Trade Ideas

What it is

Trade Ideas is a real-time scanner for US equities, built around alerts that fire the moment a condition triggers rather than a screen you re-run. You compose scans from a library of more than 500 data points, watch the results stream into alert windows, and chart or trade a symbol from the same layout. On top of that sits Holly, the AI engine the vendor markets hardest: it reselects its strategy set every night against simulated backtests of past data, then issues named buy and sell alerts during the session with suggested entry, stop, target and exit levels. A separate Holly AI Assistant, included on both plans, turns a plain-English request into an Alert or Top List window and comments on the chart you have open.

That second half is why this card sets ai_features: recommendations. The signals name tickers and price levels, the vendor's own help centre files them under "AI trade recommendations" and calls Holly a robo-advisor engine, and its disclosure page answers that by describing the company as a publisher whose content is impersonal and not tailored to anyone. Treat the scanner as the thing you are buying and the signals as a claim neither we nor you have audited.

Pricing

Two tiers, read on 24 October 2026, which the pricing page titles Standard (Core) and Premium (Apex). TI Standard is $127/month or $1,068/year and is the scanner — real-time data, ten charts on screen, scans, screeners, 500+ alert and filter conditions, price alerts, in-app trading, real-time paper trading and TI Wave, the chart overlay that draws its own buy and sell marks. TI Premium is $254/month or $2,136/year and adds Holly's signals, listed there as "1st Gen AI Signals", the OddsMaker backtester, smart risk levels, the RBI/GBI window and auto trading. Annual billing is the only discount, and it cuts the monthly rate by about 30%. The billing policy says Trade Ideas pays exchange fees for non-professional users; a subscriber classed as professional pays the additional exchange fees on top. Every sale is final, and cancelling stops the next renewal rather than refunding the current period.

There is no free tier of the scanner, and the pricing page offers no trial. A free account, opened with an email and no card, reaches the browser Web Dashboard on 15-minute delayed data, with live access for a limited time; the scanner itself stays in the Windows application. The billing policy still provides for paid "Test Drive" events — the full product for a limited period, a non-refundable fee, no conversion into a subscription — and a sign-up page offers notice of the next one.

Data & coverage

US equities and ETFs, real-time, intraday. There is no non-US listing coverage, no futures, no forex and no crypto. Options orders can be routed to a broker from the platform, but there is no options analytics behind them: no chain and no greeks. The options material is an Unusual Options Activity channel, in the application and the Web Dashboard, and an Options Volume Today filter.

Integrations

Broker connections for execution: Interactive Brokers, TradeStation, E*TRADE and Alpaca by API, plus partner arrangements with Centerpoint and Cobra. Orders go out and positions are managed through the Brokerage Plus module; nothing is imported for portfolio accounting, and there is no documented public data API.

Limitations

• The complete product is a Windows desktop application. Mac users are told to use Parallels or a cloud Windows box. The browser build is real but is not the full platform.
• Most of what the site sells is behind the $254 tier. At $127 you have the full scanner but no backtesting, which means no way to check whether a scan you built has ever worked.
• Money Machine, the automated-execution layer, is Premium only. It places orders from your own Top Lists and Streaming Alerts through a connected broker, with a Simulated Mode for watching it first; live automation runs only in the Windows application.
• No API, no webhooks, no scripting language. Alerts live inside the application.
• Holly, on Premium, is a signal service inside the scanner: named buy and sell alerts with entry, stop and target levels. On 9 October 2026 the home page ran a "Market-Beating Signals" panel of Holly's most recent profitable trades, one of them at +297%, and its meta description led with entry and exit signals. The record is the vendor's own, and nothing about it can be checked from outside a subscription.

Alternatives

Finviz Elite is a fraction of the price for screening if you do not need streaming alerts. TC2000 and TrendSpider cover real-time scanning with a lighter platform and run in a browser. Benzinga Pro is the alternative if news-driven alerts, not technical conditions, are what you are scanning for.

See the rest of the charting platforms and screeners.