Order-flow platforms compared on price: three vendors, three pricing philosophies, one number

Sierra Chart, ATAS and Quantower all sell market-by-order analysis and all publish their full price matrix. Their discount structures have nothing in common, and their top tiers land within a few units of each other anyway.

Last verified 28 August 2026 · how we check

Three vendors sell order-flow analysis to the same buyer, and all three publish a complete price matrix, which in this industry is not the norm. We have read each one and worked the arithmetic out. The prices are comparable; the products we have not tested, and this page does not claim they are equivalent.

The top tier at each vendor

Market-by-order data is the ceiling feature at all three, and each puts it on its most expensive plan:

Read the monthly column and the committed column in opposite directions and the ranking flips. Sierra Chart has the cheapest list price and ATAS the dearest, at a difference of about 60%. Commit for a year and ATAS and Quantower converge to within a euro of each other, while Sierra Chart’s prepayment discount takes it lower again.

Roughly fifty a month is where full order-flow analysis prices itself, and three vendors reach that number by three routes that have nothing structurally in common.

The discount structures are genuinely different

This is the part worth understanding before choosing, because it decides what you are being rewarded for.

Quantower charges every customer the same percentage for the same commitment. Sierra Chart does the same thing on a wider range. ATAS does something else entirely: its annual discount is 20% on the PLUS tier and 44.5% on the MBO Bundle, so committing for a year shrinks the gap between its cheap and expensive plans and makes the expensive one easier to justify precisely because you committed.

None of those is dishonest, and ATAS publishes the numbers that let you see it. But a reader comparing headline “up to” figures across the three would draw a conclusion the matrices do not support.

The tier most people actually buy

Market-by-order is the ceiling, and most traders never reach it. One step down the picture changes shape again:

Quantower has no answer in that column, and the reason is its structure: one licence covers everything, so the way down is buying individual features instead. Volume Analysis alone runs $35 a month, DOM Surface $30. Two of those already cost $65 against $70 for the whole platform, which is the crossover we set out in full on its own page.

So at the middle of the range the comparison stops being like-for-like. Sierra Chart and ATAS both sell you less for less; Quantower sells you everything or pieces, and the pieces stop making sense at three.

Only two of them sell a licence outright

Two things stand out. Quantower’s licence repays fastest of any on the board, at just under three years. And at ATAS the pattern inverts: the cheapest lifetime licence takes the longest to repay, because the annual rate it competes against is the one that got the smallest discount.

Sierra Chart offers no lifetime option at all, which removes a decision rather than costing you one. There is no bet to get wrong; the deepest commitment available is twelve months.

Free tiers, and what they are for

ATAS and Quantower both run a genuinely free version with no time limit. ATAS START includes basic indicators, three per chart, market replay and BigTrades history. Quantower’s free version needs no registration at all and tells you when you reach a paid function.

Sierra Chart has neither a free tier nor a bundled brokerage, and it does not pretend otherwise. Every package costs money from the first month.

That difference is the most useful one on this page. On two of the three you can find out whether order-flow analysis suits how you trade before paying anything, which is the question worth answering before any price matters. Trials cover the gap elsewhere: ATAS offers 14 days, Quantower 7 days after registering an account.

What none of the prices include

Market data. All three say so. Quantower states it twice on its own pricing page. Depth of market and market-by-order feeds are billed by the exchange, not by the platform, and the rate depends on whether you are classified professional. For a futures trader watching more than one exchange this is frequently larger than the subscription.

Commission. Orders route through a broker, and that broker’s per-contract rate is separate again. On futures it is usually the biggest of the three numbers at any real volume: at NinjaTrader, a $99 monthly plan needs 165 standard round turns a month before it beats the free tier, which is about eight a day.

So the software line is one of three, and on this kind of platform it is often the smallest. Anyone choosing between $49 and $56 while ignoring the other two numbers is optimising the wrong one.

How to choose without guessing

Start on a free tier, if you have not done this before. Two of the three have one, and what you are testing is whether reading the order book suits you, not which vendor’s menu you prefer.

Compare at the committed rate, not the list price. The ranking changes between those two columns, and the committed rate is what a user who stays actually pays.

Treat a lifetime licence as a three-to-four-year bet, because against the annual rate that is exactly what it is. Quantower excludes lifetime licences from refunds entirely, so the largest purchase on its page is the one you cannot undo. ATAS publishes a 14-day refund window on a first purchase without stating how it applies to lifetime; ask before buying.

Price the data and the commission first. If those exceed the subscription, and for an active futures trader they will, the choice between these three is not the decision you thought you were making.

What we checked, and what we didn’t

Every price comes from the vendor’s own page, read between 10 and 28 August 2026, with the dates recorded on the individual pages for Sierra Chart, ATAS and Quantower. The discount percentages, the payback periods and the approximate prepaid Sierra Chart figure are our arithmetic on those published numbers.

We have not installed, tested or traded on any of these platforms, and nothing here is a judgement about which analyses order flow better. This page compares published prices and the structures behind them. Euro and dollar prices are shown as each vendor publishes them, and we have not converted between currencies or claimed the tiers are feature-equivalent.

Sources

• Sierra Chart: description of service packages and pricing
• ATAS: tariffs page
• Quantower: prices and licences