# Bookmap vs Jigsaw vs ATAS: heatmap, ladder or footprint, data extra

Bookmap draws resting liquidity, Jigsaw the ladder and tape, ATAS the footprint. None sells data with the licence, and each gates live use behind a tier.

*https://stockmarketstack.com/compare/bookmap-vs-jigsaw-vs-atas*

- https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/bookmap.md
- https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/jigsaw-trading.md
- https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/atas.md

A futures trader who types "bookmap vs jigsaw" has already decided to read the order book rather
than the indicator panel, and is down to the products that do nothing else. All three are desktop
applications for a handful of contracts, usually CME. None has a screener, a scanner or a strategy
backtester, and each one's replay is a recording you step through, not a test. ATAS belongs here
as the third choice because it does the same job on the same feeds, and draws the book a third
way. [Exocharts](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/exocharts) is the crypto-first version of the same idea, and only places
orders on Bybit.

The difference comes down to four things: what each draws, which tier is allowed to trade, who
bills the CME feed, and what "bought once" really means on each.

## What each one draws

[Bookmap](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/bookmap) draws resting liquidity: the limit order book as a heatmap with time
on the horizontal axis, so orders that sat, were pulled or got swept leave a trail. Traded volume
sits on top as bubbles, with a conventional DOM, time and sales, and volume and delta columns
around it.

[Jigsaw daytradr](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/jigsaw-trading) draws the ladder. Its centre is the Depth & Sales
ladder, a DOM with the tape beside it, plus Auction Vista, a reconstructed tape, footprint and
reversal-footprint charts and a market profile.

[ATAS](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/atas) draws executed volume inside the bar: footprint and cluster charts that open
each candle into the volume traded at every price, split by buyer and seller, with delta, a Smart
DOM and a Smart Tape.

So Jigsaw and ATAS overlap on the DOM, the tape and the footprint, and differ in which one they
put first. Bookmap is the one whose main view is the resting book over time. Neither the Jigsaw
nor the ATAS card lists a heatmap. If that view is what you are buying, the field is one product
wide.

## Watching and trading are sold separately

Each one sells a tier that shows you the market and a tier that lets you trade it, and the line
falls in a different place on each.

**Bookmap splits at the plan.** Real-time stock and futures data starts at Global, $49 a month.
Placing a stock or futures order from the chart or the DOM starts at Global Plus, $99. Global
buys the heatmap on live CME data and no way to act on it except the simulator. The two tiers
below it trade crypto and the simulator only.

**Jigsaw splits at a subscription.** The $579 Independent licence trades sim and demo accounts.
Live, exchange-routed trading needs Active Trader at $50 a month or $500 a year, for as long as
you trade live. Since V7 there is one exemption: Rithmic and Tradovate prop-firm evaluation and
funded accounts run without it.

**ATAS splits at the data.** Start (free) and Plus (€24.95) cannot connect a real-time futures or
stock feed whatever data you hold elsewhere. Pro, at €69.95, is the first tier that can. The ATAS
card does not say whether order entry is gated by plan, only the data connection.

For the trader on a prop-firm account, these splits decide most of the bill. Jigsaw waives its
live fee on Rithmic and Tradovate prop accounts. About half of ATAS's roughly 52 connectors are
prop firms reached through Rithmic or dxFeed, but the account still needs Pro to see live
futures. The Bookmap card names no prop-firm arrangement, so trading from the heatmap is Global
Plus at $99 either way.

## Who bills the CME feed

None of the three includes CME depth in its licence. Each card says who sends the second invoice.

**Bookmap resells it.** BookmapData, sold only against Global or Global Plus, is $34 a month per
CME exchange or $79 for CME, CBOT, NYMEX and COMEX, at non-professional rates. Professionals pay
$159 per exchange and $599 for the bundle. This is the market-by-order route. dxFeed, the
alternative, is $37 per futures exchange or $97 for the four, and carries depth by price. Bookmap
also connects to Rithmic and CQG Continuum, but CQG means crude oil only. Routed through Plus500,
Level 2 is included for eligible non-professionals and the data line disappears.

**ATAS sends you to dxFeed or your broker.** dxFeed runs an order page for ATAS where the
subscription is locked to this one application: $39 a month for CME depth, $99 for the four-exchange
bundle, non-professional. That is $39 that does not follow you if you move to Bookmap. The other
route is a futures broker's Rithmic or CQG Continuum connection, where the broker bills the
platform fee and passes the exchange fee through. Rithmic is also the only route to ATAS's
market-by-order bundle.

**Jigsaw sends you to your broker.** It sells no data. You bring Rithmic, CQG, Tradovate, StoneX,
NinjaTrader or [IQFeed](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/iqfeed), and that vendor bills the feed and the CME fees. Only one
of those routes has a card here. Our IQFeed card prices CME for a non-professional at $272.59 a
month (core service, futures surcharge and CME), or about $138 at Level 1 under CME's
non-professional Globex package, which needs a funded account at a broker on DTN's qualified list.
That is before IQFeed's market-depth line, which DTN's own pages quote as either $20 or $24.15. A
DOM product needs depth. For what a CME fee is and why it is billed this way, see
[why real-time data costs what it does](https://stockmarketstack.com/guides/real-time-market-data-fees).

## One CME exchange, live, priced three ways

These are monthly figures for a non-professional who trades live on one CME exchange, from the
cards' normalised prices.

- **Bookmap:** Global Plus $99 plus BookmapData $34, so **$133**. On the yearly licence rate of
  $79 it is $113. To watch without trading, Global plus BookmapData is $83, or $73.
- **ATAS:** Pro €69.95 plus dxFeed $39, so **€69.95 and $39** on two invoices in two
  currencies. On the yearly rate of €39.95 it is €39.95 and $39.
- **Jigsaw:** Active Trader **$50** plus the broker's feed, after $579 once. The feed is the
  number nobody quotes, and on the one route a card prices, IQFeed, it is larger than the
  licence.

Jigsaw publishes its own three-year comparison, dated July 2026: daytradr $579, Sierra Chart
$2,736, Bookmap Global+ $3,924. Its stated basis is 18 months on sim, then 18 live, and the $579
leaves out the $900 of Active Trader those 18 live months need on Jigsaw's own terms. On that basis
the Jigsaw figure is $1,479, before data.

## What "bought once" actually buys

Jigsaw is the one sold as a licence bought once. It is also the only one of the three with no way
to stop paying a licence fee while you trade your own account live. Over three years live on yearly billing, Jigsaw's licence lines
come to $579 plus three years of Active Trader at $500, so $2,079, and the fee continues after
that.

Bookmap and ATAS are sold as subscriptions, and both sell outright licences that end the licence
bill:

- **Bookmap:** Global $990, Global Plus $1,990. Against Global Plus at $99 a month the lifetime
  licence pays for itself in about 20 months, and against the $79 yearly rate in about 25.
- **ATAS:** Plus €999, Pro €1,799, Ultra €1,999. Pro's lifetime licence covers about 26 months
  at €69.95, or 45 at the €39.95 yearly rate. Ultra's covers about 22 months monthly, or 40
  yearly.

Two catches. No lifetime licence on any of the three includes data, so the $34 or $39 a month
carries on as long as you use the platform. And ATAS's licence agreement states that updates are
at the vendor's discretion and that features may not be maintained. The Bookmap card says nothing
about updates on its lifetime licences.

The one case where Jigsaw's once really is once is a Rithmic or Tradovate prop-firm account:
$579 and no Active Trader.

## Where they plug in

**Bookmap is not a broker.** It routes through TradeStation and Interactive Brokers for stocks,
and Tradovate, Plus500 and Rithmic for futures. It runs on Windows, macOS and Linux. Add-ons are
Java against its Layer 1 API, with an official Python bridge that can also place orders.

**Jigsaw can sit in front of a platform you already run.** Besides Rithmic, CQG, Tradovate,
StoneX and IQFeed, it attaches directly to Interactive Brokers TWS, [NinjaTrader](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/ninjatrader) 8
and MT5. It runs on Windows only, and has no API, scripting language or Python. Its Strategy
Manager manages exit brackets on a fill and does not run a strategy.

**ATAS has the longest connector list:** Rithmic, CQG Continuum, dxFeed, IQFeed, Interactive
Brokers, Trading Technologies, T4, NinjaTrader, MetaTrader 5 and others, plus the prop firms and
its own simulator. It runs on Windows only, with ATAS X in beta for macOS. Extension is C#, and
indicators can fire outgoing webhooks.

No card lists [Sierra Chart](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/sierra-chart) as a connection for any of the three. It
appears on these cards as an alternative, not as a host.

## The learning curve, as far as the cards document it

Only Jigsaw's card documents training. A foundations course comes free with the licence, an
applied course with Active Trader, and an institutional course at $1,547, which sells on its own or
inside the $1,879 Institutional bundle with a year of Active Trader. The 14-day money-back
guarantee covers the $579 of software, not the courses.

The Bookmap and ATAS cards say nothing about onboarding, documentation depth or courses. The ATAS
card calls the footprint the older and more widely taught way of reading the tape, which is a
statement about the method, not about ATAS's own material. What each card does document is a way
to try before paying. Bookmap's free Digital plan shows delayed futures, one symbol at a time.
ATAS's free Start plan does the same with two instruments, and its 14-day trial of the paid plans
takes a card and converts automatically. Jigsaw has no trial, only the refund. All three include a
simulator. Replay differs: ATAS includes Market Replay from Plus up, Bookmap's card describes its
replay as a recording, and Jigsaw's Market Replay works on Tradovate connections only.

## Where the cards were checked

All three cards were last verified in the same week. Pricing on each was checked on 14 September
2026, as were Jigsaw's and ATAS's capabilities and coverage. Bookmap's capabilities and coverage
were checked on 13 September, and the IQFeed card quoted for Jigsaw's feed on 14 September. The
three cards were verified a day apart, so no figure here was checked months before another. Two things on the Jigsaw card were moving when it was checked: V7 had just shipped,
and Market Intelligence Alpha, which carries the options analytics, was dated late September 2026
and not yet out. The ATAS prices are in euros and the others in dollars, so any total that adds
them across vendors is an exchange-rate estimate.

## The recommendation

**Jigsaw** if you read the ladder and tape on Windows and trade a Rithmic or Tradovate prop-firm
account. That is the one setup where $579 is the whole licence, and it can sit in front of the
NinjaTrader 8 you may already run. The moment you trade your own funded account, Active Trader
adds $500 a year: three years live on yearly billing come to $2,079 in licence fees, against
€1,438.20 for ATAS Pro, and the feed is still yours to buy.

**ATAS** if the footprint is how you read the tape and you trade live on your own account. Pro
plus dxFeed comes in under Bookmap's trading setup unless the euro is worth more than $1.34, and
the connector list is the longest of the three. Market-by-order data means Ultra and a
Rithmic account. Remember that the dxFeed subscription is licensed to ATAS alone.

**Bookmap** the moment what you want to see is resting liquidity over time rather than executed
volume, because neither of the other cards offers that view. The same goes if you need macOS or
Linux, or market-by-order CME depth bought from the platform vendor rather than through a broker.
Budget Global Plus, not Global, if you mean to trade from it.

The rest of the category is on the [trading platforms page](https://stockmarketstack.com/categories/trading-platforms).

## FAQ

### Which one is cheapest for live CME order flow on one exchange?

On monthly billing at non-professional rates, ATAS Pro with dxFeed CME depth is €69.95 plus $39. Bookmap Global with one BookmapData exchange is $83 to watch, and $133 on Global Plus to place orders. Jigsaw is $50 a month for Active Trader after the $579 licence, plus whatever your broker or feed charges for CME, which no Jigsaw figure includes. On a Rithmic or Tradovate prop-firm account Jigsaw needs no Active Trader at all, and $579 once is then the lowest licence cost of the three.

### Which one shows market-by-order data on CME futures?

Bookmap, from the $49 Global plan on BookmapData. Its dxFeed route carries depth by price instead. ATAS sells a market-by-order bundle on its top Ultra plan only, and it works over Rithmic; dxFeed support for it is listed as still in development. The Jigsaw card says nothing about market-by-order data either way.

### Do any of them include the exchange fees?

No. Jigsaw and ATAS sell no data at any price, including the lifetime and one-time licences. Bookmap resells data as BookmapData, but bills it as its own line on top of the plan. The one exception on any of the three cards is Bookmap routed through Plus500, where Level 2 is included for eligible non-professionals.

### Which one runs on a Mac?

Bookmap, natively, along with Windows and Linux. Jigsaw is Windows only, and the vendor states that Apple Silicon Macs are not supported at all; an Intel Mac needs an emulator such as Parallels. ATAS is Windows 10 or later, with Parallels or VMware as the vendor's advice; its rebuilt ATAS X runs natively on macOS Tahoe or later but is in beta and not a full replica of the classic platform.