Choosing the Right Financial Data Product

Selecting a financial data provider is one of the most important decisions you'll make when building an investment platform, AI application, trading system, research workflow, or analytics product. The right choice depends on more than just price—it depends on your data requirements, licensing needs, update frequency, and how you plan to use the data.

This guide will help you identify which type of financial data is right for your application and explain how Intrinio's products are designed to support different use cases.

Start with Your Use Case

Before evaluating specific datasets, ask yourself a few questions:

• Are you building for personal research or a commercial application?
• Do you need historical data, end-of-day data, or real-time updates?
• Will you display data to end users?
• Do you need raw exchange data, or will derived market data meet your needs?
• Are you building an AI agent, dashboard, trading application, or quantitative model?

Most applications fall into one of these categories:

Historical vs. Real-Time Data

Many applications only require historical or end-of-day data. These datasets are ideal for:

• Backtesting strategies
• Financial analysis
• Portfolio reporting
• Machine learning training
• Academic research

Applications that display live markets or respond to market movements typically require real-time data.

Understanding Derived Real-Time Data

One of the biggest decisions you'll make is whether you need raw exchange market data or whether derived real-time data will accomplish your goals.

Intrinio offers two proprietary real-time products designed to eliminate exchange licensing complexity for many applications:

EquitiesEdge

EquitiesEdge provides proprietary Fair Market Value (FMV) prices that closely track exchange-reported market prices while avoiding exchange agreements and exchange fees. It includes:

• Last price
• Open
• Close
• Volume
• Pre-market volume
• Post-market volume
• REST API access
• WebSocket streaming

For actively traded securities, EquitiesEdge values typically track within a fraction of a percent of exchange-reported prices during normal market conditions.

OptionsEdge

OptionsEdge provides proprietary derived options analytics in real time, including:

• Synthetic prices
• Implied volatility
• Delta
• Gamma
• Theta
• Vega
• Strike
• Expiration
• Option type
• REST API access
• WebSocket streaming

Like EquitiesEdge, these values closely follow exchange-calculated analytics for actively traded securities while avoiding exchange licensing requirements.

For many applications—including dashboards, AI systems, analytics platforms, and research tools—derived data provides an excellent balance of accuracy, simplicity, and cost.

When Raw Exchange Data Is Necessary

Some applications require official exchange-sourced market data, including:

• Best execution systems
• Certain trading platforms
• Regulatory or compliance requirements
• Applications requiring official exchange prices
• Specialized enterprise workflows

If your application has these requirements, Intrinio offers enterprise solutions that include additional exchange-licensed datasets and custom licensing options.

What's Included in Intrinio Plans?

All Intrinio plans include the same core collection of financial datasets. The differences between plans are based primarily on licensing rights, commercial usage, support, and customization—not the core data itself.

Core datasets include:

• US company fundamentals
• Historical financial statements
• Financial ratios and metrics
• Institutional ownership
• Insider transactions
• Historical stock prices
• Historical options prices
• Tick-level market data
• 15-minute delayed options market data
• EquitiesEdge real-time derived pricing
• OptionsEdge real-time derived analytics

Choosing the Right Plan

Individual Plan

Best for:

• Personal investing
• Independent research
• Learning
• Personal AI projects
• Internal analysis

This plan is licensed for one individual and cannot be used for commercial redistribution or external display.

Startup Plan

Best for:

• Commercial software
• SaaS applications
• Internal business tools
• AI products
• Customer-facing dashboards

The Startup Plan includes commercial display rights, making it ideal for businesses launching products without needing custom enterprise licensing.

Enterprise

Enterprise plans are designed for organizations that need:

• Premium datasets
• Custom licensing
• Higher usage limits
• White-glove onboarding
• Dedicated support
• Service level agreements (SLAs)
• Exchange-approved or specialty datasets

Enterprise customers can also customize their data package to meet specialized requirements.

Finding the Right API Endpoints

Once you've selected a plan, there are two easy ways to discover the APIs available to your subscription.

Option 1: Your Intrinio Account

From your account page:

1. Open your subscription details.
2. Select the data feed you're interested in.
3. Choose View API Documentation.

The documentation automatically filters to the endpoints associated with that dataset, making it easy to find what you need. You can also switch between My Endpoints and All Endpoints.

Option 2: Use the Intrinio MCP Server

The Intrinio MCP Server understands your current subscription and can recommend:

• Appropriate datasets
• Available API endpoints
• Implementation approaches
• Tools you already have access to

This makes it particularly helpful when building AI agents or using coding assistants.

Not Sure What You Need?

If you're uncertain which product is the best fit, start by identifying:

• Whether your application is personal or commercial
• Whether you need historical or real-time data
• Whether derived real-time data satisfies your requirements
• Whether you'll display data to end users

For many developers, researchers, and AI applications, Intrinio's core financial datasets combined with EquitiesEdge and OptionsEdge provide everything needed to launch quickly without the complexity of exchange licensing.

If your requirements extend beyond those capabilities, our Enterprise team can help you evaluate premium datasets, custom licensing, and enterprise solutions.