](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/market-chameleon) is earnings-move
history, IV rankings, unusual volume and strategy screeners in a browser, at 99 a month on
15-minute delayed data, with no API.

**If what you use is the congressional feed.** [Quiver Quantitative](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/quiver-quantitative)
sells it over REST from 30 a month, with Form 4 and 13F from 75. [Capitol Trades](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/capitol-trades)
shows three rolling years of it free, without an account, and lets none of it out. The how-to
[getting congressional trades as data](https://stockmarketstack.com/how-to/get-congressional-trades-as-data) covers what
breaks when you build the same feed from the House and Senate filings yourself.

**If what you want is the raw data.** [ORATS](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/orats) sells cleaned chains with smoothed
implied volatility and greeks back to 2007 from 199 a month; [Cboe DataShop](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/cboe-datashop)
sells OPRA history from January 2012 one file at a time; [Massive](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/massive) sells the tape
as raw data with no flow layer and no disclosure feeds. None of them labels a print a sweep or a
whale; any such label is yours to compute. The [options data collection](https://stockmarketstack.com/collections/options-data)
lists the rest.

## What you give up

**Flow, exposure and filings under one key.** One Unusual Whales API key returns option prints,
dark pool prints, Greek exposure, congressional trades, Form 4 and 13F. Splitting the job means
Quant Data for the flow and Quiver for the filings, two keys and two bills, and Quiver's
published tiers forbid commercial use.

**Bulk days of the tape inside the lookback.** Unusual Whales serves a whole day of the tape as one
CSV through the API, within the plan's window. Quant Data keeps about a year and is pulled by
polling at 240 requests a minute; OptionStrat and Market Chameleon have no API; a full day from
Cboe DataShop is 132 dollars a file.

**Streaming at the 375 tier.** WebSocket streaming of option trades is on API Advanced. Quant Data
documents no streaming endpoint at any price.

**The labels you were used to.** Sweep, block and unusual flags are each vendor's own grouping of
the same prints. Moving to another vendor, the same minute of tape can come out as one sweep or as
four trades, and a quick look at the two side by side is the only way to see how far apart they
are.

## Migration notes

**Pull the history you need before the key lapses.** Lookback is a property of the plan, not the
archive: a date outside it returns 403. Bulk-download the days you will want while the plan that
reaches them is active.

**Do not expect labels to reconcile.** Diff counts of prints, not counts of sweeps. Prints come
from OPRA and should agree between vendors for the same contract and minute; groupings into orders,
and any bullish or bearish tag, will not. The [order flow](https://stockmarketstack.com/glossary/order-flow) and
[OPRA](https://stockmarketstack.com/glossary/opra) entries explain why.

**Check your OPRA status before buying anywhere.** Quant Data's API returns an error until you sign
the OPRA subscriber agreement, its published API plan is non-professional only, and OptionStrat
refuses live data to professionals outright. A [professional subscriber](https://stockmarketstack.com/glossary/professional-subscriber)
should ask each vendor before paying.

**Redistribution changes the price, everywhere.** Unusual Whales, Quiver, Volland, OptionStrat and
Cboe DataShop all restrict passing their data on; what is fine in a notebook is not fine in an app.

## FAQ

### Is there a free alternative to Unusual Whales?

Partly. Unusual Whales' own free account shows options flow two trading days behind, news 15 minutes and alerts 30 minutes, on the pricing page read on 9 October 2026. OptionStrat's free plan shows about a tenth of its flow on 15-minute delayed data, Market Chameleon's free account has basic option volume views, and Capitol Trades gives all of its congressional data away. No pick has a live flow feed for free.

### Is there an Unusual Whales API alternative?

Quant Data sells the nearest thing at 149.99 a month — REST and MCP, about a year of history, 240 requests a minute shared across endpoints, no trial. For the disclosure feeds alone, Quiver Quantitative starts at 30. For raw options data without anyone's flow labels, ORATS starts at 199 and Cboe DataShop sells files per day; Massive sells the tape as raw data too.

### What does Unusual Whales cost?

Two separate ladders. The dashboard is 50, 75 or 120 dollars a month, or 42, 63 and 102 billed annually, on the pricing page read on 9 October 2026; the API is 150 or 375 a month on its own page the same day. A dashboard plan carries no API key and an API plan carries no dashboard. Business plans with commercial licensing start at 625 a month billed annually, on the card's September reading.

### Is congressional trade data on these sites real-time?

No, on any of them. A member files within 30 days of being notified of a trade and no later than 45 days after it, so the data is the filing rather than the trade, and late filings are later still. Unusual Whales, OptionStrat, Quiver and Capitol Trades all inherit that lag; none of them can remove it.