If you’ve spent time hunting for stocks to trade options on, you already know the problem: by the time you’ve screened, filtered, and validated a candidate, the opportunity has moved. Trade Ideas is built to solve that specific problem with real-time AI scanning, and it does it better than anything else in its price range. Whether that’s worth $118 a month depends entirely on how you trade.
- Trade Ideas is a real-time AI stock scanner, not a static screener. It streams alerts the moment a stock meets your criteria.
- Holly AI runs 70+ pre-built overnight strategies and surfaces the highest-probability setups for the next day, included in the Premium plan only.
- Options traders use it to identify high-momentum candidates for covered calls, cash-secured puts, and earnings plays, before the move fully develops.
- Standard plan: $118/month. Holly AI requires the Premium plan (verify current pricing at trade-ideas.com; data from March 2026).
- Not beginner-friendly. The learning curve is steep, and it is overkill for casual or low-frequency options traders.
What Trade Ideas Actually Is
Trade Ideas is a real-time stock scanning platform. It monitors thousands of stocks simultaneously against user-defined criteria, streaming alerts the instant a stock triggers a condition, whether that’s a new intraday high, a volume surge 5x the 10-day average, or a specific price action pattern.
The key distinction from a static screener like Finviz is timing. Finviz gives you a snapshot: which stocks currently meet your criteria. Trade Ideas gives you a stream: which stocks just crossed a threshold in the last few seconds. For intraday traders who need to act on momentum before it fades, that timing gap is meaningful.
The platform runs primarily as a web-based application with a desktop client option for Windows. It integrates directly with Interactive Brokers, Lightspeed, and several professional-tier platforms for direct order entry from within the scanner alerts.
Holly AI: The Feature That Sets Trade Ideas Apart
Holly is Trade Ideas’ built-in machine learning system. Every night, Holly runs more than 70 pre-built AI trading strategies against the prior day’s data, evaluating which setups have historically produced the best outcomes. By market open, Holly has already generated a ranked watchlist of stocks it considers the highest-probability candidates for the day ahead.
For options traders, the Holly watchlist is most useful as a filter for underlying selection. If Holly flags a stock as a high-momentum breakout candidate, that same stock often shows elevated implied volatility or unusual options activity, making it a candidate for directional spreads or short-term premium selling. You’re not following Holly’s trade entry points directly; you’re using its shortlist to focus your own analysis on stocks with confirmed momentum characteristics.
Holly is only available on the Premium plan. If your workflow involves running your own custom scans with no need for overnight AI curation, the Standard plan covers that use case without the Premium cost.
How Options Traders Actually Use Trade Ideas
Most Trade Ideas tutorials focus on day traders entering stock positions. Options traders use it differently, primarily as a stock selection filter.
Identifying covered call and CSP candidates: A scanner alert for a stock breaking to a new 52-week high on 3x average volume is a signal worth examining for a cash-secured put or covered call. The stock has proven near-term momentum, and elevated volume often corresponds to elevated implied volatility, both useful for premium sellers.
Spotting unusual options activity candidates: Trade Ideas has a built-in channel for unusual options volume alerts. When a stock shows a volume spike in the scanner alongside an unusual options activity alert, the combination is a stronger signal than either alone. This pairing helps filter informational signals from noise.
Pre-earnings watchlist building: In the days before an earnings event, Trade Ideas can surface stocks showing unusual accumulation patterns. For options traders positioning before IV expansion, identifying these candidates 3 to 5 days ahead is more actionable than discovering them on the morning of the event.
Intraday iron condor candidates: Active intraday traders using 0DTE iron condors on individual equities (not just indices) use Trade Ideas to identify underlying stocks that are moving directionally but showing signs of consolidation, a setup where a tight iron condor can capture premium without riding a trend.
Platform Features Worth Knowing
Channels: The core interface is a set of alert streams called channels. Each channel is a saved scan configuration. You can run multiple channels simultaneously, each filtering for different conditions. Pre-built channels are available for common strategies; advanced users build custom channels using Trade Ideas’ syntax, which has a learning curve comparable to thinkorswim’s ThinkScript.
OddsMaker: Trade Ideas’ backtesting tool. You define a scan rule and OddsMaker tests how that scan has historically performed, which setups produced positive outcomes, average gain/loss, and win rate across different market conditions. This is particularly useful for validating that a custom scan is finding genuine setups rather than random noise.
Paper trading simulation: Trade Ideas includes a built-in paper trading module connected directly to the scanner. You can simulate acting on every alert from a specific channel to measure its real-world performance before committing capital.
Chart Room: A live-streamed trading room with commentary from Trade Ideas’ team. Included in both plans. Value varies by trading style; active day traders find it useful for real-time context during market hours.
Pricing
Trade Ideas offers two plans (pricing as of March 2026, verify current terms at trade-ideas.com before subscribing):
| Plan | Monthly Price | Holly AI | Best For |
|---|---|---|---|
| Standard | $118/month | No | Custom scanner builds, self-directed strategies |
| Premium | Higher (check current terms) | Yes | AI-curated watchlists, Holly overnight strategies |
Annual billing reduces the monthly cost on both plans. A free trial is available, and it covers the full platform including Holly AI in Premium. The trial is genuinely useful for evaluating fit before committing to a monthly subscription.
At $118/month for Standard, Trade Ideas is priced for traders who use it daily. If you’re trading 2 to 3 days per week or running strategies that don’t require real-time scanning, the cost is hard to justify against free alternatives like Finviz’s screener or Barchart’s free unusual options volume scanner.
Trade Ideas vs. Benzinga Pro
These two tools get compared frequently because both involve real-time market alerts. They serve different purposes.
| Feature | Trade Ideas | Benzinga Pro |
|---|---|---|
| Alert trigger | Technical conditions (price, volume, pattern) | News events (earnings, FDA, analyst upgrades) |
| Best for | Intraday momentum, breakout setups | Event-driven options plays |
| AI feature | Holly (overnight strategy curation) | News sentiment scoring |
| Starting price | $118/month | $37/month |
| Complementary? | Yes. News-triggered + technical-triggered scans catch different opportunities. | |
An active options trader running both gets news catalysts from Benzinga Pro and technical setups from Trade Ideas. For most traders, starting with Benzinga Pro is more cost-effective given the lower entry price, and adding Trade Ideas later if intraday scanning becomes a regular part of the workflow.
Who Trade Ideas Is For (and Who Should Skip It)
Trade Ideas fits well if you:
- Trade actively, at least 4 days per week, with a setup-focused approach
- Want real-time scanning for momentum or breakout conditions as the primary entry filter
- Plan to use Holly AI to pre-generate a watchlist before market open
- Already know how to analyze a stock once it’s flagged (Trade Ideas identifies; the analysis is still on you)
- Are prepared to invest 10 to 20 hours learning channel configuration and OddsMaker
Skip Trade Ideas if you:
- Trade fewer than 3 days per week: the $118/month cost won’t be justified
- Focus primarily on broad-index options (SPX, SPY, QQQ) where stock scanning is irrelevant
- Are new to options and still building foundational knowledge, as the complexity will distract from learning core mechanics
- Only trade earnings plays where event calendars, not real-time scans, are the primary filter
Bottom Line
Trade Ideas is the best real-time AI stock scanner for active traders who need to find high-momentum underlying candidates before the move is obvious. For options traders specifically, it works best as a stock selection filter that surfaces candidates worth examining for directional plays or premium-selling setups. At $118/month for Standard and higher for Premium with Holly AI, it justifies its cost for traders who use it daily and have already mastered the basics of options selection. Casual traders or beginners are better served starting with lower-cost screening tools and returning to Trade Ideas when scanning speed becomes a genuine constraint.
Ready to try it? Trade Ideas offers a free trial covering the full platform including Holly AI.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: Does Trade Ideas work for options traders specifically?
A: Yes, but indirectly. Trade Ideas scans for stocks, not options contracts. Options traders use it to identify high-momentum stock candidates, then apply their own options strategy to the flagged underlying. The unusual options activity channel adds direct options signal alongside the technical alerts.
Q: Do I need Holly AI, or is the Standard plan enough?
A: If you want to build and run your own custom scan channels, Standard covers that fully. Holly AI is for traders who want the platform to pre-generate a daily watchlist using overnight machine learning. If you’re not sure which applies to your workflow, use the free trial to run both.
Q: Is Trade Ideas good for beginners?
A: No. Trade Ideas requires meaningful setup time and assumes you already know what conditions you’re scanning for. Beginners benefit more from building strategy knowledge first. Return to Trade Ideas once you have a defined trading process that real-time scanning would accelerate.
Q: How does Trade Ideas compare to Finviz for screening?
A: Finviz is a static screener: it shows you which stocks currently meet your criteria. Trade Ideas is a real-time scanner: it alerts you the moment a stock crosses a threshold. For intraday traders, timing matters enough to justify the price difference. For end-of-day swing traders, Finviz’s free tier is often sufficient.
Q: What brokers integrate with Trade Ideas directly?
A: Direct order entry integration is available for Interactive Brokers, Lightspeed, and several professional platforms. Verification date: March 2026. Check current integration availability at trade-ideas.com before making a broker selection based on this feature.