Options data cost calculator
What real-time or delayed US options data costs a month — OPRA's own fee for your status and devices, beside the plan each options vendor here sells.
OPRA, the processor for every US listed option, charges 1.25 dollars a month for a non-professional and 31.50 dollars per display device for a professional, and no per-user fee for delayed data. That fee is the small line. The vendor's plan is the large one: from 40 dollars a month at ThetaData to 2,499 at Cboe's cheapest priced API tier, and several vendors sell a professional only a business plan.
OPRA bills a professional per device and a non-professional per person, so this multiplies the professional rate only.
OPRA’s own fee
$1.25 a month, one non-professional subscriber
The floor under every plan below, before any vendor’s price.
Through each vendor, per month
| ThetaData · Options Value $40.00OPRA $1.25: the card does not say whether the plan covers it — not addedReal-time at one-minute granularity, personal use only. The individual plans itemise no OPRA fee. | $40.00 |
| IVolatility API · Builder $79.00OPRA $1.25: the card does not say whether the plan covers it — not addedReal-time is a snapshot refreshed every 40 to 60 seconds, not a stream; 20,000 requests a month. The retail pages name no OPRA fee. | $79.00 |
| Unusual Whales · API Basic $150.00OPRA $1.25: the card does not say whether the plan covers it — not addedTwo-year lookback, REST only; the web dashboard is a separate subscription. | $150.00 |
| Massive · Options Advanced $199.00OPRA $1.25: the card does not say whether the plan covers it — not addedWhere real-time trades and quotes start, per asset class; sold only to subscribers who qualify as non-professional. | $199.00 |
| Databento · Standard, OPRA dataset $199.00+ OPRA $1.25, billed on topPriced per dataset. Venue licence fees are passed through without an upcharge. | $200.25 |
| Cboe DataShop · All Access API, Tier 3 $2,499.00+ OPRA 1 × $31.50, your own subscription at the professional rateThe cheapest tier with a published price; Tiers 1 and 2 have none. Real-time OPRA needs your own subscription at professional rates, billed by OPRA, not Cboe. | $2,530.50 |
- Not in the total — Databento: the card adds a 2.9% card processing fee to passed-through venue fees; not computed here.
OPRA rates from the Options Price Reporting Authority Fee Schedule (2026-02-26). Vendor plans from each card’s pricing block: ThetaData (2026-09-26), Massive (2026-10-03), Databento (2026-09-14), Cboe DataShop (2026-09-13), IVolatility API (2026-09-26), Unusual Whales (2026-09-13). Month-to-month prices in US dollars, sorted by the total.
What it computes
Two things, side by side. The first is OPRA's own fee for your situation: for real-time data, a non-professional pays the per-subscriber rate once, however many screens they use, and a professional pays the per-device rate times the number of display devices; for delayed data, OPRA charges no per-user fee at all. That figure is the floor under every price on the page.
The second is the cheapest plan each options vendor in this catalogue sells for your status and latency, from its card. OPRA's fee is added to a vendor's plan only where the card says how it reaches you: on top of the plan (Databento, and Massive's business plans), or as a subscription of your own at the professional rate (Cboe DataShop). Where the card does not say whether the plan price covers it — ThetaData, IVolatility, Unusual Whales and Massive's individual tiers — OPRA's figure is printed beside the plan and left out of the total. The rows are sorted by that total.
The default is the most common question: one non-professional, real-time. OPRA's part is a dollar and a quarter; the plans run from ThetaData's Options Value to Cboe's All Access API, which also carries OPRA at the professional rate.
"Professional" means OPRA's test here — a natural person, personal use, not registered with a regulator, not using the data for a business; see professional subscriber. Several vendors draw their own line in the same place: their individual plans are licensed for personal use only, so a professional is priced on the business plan.
Where the numbers come from
OPRA's rates are read from its fee schedule, the document dated 26 February 2026, read again on 7 October 2026: the professional device rate in force since 1 January 2018, and the first band of the non-professional rate. The statement that delayed data carries no usage-based or device-based fee is from OPRA's own overview page, read the same day; the schedule's footnotes define delayed as 15 minutes after first transmission.
Every vendor figure is the month-to-month price in the pricing block of that vendor's card, as of the date the block was verified, which the calculator prints under the result. The cards record whether OPRA is itemised, whether a plan is real-time or delayed, and who it is licensed to; this page reads those statements and adds nothing to them. The Markdown twin of this page prints the full table, offer by offer. The guide on why options data costs more than stock data explains the schedule line by line.
What it leaves out
- OPRA's non-professional volume bands. The rate falls in steps as a vendor's subscriber count grows; those are the vendor's bands, and the first one is used.
- OPRA's firm-level fees. Non-display use (an algorithm reading the feed), redistribution (a quote shown to anyone else, delayed included), the indirect access fee a professional firm owes for taking a data feed from a vendor, and direct access. The real-time market data cost calculator carries OPRA's non-display and redistribution rates; see also non-display use and redistribution.
- The underlying's price. Greeks and implied volatility need the stock or index price as well, and that is a second licence: ThetaData's options subscription excludes index prices, and Massive sells stocks and options as separate subscriptions.
- Annual billing. ThetaData, IVolatility and Unusual Whales print lower annual rates; the table uses month-to-month prices throughout.
- Charges the cards name without a price. Massive's real-time add-on for a business, Cboe's All Access Tiers 1 and 2, IVolatility's professional APIs, and Databento's card processing fee on passed-through venue fees. Where one applies to the case you pick, the result says so.
- Historical data. Cboe DataShop's per-day files and Databento's per-gigabyte history are priced by the order, not by the month.
- Plans with no delayed variant. Where a vendor sells no delayed product — ThetaData, Databento, Cboe DataShop, IVolatility — the delayed row says so instead of substituting a real-time plan, because buying the real-time plan changes the OPRA line too.
- Taxes, and any OPRA usage-based fee a vendor elects in place of the flat rates.
Tools this bears on
Cards in the catalogue where the number above changes the decision.
ThetaData
Every OPRA quote and trade, with greeks computed per tick, from $40 a month.
$30/moFree tier
Massive
Full-tick US equities, options and futures from a direct exchange feed.
$29/moFree tier
Databento
Full order book and tick history from exchange feeds, billed by the gigabyte.
$199/mo
Cboe DataShop
Per-file OPRA options history from the exchange, priced by dataset, date and symbol.
$50 once
IVolatility API
Options chains with raw IV, greeks and IVX surfaces over REST, US history to 2005.
$79/mo
Unusual Whales
US options tape, dark pool prints and congressional trades over one REST API.
$50/moFree tier
FAQ
What does OPRA charge one person for real-time options data?
For a non-professional, 1.25 dollars a month per subscriber on OPRA's fee schedule dated 26 February 2026 — the first volume band, which is the vendor's band, not yours. For a professional, 31.50 dollars a month per display device. Both are for real-time data; OPRA charges no per-user fee for delayed data. The vendor's own plan comes on top and is almost always the larger number.
Why does Cboe DataShop add the professional rate for a non-professional?
Because its card records that real-time OPRA data through the All Access API needs your own SIP subscription at professional rates, billed by the SIP and not by Cboe. So the calculator adds OPRA's per-device professional fee to that row whatever status you pick. The other vendors either pass the non-professional fee through or do not say.
Is delayed options data free?
OPRA's part is. Its overview page says it does not charge usage-based or device-based fees for delayed data, which it defines as data at least 15 minutes old. The vendor still charges for its plan — Massive's delayed Options Starter is 29 dollars a month — and a vendor that publishes delayed quotes to others still owes OPRA a redistribution fee, which this calculator does not model.
Why do some vendors show no plan for a professional?
Because their cards state none. IVolatility sells professional use only by quote, and the Unusual Whales card does not say which plan a professional subscriber needs. ThetaData and Massive license their individual plans for personal use only, so the professional row shows their business plan instead.
Sources
- Options Price Reporting Authority Fee Schedule — Options Price Reporting Authority,
- OPRA overview, vendor agreements and delayed data — Options Price Reporting Authority, read
- ThetaData card, pricing block — StockMarketStack,
- Massive card, pricing block — StockMarketStack,
- Databento card, pricing block — StockMarketStack,
- Cboe DataShop card, pricing block — StockMarketStack,
- IVolatility API card, pricing block — StockMarketStack,
- Unusual Whales card, pricing block — StockMarketStack,
The catalogue next door
This page multiplies a fee schedule; it lists nothing. The products the number bears on are in Options Data & Flow Analytics, each filled in against the same schema.
Last updated . The rates are re-read from the schedules on that date; corrected in place.