MultiCharts

What it is

MultiCharts is a Windows desktop platform for charting, backtesting and routing orders to a broker — the job TradeStation's software does, sold apart from any brokerage. It ships no market data: you connect a feed and a broker, and symbol mapping lets you chart from one source and trade through another.

Strategies are written in PowerLanguage, MultiCharts' EasyLanguage dialect, and compiled to C++ rather than interpreted. EasyLanguage compatibility is why most people arrive — it is the exit route from a platform that comes attached to a broker.

Two editions share one price list. MultiCharts runs PowerLanguage; MultiCharts x .NET runs C# and VB.NET instead. Same tiers, same prices, same releases — both at 16 Release 8, 15 July 2026. Converting a licence to the other edition afterwards costs $200, each time.

Pricing

Standard is $99 a month, $79 a month billed annually, or $1,499 once. Advanced is $149, $119 and $1,999 on the same terms, and is not a bigger version of the same thing: it adds Portfolio Trader, walk-forward and matrix optimisation, the volume-profile drawing tool and a scheduled data downloader. The vendor's own market-data package is $49 a month on top of any paid plan, or $19 on an annual one.

A lifetime licence is not a version licence: the purchase page states that all future software upgrades are free, and no maintenance, update window or annual extension fee is published anywhere on the site.

The free plan is a simulator with sample history and no live data. The 30-day trial is the real evaluation, and it is also the refund policy — there are none.

Data & coverage

Whatever your feed sells. The supported list leans futures — most brokers connect through the Rithmic, CQG or Trading Technologies gateways, with Interactive Brokers, TradeStation and Saxo Bank native and the large crypto exchanges direct. QuoteManager stores every tick locally, so the history is yours to keep, edit and export once collected.

Integrations

Two documented SDKs: a Data API for feeds nobody has written a plugin for, an Order API for brokers in the same position. Neither is included in the licence — support says the API is purchased separately, and no price for it is published. ASCII files map as live symbols rather than importing once. Alerts go to Slack and Telegram; the scanner exports to Excel.

Limitations

• Windows only. The vendor's answer for Mac is Parallels or VMware.
• No options anywhere — no chains, no greeks, no options analytics.
• No market data at any tier, and Bloomberg needs the unpriced PRO package.
• Python is still beta, a separate installer last dated 27 March 2025, .NET edition only.
• One licence runs on one computer at a time, and no order is refundable.

Alternatives

NinjaTrader sells a comparable lifetime licence and brings its own broker; Sierra Chart is cheaper and uglier; Quantower and MotiveWave cover the same broker-agnostic ground. See the charting and screener category.