Professional subscriber

Also written non-professional subscriber, nonprofessional subscriber, securities professional

The exchange's category for a data recipient, defined in its market data policy rather than on its price list. Everyone is professional by default; the non-professional rate requires a natural person receiving data solely for personal, non-business use who is not registered or qualified with a regulator and is not an investment adviser. An account in a company's name does not qualify. The answer moves the per-user fee several times over.

How it works

The category is the exchange's, and it is not on the price list. The price list has two columns; the test that decides which column you are in lives in a separate policy document, and the two US definitions are close enough to read as one. Nasdaq's data policies define a non-professional subscriber as any natural person who is not registered or qualified in any capacity with the SEC, the CFTC, a state securities agency, a securities exchange or association, or a commodities or futures contract market or association; not engaged as an investment adviser as that term is defined in section 202(a)(11) of the Investment Advisers Act of 1940, whether or not actually registered under it; and not employed by a bank or other organisation exempt from registration to perform functions that would require registration elsewhere. Everyone else is professional. Nasdaq states the default directly: all subscribers are deemed professional unless they are qualified as non-professional.

NYSE's non-professional subscriber policy carries the same three limbs and adds the part people misread. The person must receive the data solely for personal, non-business use, and somebody working outside the United States is treated as a securities professional if they perform the functions that would make them one inside it. Distributors are required to verify status, and if NYSE finds a professional was qualified as non-professional the vendor is liable for retroactive fees at the professional rate.

The edges the policy actually answers

The NYSE policy document is mostly a question-and-answer sheet, and the answers are more specific than the summaries vendors write:

  • A company of one does not qualify. The worked example is an individual who owns a business called Joe's Gas Station and receives data for personal use through an account in the business's name: reportable as professional, because the account is not in a natural person's name. Opening one in his own name changes the answer.
  • Nor does an entity. A trust cannot be non-professional, because only natural persons can be; a trust may have up to four trustees and each may qualify, but only if all of them are unpaid natural persons. Investment clubs work the same way, per member, and compensation disqualifies.
  • Retired and inactive professionals can qualify if listed as not registered with FINRA — and must re-verify their status semi-annually to keep the rate.
  • Day traders can qualify while managing their own money, provided they do not advise anyone else or share profits, are not given office space or equipment in exchange for consulting work, and have no profit-sharing arrangement with a firm.
  • Volume alone does not disqualify you. Falling inside SEC Rule 13h-1(a)'s definition of a large trader does not by itself cost you non-professional status.
  • A screen at work is professional. Nasdaq notes that all internal use by an organisation is professional, and requires distributors to determine status separately for each individual with access to an account rather than once per account.

Why it matters here

This is the cheapest question on a data bill to answer and the most expensive to answer wrongly. On the NYSE pricing guide dated 14 May 2026, NYSE Integrated is 16.00 dollars a month for a non-professional device against 78.00 for a professional one. On Cboe's price list of 30 July 2026 the same answer moves Cboe One Summary from 0.25 dollars a month to 10.00 — forty times. The technology behind the feed is identical; only the declared category differs.

Three practical consequences for anything in this catalogue. A vendor's free or retail tier is priced against the non-professional column, so if you are professional the advertised number is not your number and a quote is the only way to find out what is. A single ambiguous fact — an advisory registration, an employer, an account in a company's name — flips every venue at once, because the definition is shared. And the category is orthogonal to the other two expensive words: non-display use leaves per-user counting behind entirely, and redistribution is billed per feed before any subscriber is classified.

What real-time market data costs walks the whole stack with the figures, and every card under market data APIs sits on one side of this line or the other. If the answer is shaky, price the professional column and treat anything cheaper as a bonus.

Where you will meet this

The cards where this changes a decision, then the rest that use the word.

Sources

  1. NYSE Nonprofessional Subscriber Policy — New York Stock Exchange, read
  2. Nasdaq US Equities and Options Data Policies, version 2.6 — Nasdaq,
  3. NYSE Proprietary Market Data Pricing Guide — New York Stock Exchange,
  4. Cboe Data Services US Market Data Product Price List — Cboe Global Markets,

FAQ

I trade my own money full time through a company I own. Am I non-professional?

If the market data account is in the company's name, no. NYSE's policy is explicit that an individual receiving data for personal use through an organisation's account is reported as a professional subscriber, because the account is not registered to a natural person. The same person can often qualify by opening an account in their own name instead, provided the rest of the test holds.

Who decides, and what happens if the answer is wrong?

The vendor decides, against the exchange's definition, and the vendor carries the cost of getting it wrong. NYSE requires distributors to verify the status of anyone applying for the non-professional rate and bills the vendor retroactively at the professional rate if a professional was qualified as non-professional. That is why a signup form asks the question at all, and why the answer is auditable rather than cosmetic.

Updated