NinjaTrader

What it is

NinjaTrader is a Windows desktop platform built around futures execution: chart trading, a SuperDOM, and the Order Flow+ volumetric, delta and volume-profile tools. Strategies are written in NinjaScript, a C# dialect compiled inside the platform, which also builds indicators, custom bar types and whole add-on windows; a Strategy Builder generates the same code for people who do not write C#. The Strategy Analyzer backtests them with optimisation, walk-forward, Monte Carlo and multi-instrument basket runs.

The Market Analyzer is a live quote grid that ranks and filters instruments against conditions you build, and it is a scanner, not an equities screener — there is no fundamental data behind it. Payward, Kraken's parent, bought the group in 2025 — the clearing arm now also does business as Kraken Derivatives US and Tradovate — and the platform still ships as before.

Pricing

The software is free to run. What varies is the commission: $0.39 per side on a Micro contract on the Free plan, $0.29 at $99 a month, $0.09 on the $1,499 lifetime licence. Lifetime pays back the monthly plan's platform fee in about fifteen months; against the Free plan there is no fee to recover at all, only the 30-cent-a-side Micro gap, which takes roughly 2,500 round turns to close.

None of those is the all-in number. Every fill also carries a $0.19 clearing fee plus exchange and NFA fees, and the sundries are per-contract too — Rithmic routing $0.25, CQG Desktop $0.25, the static SuperDOM $0.10 for its Trading Technologies licence, third-party technology integrations $0.05 to $0.25 and sometimes a $10 monthly usage fee on top.

Exchange data is separate and per their fee schedule: CME non-professional top-of-book is $4 a month per exchange or $12 for all four, full depth $16 per exchange or $48 for all four; professionals pay $156 per exchange. Eurex is $26 non-professional and $99 professional.

Data & coverage

NinjaTrader's own brokerage covers CME, CBOT, NYMEX, COMEX, ICE US, MGE, Eurex, Bitnomial and Coinbase Derivatives futures. Stocks, forex and CFDs exist only through a third-party broker connection, which means the $99-a-month add-on.

Integrations

Desktop connects to Interactive Brokers, CQG, FOREX.com / City Index and FXCM for execution, and to Accelpix, Cedro, eSignal, Global Datafeeds, IQFeed, Kinetick, Lenz + Partner, Portara and TrueData for data — all of it behind the $99-a-month Multi-Broker add-on. Kinetick end-of-day data for stocks, futures and forex comes with any real-time or historical plan.

A NinjaTrader Brokerage account can also be traded from TradingView's charts, which the pricing page lists among the third-party integrations every plan includes. The ATI accepts trade signals from outside applications, but its own documentation calls it "NOT a full blown brokerage/market data API"; the REST and WebSocket API the company does publish is NinjaTrader Connect, sold as brokerage infrastructure to partner platforms rather than to traders.

Limitations

• Windows only. The web and mobile clients trade and chart; they do not run NinjaScript.
• Real-time data, Market Replay, Order Flow+ and the Pulse indicator stay locked until a live account is funded. Any deposit above $0 counts — ACH and debit transfers have a $5 minimum — and they switch off again at the next renewal if the balance returns to zero. Charting, backtesting and the simulator need neither funding nor a clock; a new account also gets a 14-day trial of streaming live data.
• The News window is empty unless you subscribe to a news service through a vendor or broker.
• No portfolio tracking, no tax reporting, no options analytics.

Alternatives

Sierra Chart is cheaper and uglier and its scripting is C++. Quantower and ATAS cover the same order-flow ground with more brokers. MotiveWave sells a perpetual licence for people who want Elliott Wave tooling instead. TradeStation bundles the broker the same way, with equities.

Compare it against the rest of the charting platforms and screeners.