Which Broker Do I Need?

The short version. OptionBug trades inside a brokerage account you own — we never hold your money. To run it you need an account at one of two brokers: Tradier or Alpaca. Both have free practice (paper) accounts, and the beta runs on fake money only, so you can start without depositing anything. Interactive Brokers is not open to clients yet; it is on this page so you can compare.

What each broker can do in OptionBug

	Tradier	Alpaca	Interactive Brokers Not open yet
Connect it to OptionBug	Yes — paste an access token	Yes — paste an API key pair Sign in with Alpaca is coming.	Not yet No date set.
Practice (paper) trading	Yes — free sandbox	Yes — free paper account	Nothing here until the connection opens. What it will add is under Interactive Brokers below.
Real-money trading	Coming soon	Coming soon
Calls and Puts	Yes	Yes
2-Leg and 4-Leg trades Vertical spreads, strangles, straddles, iron condors	Yes	Yes, except short strangles and short straddles. Alpaca doesn't allow selling uncovered options.
Indicators on the option's own chart VWAP, Bollinger Bands, TD	Yes — from your own Tradier data	Yes — from your own Alpaca data
Option prices in real time	Yes on a real-money account. The practice sandbox is 15 minutes delayed.	15 minutes delayed on the free plan. Real time with Alpaca's paid market-data plan (Algo Trader Plus).

Why the delay matters: exits read live quotes, so they are not late. Entries that wait for an indicator read chart bars, and on a delayed feed those bars are 15 minutes old.

What each broker charges

	Tradier	Alpaca	Interactive Brokers
Option commission, per contract	$0.00 on the Pro plan $0.35 on the free Lite plan.	$0.00	$0.65 $1.00 minimum per order. Less for options priced under 10 cents.
Monthly plan fee	$10.00 for Pro $0.00 for Lite.	$0.00	$0.00 On IBKR Pro, the plan outside software needs.
Real-time option prices	Included with a real-money account	$99.00 a month Algo Trader Plus. The free plan is 15 minutes delayed.	$1.50 a month Waived in a month with $20.00 in commissions. Needs $500 in the account.
Example: buy 10 contracts, then sell them 20 contracts, commission only	$0.00 on Pro $7.00 on Lite.	$0.00	$13.00

Read off each broker's own pricing page in October 2026: Tradier, Alpaca, Interactive Brokers. Prices change, so check there before you open an account. Every broker also passes along exchange and regulatory fees of a few cents per contract. Tradier's $0.00 covers stock and ETF options; index options such as SPX are $0.35 per contract on both plans. On Tradier Pro the $10.00 pays for itself at 29 contracts a month.

Interactive Brokers

Not open to clients yet, and no date is set. Its connection works differently from the other two: a full sign-in session instead of a pasted key. Please don't open an Interactive Brokers account just for OptionBug yet.

What it will add when it opens:

Real-time prices while you practice. Interactive Brokers lets its practice account use the price subscription of your real account, so practice trading runs on real-time option prices for $1.50 a month. The free practice accounts at Tradier and Alpaca are 15 minutes delayed.
More room to watch many positions at once. Tradier and Alpaca cap how many price requests an app can make each minute. Interactive Brokers paces its connection by the second instead, which leaves far more room when strategies are watching many option contracts at the same time. OptionBug's own limits on how many positions a strategy opens are the same at every broker.

What it costs you: it is the most expensive of the three per contract, and it needs the IBKR Pro plan, because IBKR Lite does not let outside software connect.

Any other broker

Not supported yet. If your money is somewhere else, OptionBug can't trade it today — you would open a Tradier or Alpaca account alongside it. We'll update this page when another broker opens up.

How to get started

Tradier

The broker OptionBug is built around.

Practice now: create a free sandbox login at developer.tradier.com. It shows an Access Token and an Account Number (starts with VA).
In OptionBug, choose Tradier under Connect Your Broker Account and paste both.
For real money later: open a Tradier brokerage account. Your token is under Account Settings → API Access.

Alpaca

$0.00 option commissions; paper account free.

Sign up at app.alpaca.markets and switch the dashboard to Paper Trading.
On the Home page, generate a key in the API Keys panel. Copy the API Key ID and the Secret Key (shown only once).
In OptionBug, choose Alpaca under Connect Your Broker Account and paste both.

What OptionBug can and can't do in your account

It places and manages option orders under the rules you choose. It cannot withdraw or transfer money. Your login details are checked with the broker, then locked in an encrypted vault and never shown again. OptionBug is software, not investment advice; options trading involves substantial risk of loss.