# ORTEX

Short interest estimated daily from the lending pool, with cost to borrow beside it.

*https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/ortex · Insider, 13F & Congressional Trade Trackers*

## Facts

### At a glance

| Field | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Vendor | ORTEX |
| Category | Insider, 13F & Congressional Trade Trackers |
| Job | short_interest |
| Website | https://public.ortex.com |
| Pricing model | subscription |
| Free tier | true |
| Open source | false |
| Licence | none |
| Self-hosted | false |
| Tested hands-on | false |
| Last updated | 2026-09-21 |

### Pricing

| Tier | USD | Period |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Free | 0 USD | month |
| Basic | 49 USD | month |
| Advanced | 149 USD | month |
| API Trader | 49 USD | month |
| API Quant | 149 USD | month |
| API Developer | 499 USD | month |
| API Enterprise | on request | month |

### Coverage

| Field | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Asset classes | stocks, etf, options, indices, forex |
| Markets | us, ca, uk, eu, asia, au |
| Works outside the US | true |
| Data latency | realtime |
| Platforms | web |
| AI features | none |

### Interfaces

| Field | Value |
| --- | --- |
| API | true |
| Webhooks | false |
| Scripting | none |
| Python | true |
| Spreadsheet add-in | true |
| MCP server | true |
| Export | json, api |

### Capabilities

Yes: charting, screening, backtesting, alerts, news, options_analysis

No: scanning, automation, live_trading, paper_trading, portfolio_tracking, broker_import, tax_reporting

*Verified: pricing 2026-09-21; capabilities 2026-09-21; coverage 2026-09-21.*

## What it is

A short-side data platform. The number it is bought for is an estimate of short interest computed
daily and intraday from securities-lending inventory — what brokers and agent lenders report
having lent out — rather than from the exchanges' own twice-monthly filing. Around it sit cost to
borrow on both the whole book and new loans, short availability, days to cover, a short score,
and the official reported figures where regulators publish them.

The reason the estimate exists is the reason this category has a job called short interest at all.
The official US figure is published twice a month with a week's delay, which is close to useless
for a position that moves daily. An estimate from the lending pool is available every morning and
is wrong in different ways — it sees loans rather than short positions, and it sees only the
lenders who report.

ORTEX also carries a full equity platform around the short data: live pricing for US, European and
UK equities, an options chain with greeks and flow, a news feed, screeners over every dataset it
holds, and a backtester that runs a screen's rules against history and then alerts on live data.

## Pricing

Two separate purchases, and the relationship between them is the one thing the vendor's own pages
do not agree on.

The platform is $49 a month for Basic and $149 for Advanced, dropping to $39 and $99 a month if
billed annually. The pricing table prints monthly-equivalent figures in each currency and never an
annual total. Where the line falls matters more than the price: the *official*, delayed short
interest is a Basic feature, and the live and intraday estimate — the thing people subscribe for —
is Advanced.

The API is sold as its own four tiers, at $49, $149 and $499 a month plus a contact-priced
Enterprise, rationed by monthly credits (1,000, 10,000, 100,000) and by rate limit (1, 5 and 50
requests a second). Trader excludes intraday short interest, bulk and universe endpoints entirely.
A trial key is published — the literal string `TEST`, which returns randomly selected rows.

## Data & coverage

**Estimated short interest**, daily by 07:30 ET and live from 07:00 ET through 05:00 ET the next
day, from what ORTEX describes as the largest combined pool of agent lenders, prime brokers and
broker-dealers submitting inventory. **Official reported short interest** for the US, Canada,
Australia and Hong Kong, with settlement date, published date, average daily volume and days to
cover. **Cost to borrow**, split between all loans and new loans, which is the split that tells you
whether a squeeze is old or forming. **Short availability.** And **regulator-disclosed named short
positions** under the European 0.5% threshold regime and its Japanese equivalent, added as the
regulator publishes them.

Fails-to-deliver appear on the web platform but no fails-to-deliver endpoint is listed in the API
docs, so treat that dataset as screen-only until the vendor says otherwise.

## Integrations

The widest surface in this category: a REST API, a Python SDK, a native Excel add-in and a
first-party MCP server. Each API response reports its own credit usage, page sizes run from 100 to
10,000 rows by tier, and credits reset on the renewal date rather than the calendar month.

## Limitations

- **The headline number is an estimate, not a filing.** It infers short interest from lending
  inventory, which is a good proxy and not the same quantity. Any claim it makes is unfalsifiable
  until the official figure lands a fortnight later.
- **The free tier is undocumented.** No feature list anywhere, so the only way to learn what it
  allows is to create an account.
- **Platform and API pricing may or may not overlap** — the vendor's homepage and its checkout
  disagree, and nothing published resolves it.
- **No redistribution on any published tier.** Enterprise only.
- **Official short interest covers four countries** — the US, Canada, Australia and Hong Kong. The
  European and Japanese data is threshold disclosures of named positions, which is a different
  thing and not a market-wide figure.
- **No fails-to-deliver through the API,** despite the dataset appearing on the platform.

## Alternatives

[ChartExchange](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/chartexchange) is the cheap opposite: the official FINRA figure, fails to
deliver and Interactive Brokers' borrow fee, sold à la carte from $19.95 a month with a real API
and no estimate at all. [iBorrowDesk](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/iborrowdesk) gives one broker's borrow fee and
availability free. [S3 Partners](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/s3-partners) is the institutional competitor on the same
estimate, sold only by contract. [Fintel](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/fintel) folds short interest into an ownership
product at consumer prices. For the free official source under all of them, FINRA publishes the
semi-monthly file itself. The rest of the category is at
[insider, 13F and congressional trade trackers](https://stockmarketstack.com/categories/insider-13f-trackers).

## FAQ

### Is ORTEX's short interest the official number?

No, and the distinction is the whole product. The flagship figure is an estimate built from securities-lending inventory submitted by agent lenders, prime brokers and broker-dealers, updated daily and intraday. ORTEX also carries the official reported figure separately, for the US, Canada, Australia and Hong Kong, which it describes as twice monthly with an eight-day delay.

### Does a platform subscription include API access?

The vendor's own pages disagree, and this card cannot settle it. The homepage says API access is included with the Advanced plan; the API checkout sells four separate API tiers starting at $49 a month. Ask before buying if the API is the reason you are subscribing.

### What does the free account actually include?

Not published. ORTEX says the free plan is a limited set of features for trying the service and gives no feature-by-feature list anywhere on its site. What is stated is where the paid line falls — delayed official short interest is a Basic feature and the live estimate is Advanced.

### Can I redistribute ORTEX data in my own product?

Not on any self-serve tier. Redistribution rights are marked unavailable on Trader, Quant and Developer alike, and are an Enterprise-only term. This is the usual shape for lending-derived data and it rules out a consumer app on the published prices.

### Does ORTEX have an MCP server?

Yes, first-party, documented on its own docs site, alongside a REST API, a Python SDK and a native Excel add-in. That is the widest integration surface of anything in this category.

## Also worth comparing

- [ChartExchange](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/chartexchange.md) — The official short interest, IBKR's borrow fee and SEC fails, sold feature by feature.
- [Fintel](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/fintel.md) — Ownership, insider and short-interest filings across thirty markets, none of it free.
- [iBorrowDesk](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/iborrowdesk.md) — Interactive Brokers' borrow fees and availability, free, refreshed through the day.
- [S3 Short Interest Data](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/s3-partners.md) — Revised short interest and three-sided borrow rates, delivered by contract only.
- [HedgeFollow](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/hedgefollow.md) — 13F, Form 4 and congressional filings from 10,000 funds, with the depth behind a paywall.
- [Quiver Quantitative](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/quiver-quantitative.md) — US political and SEC disclosure data — congress, insiders, lobbying — over one REST API.