Unusual Whales vs Quant Data: same prices, so the contents decide
Both sell a $75 flow dashboard and a $150 API, priced within a cent. Unusual Whales holds more history and the filings; Quant Data writes down its labels.
US options tape, dark pool prints and congressional trades over one REST API.
US options flow, dealer exposure and dark pool prints over REST and a hosted MCP server.
A retail options trader who has got as far as these two has usually noticed the same thing: they sell the same kind of product, a flow dashboard and a separate data API, and the prices match. They match almost to the cent at both levels, which means the headline number settles nothing and the decision is entirely about what each subscription contains. On most axes that can be counted, Unusual Whales contains more. Quant Data keeps its case on one axis, and it is the axis the category page says to compare: how the vendor's labels are made.
The two cards were verified 13 days apart, Unusual Whales on 13 September 2026 and Quant Data on 26 September 2026. Every figure below is from one of them.
Two price ladders that line up
On the dashboard side, Unusual Whales sells three web plans: Retail Basic at $50 a month (no API key, no data downloads), Retail Pro at $75 (unlimited alerts, watchlists and dashboards) and Retail Max at $120 (adds one-minute SPX market maker exposure). Quant Data sells one plan to the public, Standard at $74.99, covering the web dashboard and the iOS and Android apps; a Professional plan for registered traders shows its price only after sign-in.
On the API side, Unusual Whales API Basic is $150 a month and Quant Data's API is $149.99. Someone who wants both the screen and the key pays $225 at Unusual Whales (Retail Pro plus API Basic) and $224.98 at Quant Data. Annual billing moves both by about the same amount: Quant Data quotes $749.99 and $1,499.99 a year, $62.50 and $124.99 a month effective, and Unusual Whales says annual takes roughly a sixth off.
The prices diverge only at the ends. Unusual Whales has a $50 plan below Quant Data's floor and a free web account on delayed data, with options flow two trading days behind, news 15 minutes and alerts 30 minutes on the pricing page read on 9 October 2026; Quant Data has no free tier and a seven-day trial on Standard only. Above $150, Unusual Whales sells API Advanced at $375 and business plans from $625 billed annually. Quant Data publishes nothing above its API plan; enterprise access goes through a contact form.
What each one calls flow
Both start from the same record, the US options tape, and both turn it into orders. The difference is in how much of the turning you can see.
Quant Data sells the tape twice: consolidated, with sweeps, splits, blocks and multi-leg orders rolled into one record, and unconsolidated, one row per exchange leg. With both in hand you can see which legs the vendor grouped into an order. Its sentiment label is a published rule on contract type and side: a call at the ask or a put at the bid is bullish, a put at the ask or a call at the bid is bearish, and a mid-market print is neutral. The is-unusual, is-golden-sweep and is-opening-position flags are listed without any definition.
Unusual Whales carries every option print with sweep, block and multi-leg markers, plus a flagging of unusual activity on the dashboard. Its card records the markers but not the rule behind them, nor an unconsolidated per-leg view. What it does record is depth: the full tape from 1 January 2022, with bulk downloads of a whole day as one CSV inside a plan's lookback window.
The category page is explicit that these labels are the vendor's, not the exchange's: the grouping window and size thresholds decide whether one minute of tape reads as one sweep or four trades, so the same print can carry different labels on these two sites. Quant Data's card says how one of its labels is made. Unusual Whales' card does not say how any of them are.
Real-time, and on whose licence
Both list real-time US data on their paid plans. The free Unusual Whales account is the only delayed product here: its flow is two trading days behind, its news 15 minutes and its alerts 30 minutes. That is a licensing line rather than a technical one, which is why the hub warns that real-time options data is two prices: the vendor's plan and the OPRA subscriber terms underneath it.
Quant Data puts those terms in front of you. Its options data is licensed through OPRA, and its API returns a 403 titled OPRA Agreement Required until you sign the OPRA subscriber agreement, even with an active subscription. Its published plans are non-professional only. The Unusual Whales card records neither the OPRA agreement nor a professional or non-professional split. A registered professional should ask before buying either.
On the API, real-time means different mechanics at the same price. Neither streams at $150: Unusual Whales API Basic is REST only, with WebSocket from API Advanced at $375, and Quant Data documents no streaming endpoint at any price, so its live tape is polling inside 240 requests a minute.
What the subscription buys besides flow
Both sell dealer Greek exposure, dark pool prints, alerts and news on top of the tape. Quant Data packages exposure as DEX, GEX, VEX and CHEX by strike and expiry, with IV rank, skew, term structure, open interest and max pain, and on the equity side lit and dark prints, dark-pool price levels and halt notices. Unusual Whales sells per-strike gamma and Greek exposure, with the one-minute SPX market maker figure on Retail Max.
Neither card records which assumption its exposure figures rest on: the open-interest shortcut that assumes customers bought every put and sold every call, or trade-by-trade classification. That is the question the hub says to ask of any GEX number. Volland is the product in this category that states its answer, and it is bought for dealer positioning, not flow.
The clear difference is the disclosure data. Unusual Whales adds congressional trades, Form 4 insider transactions and 13F holdings through the same API, with the statutory lag built in: a congressional trade can be six weeks old when the filing appears. The Quant Data card lists none of it. Unusual Whales also covers futures, FX, crypto and commodity series on API Advanced and up; Quant Data's vendor says it covers US options and equities and nothing else.
Both have a first-party MCP server. Quant Data's is included in the API subscription and every tool call counts against the same 240-a-minute limit. Exports differ: Unusual Whales lists CSV and JSON, Quant Data JSON only. Neither card mentions a Discord or other community as part of the plan.
What the labels cannot tell you
Both cards say the same thing about flow as a signal, from different directions. The Unusual Whales card notes that flow throws thousands of signals a day, most of them hedges rather than directional bets. The Quant Data card notes that its bullish and bearish labels, and the premium leaderboards built on them, record which side of the quote a print hit and cannot tell a hedge from a directional position. The hub adds that a mid-market print has no honest answer and a leg of a spread tagged on its own has a misleading one.
Both dashboards also sell a layer past the data. Unusual Whales' dashboard tiers include an AI "Trade Finder", and its own published agent skill emits Recommended, Consider and Avoid verdicts per ticker. Quant Data's Quant Alerts are pitched as "actionable", from proprietary logic with no published criteria, and its Exposure Forecast labels each session Pin, Grind or Volatile with a probability. In both cases the API serves the underlying data without that layer. A reader who wants a view of the tape, rather than somebody's verdict on it, is better served by the key than the screen.
The API at $150, in units
The two keys cost the same and meter different things.
History. Unusual Whales API Basic looks back two years over a tape that starts in 2022; a request outside the window returns 403 and names the earliest date you can reach. Quant Data promises 365-plus days and does not say where the archive begins. Neither is a source for a long options backtest.
Breadth. Unusual Whales documents 231 operations in 36 groups, including the disclosure feeds. Quant Data documents 30 endpoints: 23 options, 6 equities, 1 news.
Rate. Quant Data publishes its limit: 240 requests per 60-second sliding window, a 20-per-second burst, counted per user and shared with MCP traffic. The Unusual Whales card says requests are uncapped from API Advanced, which implies a cap on Basic, but does not record what it is. The only Unusual Whales number on the card is the trial's 30,000 requests a day.
Trial. Unusual Whales gives a week on a 90-day window. Quant Data gives none on the API.
Licence. Both are personal-use. Redistribution needs an Unusual Whales business plan, from $625 a month billed annually, and a quote from Quant Data.
The recommendation
If you want a key, Unusual Whales API Basic. At the same $150 it carries about twice the history, 231 documented operations against 30 endpoints, the disclosure feeds, CSV day files and a trial you can test before paying, and it is the only one of the two with a published path to streaming, at $375.
If what you want is to see how the labels are made, Quant Data. It sells the tape both consolidated and per exchange leg and publishes its sentiment rule, so you can check a grouping or a tag against the prints underneath it. That is the one axis it wins, and it is the thing the category page says to compare. Its Standard dashboard includes the mobile apps in the plan.
If you want to look before paying anything, Unusual Whales' free account, with the caveat that its flow is two trading days behind, and no plan on Quant Data is free.
If you want congressional or insider trades alongside the flow, Unusual Whales. The Quant Data card lists none.
Whichever you choose, the money buys a view of the tape through the vendor's model, not a signal. The rest of the category, including the archives that go back years, is on the options data and flow analytics page.
FAQ
Which is cheaper, Unusual Whales or Quant Data?
At the level most people compare, neither. Unusual Whales Retail Pro is $75 a month against Quant Data Standard at $74.99, the API plans are $150 against $149.99, and a dashboard plus an API comes to $225 against $224.98. Unusual Whales has the cheaper way in, Retail Basic at $50 without data downloads, and a free account whose options flow runs two trading days behind; Quant Data has no free tier. Prices are from cards verified on 13 and 26 September 2026, and the free-account delay from the Unusual Whales pricing page read on 9 October 2026.
Does either dashboard subscription include the API?
No. Both vendors sell the dashboard and the API as separate products, and a dashboard plan carries no API key on either. Unusual Whales offers a seven-day trial key, 30,000 requests a day against a 90-day lookback. Quant Data's own index of its offerings says the API plan has no trial, so its first request is on a paid month.
Will both sites label the same trade the same way?
Not necessarily. Sweep, block and split are groupings each vendor draws with its own rules. Quant Data publishes its sentiment rule, a call at the ask or a put at the bid is bullish, but lists its unusual, golden-sweep and opening-position flags without a definition. The Unusual Whales card records the sweep, block and multi-leg markers but not the rule behind them.
Which one has congressional and insider trades?
Unusual Whales, alongside Form 4 insider transactions and 13F holdings, from the same API. The Quant Data card lists no disclosure feeds. Members of Congress have up to 45 days to disclose under the STOCK Act, so the data is the filing, not the trade, and can be six weeks old when it first appears.