Trade Ideas review: real-time scanner, plans and pricing

What Trade Ideas is for and who it suits

Trade Ideas is a market scanning platform that monitors US exchanges in real time and pushes matching stocks into alert windows, top lists and visual displays such as stock races. Its feature pages are written mainly for active and intraday traders. The full product runs as a Windows desktop application, and a slimmer browser version serves Mac and mobile users.

By default the scanner covers NYSE, AMEX and NASDAQ; its exchange selector also includes OTC, Pink Sheets, BATS and The Small Exchange.

Trade Ideas describes itself as a subscription information provider and publisher: it does not take deposits, hold funds or manage accounts, and orders go through the brokers you connect.

How scanning works in Trade Ideas

You configure an alert window or a top list by choosing from more than 500 alerts and filters, and the window updates as events trigger rather than on a refresh. Both paid plans include customizable scans and screeners. A Formula Editor lets you combine data points with arithmetic to create your own filters, such as the share of the float traded in the last 10 minutes; its feature page points to the Premium plan.

• Top lists rank stocks by criteria you set and update continuously, and stock races show the same kind of data as a visual race.
• Layouts can be saved to or shared through the cloud, and a channel bar loads ready-made layouts.
• Market Explorer offers pre-built scans that need no setup and is part of the desktop application.
• Premium adds compare count windows, which show which of two strategies is triggering more often, and customizable multi-strategy windows.
• The browser version keeps all 500-plus alerts and filters but omits Market Explorer, Brokerage Plus and external linking and loads five charts at a time.

Charts, signals and backtesting in Trade Ideas

Both plans show up to 10 charts on screen with customizable layouts, and a scan can be turned into a price alert that sounds when a level trades. Real-time simulated trading is part of the Standard plan, and the Brokerage Plus module can send orders to participating brokers.

Premium adds the analytical layer. Holly, the platform's virtual trading assistant, suggests entries and exits in real time, and the OddsMaker backtests strategies triggered by market events, such as breakouts or volume spikes, across the market or a watchlist and reports measures such as profit factor and maximum drawdown. Premium also lists smart risk levels and automated trading.

Trade Ideas pricing and subscription cost

Trade Ideas sells two plans, Standard and Premium, each billed monthly or annually. Subscriptions renew automatically, cancellation takes effect at the end of the billing period, and the billing policy says all sales are final, with no refunds on paid invoices. Trade Ideas pays exchange fees for non-professional users, while professional traders pay their own.

A discount code applies only to the first invoice; renewals are charged at the standard price shown at checkout. Billing errors, such as a duplicate charge, are corrected if reported within 60 days of the invoice.

Trade Ideas free account and trials

Trade Ideas offers a free account with what it calls essential market scanning tools and data visualization. Its billing policy describes trials as Test Drive events, which give full access to the product for a limited period in return for a fee. Test Drive fees are final, and a Test Drive does not turn into a subscription or bill you when it ends; you can sign up to hear about future events.

Trade Ideas pros and cons

These points come from Trade Ideas' pricing, feature, billing and user guide pages.

Strengths:

• Real-time scanning with more than 500 alerts and filters on both plans.
• Event-based backtesting and automated signals on Premium, inside the same scanner.
• Paper trading and broker connections let you practice and act in one place.
• Exchange fees for non-professional users are included.

Trade-offs:

• The full feature set needs Windows; Mac users run the browser version or a virtual machine.
• Backtesting and Holly's signals require Premium, the more expensive plan.
• Paid invoices are not refunded, and Test Drive fees are final.
• The browser version loads five charts at a time and omits Brokerage Plus.
• The feature set is built around intraday trading.

Trade Ideas for beginners, swing trading and long-term investing

Trade Ideas describes its software as day trading software, which shapes how it fits each style.

• Beginners: the free account, a learning center, a detailed user guide, pre-built Market Explorer scans and real-time simulated trading give new users ways to practice. The many windows and settings take time to learn.
• Swing trading: the scanner and the OddsMaker focus on events during the session, and the backtesting page describes intraday use by day traders. Swing traders should confirm that the holding periods and filters they need are covered before paying.
• Long-term investing: the feature pages center on momentum and intraday events rather than financial statements, so long-term investors may prefer a fundamentals-first tool.

Trade Ideas alternatives and how they differ

Traders who want strategy testing in a browser rather than a Windows application may compare TrendSpider. StocksToTrade is another installed real-time platform, built around scanners, news and filings for Windows and macOS. Investors who screen after the close may look at Finviz, StockCharts or Stock Rover. Our guide to choosing a stock screener covers the questions to settle first.

TradeClever, which publishes this guide, works on daily data from published sessions and does not place trades. Its Backtest Scan is an event study rather than a trading simulator: it selects a rule’s matches on a past session, keeps them to an end date and reports their equal-weight price return, without position sizing, costs or exits. Its stock analysis works without an account, and its screener and heatmap offer a preview without one; running your own scans and saving scans, watchlists and notes need an account.

Is Trade Ideas worth it? Decide before you pay

Because paid invoices are not refunded, do most of your evaluation before subscribing.

1. Open a free account and build one alert window from the filters you use today.
2. Watch it through a full session and count the alerts you could realistically act on.
3. Decide whether you need Premium features, such as the OddsMaker or Holly's signals, or whether Standard covers your scans.
4. Check that your computer runs Windows, or test the browser version and its five-chart limit.
5. Watch for a Test Drive event if you want full access for a limited time, keeping in mind that its fee is final.
6. Choose annual billing only after the scanner has proven useful, since prepaid periods are not refunded.