ORATS is not a flow scanner. No sweeps, no dark pool prints, no unusual activity feed. What it is instead is the most analytically deep options research platform available to retail traders, built on infrastructure that started on the CBOE trading floor in 1993 and has been compounding institutional-grade methodology ever since. The platform covers backtesting against 300 million pre-calculated results, options and stock scanning with hundreds of proprietary indicators, broker-connected order execution, and a structured education program written by founder Matt Amberson himself. Everything runs on $99/month, all-inclusive, with real-time data included.
For traders who want to validate strategies before deploying capital, understand what the volatility surface is actually telling them, and scan for high-probability opportunities built on decades of options data, ORATS is the tool the category was waiting for. For traders who need live flow alerts or want to follow institutional sweeps in real time, it is not.
Credibility Check
Company: Option Research & Technology Services, LLC (ORATS) Address: 36 Maplewood Ave, Portsmouth, NH 03801 (confirmed in site footer and contact page) Phone: (312) 986-1060 Email: support@orats.com Founder: Matt Amberson, former CBOE market maker, founder since 2001 Founded: 2001 Trustpilot: No Trustpilot profile found as of April 2026 Press: Featured in Nasdaq, Wall Street Journal, Interactive Brokers Campus, Risk Magazine, Reuters, MSN, Yahoo Finance, and Options Insider (all confirmed from homepage logos)
The team is fully named and pictured on the About page. Matt Amberson started as a CBOE market maker in 1993 and founded ORATS in 2001. Jon Kong has led engineering since 2007. Wendy Rauch has been the lead dividend researcher since 2009. Tyler Cheves, the product manager, previously built an options trading platform on iOS. Jonathan Sleeuw brings decades of experience working within financial firms.
Full address, phone number, email, and named team with tenure dates all disclosed. That level of transparency is uncommon in this category and sets ORATS apart from platforms that list a support email and nothing else.
A Platform Built in Layers
ORATS describes its work around four pillars: Research, Implementation, Risk, and Review. That framing is more than marketing copy. It describes how the tools actually connect. A trader starts in the backtester to validate a strategy exists with historical edge. The stock and option scanners then find current candidates that meet the same criteria. Orders route directly to a connected broker. Performance feeds back into the review cycle. Each layer is a product of ORATS’s own historical data and proprietary indicator set, meaning the same underlying data infrastructure powers every tool on the platform.
That integration is what makes ORATS qualitatively different from most options scanners. Most platforms scan for trades and stop there. ORATS builds the full chain from research to execution.
The Options Backtester
The backtester is ORATS’s flagship product and the most developed tool on the platform. 300 million pre-calculated backtests are available to search, filter, and rank immediately without running anything. Filters include annual return, Sharpe ratio, maximum drawdown, days to expiration, strike deltas per leg, entry triggers such as VIX level, IV percentile, 14-day RSI, slope percentile, stop losses, and profit targets. A trader can arrive at the platform and within minutes find how a specific iron condor at specific delta targets has historically performed across thousands of entry conditions on SPY since 2007.
Custom backtests are also available using the same engine. The historical data goes back to 2007 and covers over 5,000 symbols across stocks and ETFs. Supported strategies include bullish, bearish, and neutral approaches, calendars, butterflies, and condors. Entry and exit criteria can be combined with hundreds of proprietary ORATS indicators, meaning custom backtests reflect the same data quality as the institutional-grade pre-calculated library. Each backtest result comes with a returns graph, 37 performance metrics, a monthly returns table, and a detailed trade log.
The subscription limit for custom backtests is 2,000 per month. Subscribers who exhaust that within a session are pushing the platform hard; for most traders using it as a research tool rather than an automated optimization machine, 2,000 is more than sufficient.
Strategy Optimizer
The Strategy Optimizer is a newer addition, described on the site as available now after recent launch. It takes any backtest and applies an additional layer of intelligent optimization to it: 98 proprietary ORATS indicators are available as entry condition filters, covering volatility forecasts, earnings predictions, contango measurements, and relative volatility comparisons between stocks and their sector ETFs. Standard technical indicators including SMA, Bollinger Bands, RSI, and CCI are also available with pre-configured presets for short, medium, and long-term strategies.
The statistical validation component is what makes this tool genuinely useful rather than a curve-fitting machine. The system runs 10,000 modified Monte Carlo simulations to validate that any performance improvement found is statistically real rather than a product of overfitting to historical noise. P-value calculations and permutation testing are built into the output. Each indicator comes with pre-calculated performance metrics and P-value validation before the trader even begins optimizing.
For traders who run systematic strategies, the distinction between a real improvement and a lucky historical pattern is the entire difference between a strategy that works going forward and one that does not. ORATS builds that validation directly into the tool rather than leaving the trader to figure it out separately.
Option Scanner
The option scanner covers over 5,000 symbols and supports scanning for bullish, bearish, and neutral strategies across customizable DTE ranges, strike selections, and spread-to-stock price entry criteria. Up to 25 symbols can be scanned at one time. The scanner integrates directly with the stock scanner, so a workflow like “show me stocks reporting earnings this week, then scan those stocks for straddles” runs within a single platform session.
Trades are ranked using proprietary ORATS metrics including D% (delta cost), POP% (probability of profit), and S% (a proprietary theoretical edge value). These are not standard metrics available on competing screeners. The S% indicator reflects ORATS’s Smoothed Market Values system, the same implied volatility summarization methodology the platform has been developing since 2001, and gives traders a view of whether a specific option appears theoretically cheap or expensive relative to the smoothed IV surface.
Selected trades can be sent directly through a connected broker, visualized on the Trade Builder, or run through a payoff diagram without leaving the scanner interface. That direct pathway from scan result to order ticket to execution removes a step that on other platforms requires switching applications entirely.
For traders specifically evaluating options screeners for implied volatility work, ORATS’s IV data is worth examining carefully. The platform provides IV rank and percentiles, earnings-adjusted IV calculations that strip out the earnings event component from the term structure, constant maturity IVs at 30, 60, 90 days, 6 months, and 1 year, and forecasted IV surfaces. That is substantially more IV infrastructure than any other platform in this category.
Stock Scanner
The stock scanner operates across 5,000+ stocks and ETFs using 700+ proprietary options indicators plus 22 fundamental indicators. The indicator depth covers everything from earnings date proximity, stock volume, and implied volatility to PE ratio, market cap, contango, put-call skew, and slope. Custom ratios of indicators can be built, creating compound filters that do not exist as pre-set options anywhere else.
A component system adds another layer. ORATS calculates weighted averages for all stocks in each SPDR sector ETF, assigning each a component symbol (for example, XLK_C for the Technology sector ETF’s weighted average). These component tickers allow scanning for stocks that are cheap or rich in volatility relative to their sector peer group, rather than only in absolute terms. Over 30 component symbols are available.
Pre-built scan templates included out of the box: Hard-To-Borrow, Low IV30d, High IV30d, Earnings This Week, Put-Call Skew Rich, Put-Call Skew Cheap, Unusual Put Volume, and Unusual Call Volume. New templates are added on an ongoing basis.
Trade Ideas
Trade Ideas, also recently launched alongside the Strategy Optimizer, uses the 300 million pre-calculated backtests plus real-time market analysis to surface high-probability trade candidates automatically. The premise is that rather than manually searching backtests and running scanners, the platform can present curated trade ideas already validated against historical performance data. Current feature details reflect what is available from the product pages at time of publication; check orats.com/trade-ideas for the most current capabilities.
Trading and Broker Integration
ORATS connects directly to Interactive Brokers, TradeStation, and Tradier, with more brokers described as in development. Orders can be sent from within the ORATS platform without switching to the brokerage interface, and positions are managed in a Positions tab. Text and email alerts are available for position monitoring. Paper trading accounts are supported for strategy testing without live capital at risk.
The practical significance of the broker integration is material. A trader who identifies a trade through the backtester, confirms it in the scanner, and wants to place it immediately does not leave the platform at any point in that workflow. Most competing options tools require switching to a brokerage to execute, which introduces delay and manual transcription of trade parameters.
Ticker Analysis and Trade Builder
Ticker Analysis provides a comprehensive view of a single underlying: the full options chain, earnings history, time and sales data, and technical outlook. It is the per-ticker deep-dive tool, intended for examining a specific name in detail after a scanner or backtest has surfaced it as a candidate.
The Trade Builder is a charting tool that overlays future expirations and strikes against the price chart of the underlying, with additional overlays for earnings dates, trendlines, volatility, and open interest. It is designed for visualizing how a proposed position sits relative to key upcoming events and price levels before committing to an entry.
Historical Data and APIs
ORATS offers its underlying data as standalone products separate from the trading tools subscription.
Near End-of-Day Historical Data (since 2007): A complete snapshot of the US equity options market taken 14 minutes before market close each trading day, covering over 5,000 symbols. Available as a one-time purchase (historical data to date) or as a recurring subscription (daily delivery going forward from the purchase date). Data is delivered around 8:30pm EST after market close each day.
1-Minute Intraday Historical Data (since August 2020): Full SMV greeks, theoretical values, and implied volatilities for every minute of the trading day across all US equity options and over 5,000 symbols.
Data API: Live, delayed, and historical end-of-day options data accessed via API, augmented with hundreds of proprietary ORATS indicators. Covers over 4,000 tickers including stocks, ETFs, and indexes, plus component weighted averages for major indexes and ETFs. Live API endpoints require signing a live data agreement available after signup.
Intraday Data API: A separate API product for minute-level intraday data.
These data products are aimed at quantitative researchers, developers, and institutional clients who need the raw data in machine-readable form rather than through a dashboard interface. They represent an entirely different buyer profile from the Trading Tools subscription. ORATS notes it has served hedge funds and institutional clients alongside retail traders since 2001.
ORATS University
ORATS University is a structured educational curriculum narrated by Matt Amberson, covering the platform’s methodology from foundational concepts through to trade review. The curriculum is organized into four sections: 100-level Introduction covering option pricing models and the true price of an option; 200-level Volatility Research covering the volatility surface, volatility around earnings, predictive indicators, and historical data; 300-level Backtesting covering methodology, input parameters, measuring performance, custom backtesting, and strategy optimization; 400-level Implementation covering stock scanning, option scanning, trade ideas, placing orders, and reviewing results.
A knowledge quiz is available. Passing it historically has been linked to trial access, though current terms should be verified at orats.com/university. Weekly video education hosted by Matt Amberson is also published on YouTube.
The University is unusual in the category. Most platforms link to a YouTube channel or a help center. ORATS publishes a structured curriculum narrated by its founder, grounded in the same methodology used to build the platform’s core data infrastructure. The volatility surface module explains why the Black-Scholes model falls short for modern traders. The earnings module explains how ORATS isolates the earnings event component from the IV term structure. These are not beginner explainers; they are the intellectual foundation behind the platform’s proprietary indicators.
Pricing
ORATS Trading Tools is a single all-access subscription. There is no tiered feature gating.
| Plan | Monthly Price | Includes |
|---|---|---|
| Individual | $99/month | All trading tools, real-time data, 2,000 backtests/month, broker connections |
| Professional | Contact ORATS | Professional-grade access |
Every tool on the platform, including the Strategy Optimizer, Trade Ideas, Option Scanner, Options Backtester, Stock Scanner, Trading, Ticker Analysis, and Trade Builder, is included in the $99/month Individual plan. Real-time data is included. Broker connections to Interactive Brokers, TradeStation, and Tradier are included.
The Reddit pricing page on the site notes that real-time data and brokerage connections are available for an additional $50/month. That language appears on a specific Reddit-specific page. The main trading tools page states real-time data is included in the $99/month plan. Current pricing and what is included in each tier should be confirmed directly at orats.com/trading-tools before subscribing.
Historical data and API products are priced separately from the Trading Tools subscription. Historical near end-of-day data since 2007 is a one-time purchase. Recurring daily delivery is a separate monthly subscription. API pricing is available on the relevant product pages.
Pros
- Founded by a former CBOE market maker in 2001. The methodology behind the platform is not borrowed from elsewhere
- 300 million pre-calculated backtests available immediately to search, filter, and rank without running custom jobs
- Historical data back to 2007 for over 5,000 symbols
- Strategy Optimizer with 10,000 Monte Carlo simulations and P-value validation guards against overfitting
- 98 proprietary indicators in the optimizer covering volatility forecasts, earnings predictions, contango, and sector-relative volatility
- Stock scanner with 700+ indicators and a component system for sector-relative scanning
- Option scanner integrates directly with stock scanner for chained workflows
- Proprietary S% metric surfaces theoretical edge based on the SMV system
- Earnings-adjusted IV calculations and forecasted IV surfaces not available on competing retail platforms
- Direct broker execution to Interactive Brokers, TradeStation, and Tradier with paper trading support
- Full team named and pictured with tenure dates; physical address and phone number disclosed
- ORATS University structured curriculum narrated by Matt Amberson
- $99/month all-inclusive with real-time data included; no feature tiers
Cons
- No flow alerts, no sweep detection, no unusual activity feed in real time. Traders who trade on live institutional order flow need a different primary tool
- No Trustpilot profile; no independent public review record available
- The option scanner scans up to 25 symbols at a time, which requires running multiple scans to cover a broad watchlist
- The platform’s depth creates a learning curve. ORATS University exists partly because the tools require context to use well
- Real-time data and brokerage connections noted as an additional $50/month on one page of the site. Pricing should be confirmed directly before subscribing
- No mobile app; the platform is dashboard-based and browser-accessed
Bottom Line
ORATS is the right platform for traders who take strategy validation seriously. The 300 million backtests represent years of computational work that a retail trader cannot replicate independently. The proprietary IV infrastructure, including SMV greeks, earnings-adjusted IV, forecasted surfaces, and slope metrics, goes deeper than any competing retail tool. The Strategy Optimizer’s statistical validation via Monte Carlo simulation is a feature that most quant-adjacent retail traders have never had access to at this price point.
It is not a platform for traders whose primary workflow is watching live flow and acting on sweeps. For that use case, the best options flow scanners comparison covers alternatives that are built around real-time order detection.
For traders who want to build and validate a systematic approach to options, understand the volatility surface with genuine rigor, and run the full cycle from research through execution in one place, ORATS at $99/month is difficult to match.
FAQ
What makes ORATS different from other options scanners?
ORATS is built on proprietary data infrastructure developed from a CBOE market making operation that started in 1993. The platform’s Smoothed Market Values (SMV) system produces greeks, implied volatilities, and theoretical values using a methodology designed for market making accuracy rather than standard exchange data alone. That underlying data quality flows through every tool: the backtester uses it, the scanners rank on it, and the Strategy Optimizer’s proprietary indicators are derived from it. Competing platforms at this price point use standard options chain data. ORATS uses a layer of proprietary summarization on top.
How far back does the backtesting data go?
Historical data for backtesting goes back to 2007 and covers over 5,000 symbols. The near end-of-day snapshot is taken 14 minutes before market close each day. Separately, 1-minute intraday data is available back to August 2020. The pre-calculated backtest library of 300 million results draws on the full historical dataset; custom backtests run on the same data with end-of-day granularity.
Does ORATS include real-time data?
Yes. The Individual plan at $99/month includes real-time data according to the trading tools subscription page. A separate page on the site references real-time data and brokerage connections as an additional $50/month add-on. Traders should confirm current pricing and inclusions directly at orats.com/trading-tools before subscribing.
Which brokers does ORATS connect to?
ORATS currently supports Interactive Brokers, TradeStation, and Tradier. Orders can be sent directly from within the ORATS platform to the connected brokerage account. More brokerages are described as in development. Paper trading accounts are also supported for testing strategies without real capital.
What is the Strategy Optimizer and why does statistical validation matter?
The Strategy Optimizer takes any backtest, whether from the 300 million pre-calculated library or a custom run, and tests additional entry conditions to find improvements. The danger in optimization is overfitting: finding rules that appear to improve historical performance but are actually just capturing noise in the data. ORATS addresses this by running 10,000 modified Monte Carlo simulations and calculating P-values for every proposed improvement. An improvement that does not pass statistical significance testing is flagged as unreliable. This guards against the most common failure mode in systematic strategy development.
Does ORATS have a mobile app?
No. ORATS is a browser-based dashboard platform. No native iOS or Android application is available. The platform is accessible via any browser on any device, but there is no dedicated mobile app with push notifications or mobile-optimized interface.
Who is ORATS University for?
ORATS University is a structured curriculum covering volatility research, backtesting methodology, and trading implementation, narrated by Matt Amberson. It is not a beginner introduction to options; it assumes the reader wants to understand the methodology behind ORATS’s proprietary indicators and how to use the platform’s tools at a serious level. Topics include the volatility surface, why the Black-Scholes model has limitations for modern traders, how earnings events are isolated from the IV term structure, and how to measure and validate backtest performance. Traders who want to use ORATS to its full capability rather than surface-level will find the University genuinely useful before or alongside using the tools.