ATAS vs Overcharts: one automates, the other backtests

A futures trader comparing these two has already chosen the footprint as the way to read the tape. Both open each bar into the volume traded at every price, split by bid and ask, with delta, a DOM with trading from the ladder, and a tape. Both are Windows desktop software, neither sells market data at any tier, and both are priced in euros one way or another. For the heatmap against the footprint and the ladder, and how ATAS prices its data feed against Bookmap and Jigsaw, see Bookmap vs Jigsaw vs ATAS. This page is the narrower choice between two footprint platforms.

Most of the decision comes down to one asymmetry the two cards do not show side by side. ATAS will run an automated strategy but has no way to test one. Overcharts will test a trading system with commission and slippage but will not let it place an order. Below that sit the price gate, the feed, and what each one draws besides the footprint.

Testing a rule, and running one

ATAS automates what it cannot test. Indicators, calculation modules and automated strategies are written in C# against the platform's raw data, and finished ones can be sold on the ATAS marketplace. Indicators can also fire outgoing webhooks. The card records no strategy backtester. Market Replay, from Plus up, is a recording you step through, not a simulation of a rule. A C# strategy on ATAS goes from the editor to the simulator or a live account with no history test in between.

Overcharts tests what it cannot automate. Trading systems are written in OverBasic, a Basic-style language with a step-by-step debugger. The Strategy Tester models commission, slippage and intrabar fills, reports by period, exports to text or CSV, and can hold back data for an out-of-sample run. But the help centre's page on creating a trading system, read on 24 October 2026, says Overcharts trading systems "ONLY provide signals" and that automated trading "is currently NOT supported", with support promised for the future. A tested system draws its buy and sell marks on the chart, and you place the order. C#, VB.NET and full walk-forward analysis are also listed as coming.

So for a trader who wants a rule to trade by itself, ATAS is the only one of the two that can do it today. For a trader who wants evidence that a rule ever worked before acting on its signals by hand, Overcharts is. Neither one does both.

Overcharts has one automation of a different kind: a Trade Copier that mirrors a leader account's orders onto follower accounts. ATAS has one too, its Following Manager, from the Plus plan up. For a trader running several prop-firm evaluations from one set of decisions, that can matter more than either strategy engine.

Where each one charges for live data

ATAS gates by plan. Start (free) and Plus (€24.95) cannot connect a real-time futures or stock feed at all, whatever data you hold elsewhere. Pro, €69.95 a month, is the first plan that can, with 20 instruments and three active connections. Ultra, €89.95, lifts those limits and adds the market-by-order bundle and two beta options modules. On annual billing they fall to €39.95 and €49.95, so €479.40 and €599.40 a year. ATAS's pricing page, read on 24 October 2026, shows the same figures as the card and states that they exclude VAT.

Overcharts gates by feed count and billing period, not by feature. All Inclusive is every feature and every feed at $39.95 a month, $36.95 quarterly, $33.95 semi-annually or $29.95 a month for a year, $359.40. 2 Data-Feeds is the same software limited to two feeds of your choice, from $29.95 a month quarterly down to $24.95 annually, $299.40 a year. It is not sold month to month. The prices exclude VAT, are listed in dollars, and are charged in euros at the day's rate.

Month to month, then, live futures cost €69.95 on ATAS and $39.95 on Overcharts. On annual billing it is €479.40 against $359.40, or $299.40 if two feeds are enough. Any total that adds the two currencies depends on the exchange rate on the day you pay.

ATAS also sells each plan outright: €999, €1,799 and €1,999. At par, Pro's €1,799 is about five years of Overcharts All Inclusive on annual billing. ATAS's licence agreement makes updates on a lifetime licence the vendor's choice, and no lifetime licence on either side includes data.

The feed, and what it lets each one draw

Neither sells data. In both cases the realistic sources are a futures broker's Rithmic or CQG connection, where the broker bills the platform and exchange fees, or dxFeed. The difference is how each one handles the rest.

ATAS names funded-account prop firms among its connections, reached through Rithmic or dxFeed. Its futures connections include CQG, IQFeed, Interactive Brokers, Trading Technologies, CTS, NinjaTrader and MetaTrader 5, and it adds eight crypto venues. dxFeed runs an ATAS-only order page: $39 a month for CME depth, $99 for the four-exchange bundle, non-professional, licensed to ATAS alone. Market-by-order data is Ultra plus Rithmic. The bundle's own description says dxFeed support is still in development.

Overcharts sorts its sources by the history they give the volume ladder. CQG and StoneX, Rithmic, Gain Capital, dxFeed and Directa give tick-by-tick history at every resolution. Interactive Brokers, TradeStation, Binance and Oanda bottom out at one minute, which limits what a footprint can show on them. dxFeed is bought from dxFeed directly, at a price the card does not state. Futures desks behind Rithmic or CQG and prop firms such as Earn2Trade, Apex Trader Funding, OneUp Trader and The Trading Pit connect the same way. The card says nothing about market-by-order data either way.

So an Interactive Brokers account is a weaker footprint feed on Overcharts by the vendor's own table. The ATAS card does not grade its IBKR connection, so that is a blank, not a pass. On a Rithmic or CQG account both get the same ticks and the broker sends the same data bill. For the exchange side of that bill, see what futures market data costs.

What each draws besides the footprint

Overcharts adds a Market Depth Map, which its home page calls a heatmap of the limit order book, along with Volume Bubbles, volume and TPO profiles, and an Options Desk on every paid plan. The desk shows up to three option chains per underlying with greeks and implied volatility, a volatility smile, strategy grids that send all legs at once, and a GEX profile. The vendor presents the GEX levels as support and resistance, which is its own reading of a model, not a property of the data.

ATAS adds cluster statistics, a Smart DOM, a Smart Tape and a Trading Journal module, and a liquidity heatmap in beta on every plan. Its options work is new: an options board and chain indicators from Pro, over Rithmic or Interactive Brokers, and an SPX 0DTE suite on Ultra. ATAS reaches crypto spot and derivatives on Binance, Bybit, Bitget and OKX and lists HKEX futures. Overcharts takes Binance as a data-only source.

Trying, paying and leaving

ATAS's free Start plan never expires. It gives real-time crypto, futures 15 minutes late, and two instruments. Its 14-day trial of the paid plans needs a card or PayPal and rolls into the plan unless cancelled. The pricing page read on 24 October 2026 also offers a full refund within 14 days of the first payment and adds 14 days to a plan bought without the trial. Neither of those is on the card.

Overcharts opens everything for 30 days, once per person, and then keeps working with no time limit on end-of-day and DDE sources only: Yahoo Finance, Metastock files and DDE links. Its refunds are narrow. The terms refund no monthly payment and no first payment. Quarterly, semi-annual and annual plans can be withdrawn from within 14 days, less €25 and a month's value, once. If auto-renewal is switched on, there is no refund at all. Its pricing page says plans do not renew automatically, while its terms describe an auto-renewal mode.

Where they run

Both are Windows-only on the classic build. ATAS X, which installs natively on macOS, is in beta and included on every plan. Overcharts needs 64-bit Windows 10 or 11 and suggests a virtual machine such as VMware Fusion.

What these figures rest on

The Overcharts card was verified on 23 October 2026. The ATAS card's pricing, capabilities and coverage were re-verified on 24 October 2026; its prices had not changed. The automation status of Overcharts trading systems comes from its help centre, read on 24 October; the card records only that automation is absent. The yearly totals are this page's arithmetic on the vendors' figures.

The recommendation

Overcharts if you read the footprint and trade it by hand from a Rithmic or CQG account. It is the cheaper licence, at $39.95 a month or $29.95 billed annually with every feature, against ATAS's €69.95 or €39.95 for the first plan that sees live futures. It is also the one of the two where a rule can be tested before you trust its signals, and that one price includes a heatmap, an options desk and a trade copier; ATAS has all three only from Pro, with its heatmap in beta.

ATAS the moment a strategy has to place its own orders, because Overcharts does not support that today. The same goes if you need market-by-order data through Rithmic (Ultra), a Mac build even in beta, crypto venues, a licence bought outright, or a refund window on the first payment. Accept that a C# strategy on ATAS goes live untested, unless you test it somewhere else.

The rest of the category is on the trading platforms page.