FlowAlgo is a data algorithm that monitors the tape market wide, surfacing intermarket sweep orders, option block trades, and equity dark pool prints in real time for retail traders. It has been running since a beta preview launch in June 2017. There is one plan with all features included, no tiers to navigate, and no features held behind an upgrade. The entry point is a 2-week trial for $37, after which the monthly rate is $149. Who it’s for: active options flow traders who want algorithmically curated smart money signals without building a custom data pipeline, and who will put in the screen time to develop feel for what normal and unusual flow looks like.
Credibility Check
Company: FlowAlgo LLC Registered address: 5670 Wilshire Blvd, 18th Floor, Suite 1800, Los Angeles, California, 90036 (per Terms of Service) Website: flowalgo.com Founded: 2017 (beta preview launch June 2017 per platform documentation) Legal status: Not a registered investment advisor, per own disclosure on every page Trustpilot: No Trustpilot profile found as of April 2026 Refund policy: No refunds. All sales final. Future subscription cancellation available via Account Settings, but no refunds on payments already processed.
The Los Angeles address is disclosed in the Terms of Service, not on the marketing homepage or pricing page. FlowAlgo explicitly states across its site that it is not a registered investment advisor and does not manage client assets. The platform positions itself as a data provider only. That framing is appropriate for what the tool actually does, and the repeated disclosure is honest practice.
How FlowAlgo Works
FlowAlgo describes itself as a data algorithm that tracks Smart Money transactions by analyzing multiple data points on each order as it hits the tape, including order type, order size, execution speed, fill pattern, order volume, and average volume. The platform only reports orders that meet its threshold for being potentially market-moving. According to FlowAlgo’s own documentation, every order reported has a high potential of being market moving, with lower-significance noise filtered out before delivery.
The practical result: the feed is curated rather than comprehensive. Traders who want to see every option print on the tape will not find that here. Traders who want the platform to do the initial filtering and surface only the orders that matter will find that FlowAlgo’s approach aligns with their workflow.
Three distinct order types are tracked and surfaced separately.
Intermarket Sweep Orders
FlowAlgo distinguishes between 2 sweep types in its dashboard:
SWEEP: Multi-exchange sweep-to-fill orders. The platform tracks the order across all exchanges it touches and consolidates the legs into a single reported figure, revealing the true aggregate size.
SPLIT: Single-exchange sweep-to-fill orders.
Both are sweep-to-fill orders by nature, but the multi-exchange version (SWEEP) is the more significant signal. FlowAlgo explains the mechanics directly in its help documentation: intermarket sweeps are smart-routed orders that print to the tape as multiple smaller orders executing microseconds apart. When consolidated, they often represent major size. Execution speed is prioritized over price, which FlowAlgo describes as an indicator of urgency. The buyer wants a position immediately, which can imply anticipation of a significant move in the underlying.
The feed shows: timestamp, direction indicator, ticker, expiry, strike, call or put, order type (Sweep/Split/Block), spot price, and total premium. The total premium figure reflects the consolidated order, not individual legs. That distinction is the point. An $847K AAPL call sweep appearing as one consolidated line is far more readable than 11 fragmented legs scattered across the tape.
Option Block Trades
Block trades are large options orders executed apart from the public auction market, privately negotiated due to their size. They were designed specifically for institutions and traders with major financial backing. FlowAlgo scans market-wide and alerts on block trades as they happen, appearing in the same dashboard feed with order type labeled as Block.
FlowAlgo’s own documentation is precise about what constitutes a reportable order: only options filled at the ask, above the ask, or closer to the ask than the bid are tracked. Orders filled at the bid are not reported, because there is no way to determine whether a mid-market fill was bought or sold. This is an editorial choice with practical consequences: the feed skews toward confirmed buy-side activity. Traders relying on FlowAlgo for a view of both bullish and bearish institutional flow should understand this filter. Bearish positioning through puts bought aggressively on the ask will appear; puts sold at the bid will not.
Equity Blocks and Dark Pool Prints
Dark pool data covers large equity block trades across both lit and dark exchanges. FlowAlgo alerts when it spots qualifying activity, showing ticker, share quantity, and print price for each order.
The timing disclosure on this data is unusually transparent and worth quoting directly from the pricing page footnote: dark pool data cannot be reported in realtime due to the nature of dark pools. FlowAlgo delivers data as soon as the exchange reports the order or it is reported to FINRA’s Alternative Display Facility (ADF), which may be a few hours later, the next day, or in some cases when a Friday dark pool transaction occurs, not until the following Monday. Equity block and print data is additionally delayed up to 20 minutes due to exchange regulations, with FlowAlgo actively working to eliminate that delay.
That is a significant latency caveat. For traders who use dark pool prints as intraday support/resistance levels to time entries on the same day the print occurred, FlowAlgo’s dark pool data may not arrive in time to be actionable. The platform acknowledges this directly. For swing traders who incorporate dark pool levels over multi-day timeframes, the delay matters less.
Dark pool prints identified within the dashboard are visually distinguished from standard equity blocks. FlowAlgo notes that dark pool prints are filled at long-tailed prices (for example, $149.9554) and the spot price may fall outside the stock’s current day trading range, which is how the platform identifies them algorithmically.
FlowAlgo Levels
FlowAlgo Levels is a feature that uses historical block trade and dark pool transaction data to identify support and resistance zones for any equity. The strength of each level is calculated based on total volume transacted at that price. Higher volume at a given level means greater significance.
The practical use case is identifying institutional accumulation and distribution zones. Where large volume has transacted historically, price often reacts when tested again. FlowAlgo documents two scenarios: price trending above a dark pool print level may eventually use that level as support; price breaking and sustaining below a print level may confirm bearishness, with the level then acting as resistance.
This feature connects the real-time flow feed to longer-term structural analysis. A trader who spots a current sweep order on AAPL can cross-reference the Levels page to see whether institutional volume has historically clustered near the current spot price, adding or subtracting conviction from the flow signal.
Algo Score
Algo Score is described in FlowAlgo’s help documentation as an experimental feature in beta, measuring the aggressiveness behind a specific order. The inputs that make up the score include: total order premium versus days to expiration, contract day volume versus open interest, order contract quantity versus current day volume, total order premium, order type (multi-exchange sweep, single-exchange sweep, or block trade), and additional undisclosed data points.
FlowAlgo explicitly cautions against putting much weight on Algo Score for trading decisions given its beta status. It functions as an additional signal layer, not a standalone indicator.
Alpha AI Signals
Alpha AI is a predictive algorithm, described by FlowAlgo as a tool that attempts to predict when momentum in a stock is going to pick up in the near term throughout the day. It generates 3 signal types: Long (momentum predicted to increase to the upside), Short (momentum predicted to increase to the downside), and Hedge (volatility increase expected in the near term).
Signals are only generated during market hours. Average signal duration is 1 to 5 days. FlowAlgo recommends using 1-hour, 2-hour, and daily timeframes when acting on Alpha AI signals. A failed signal is defined by the platform as a 2% move in the opposing direction for a stock, or 1% for an ETF.
Alpha AI is explicitly flagged as currently in beta, supporting only a limited number of stocks, with expansion planned. FlowAlgo’s documentation states plainly that Alpha AI signals are not investment recommendations and are for idea generation only. The number of signals per day varies significantly depending on market conditions, sometimes 3 or more, sometimes none.
Voice Alerts
Voice alerts are a feature that reads out options flow activity in real time, allowing traders to monitor the feed without watching the screen continuously. For momentum traders who need to hear a sweep alert the moment it hits rather than glance at a constantly updating table, voice alerts serve a practical function. FlowAlgo includes this in all plans.
Snapshot and Day Recaps
The FlowAlgo Snapshot provides recaps of the day’s notable flow activity, giving traders a structured review of what happened rather than requiring them to scroll back through the full intraday feed. This is useful for building pattern recognition over time, seeing which sectors and names attracted the largest institutional interest, and identifying flow that turned or accelerated during the session.
Historical Flow
Historical options flow data is available on-demand, going back to the platform’s beta preview launch in June 2017. According to the pricing footnotes, additional historical data going further back is planned. For any specific date not yet in the database, FlowAlgo states that data can be requested directly.
The historical database is a meaningful differentiator. Flow traders who want to assess whether a current sweep on a given name represents unusual activity for that ticker, or whether this name sees heavy institutional flow regularly, can check the historical record before deciding whether to follow the order. FlowAlgo’s own guidance is direct on this point: if a symbol has already seen bullish flow for weeks and has already moved significantly, pass. The historical database is the tool for making that assessment.
Unusual Volume and Top Open Interest Changes
The Unusual Volume tab surfaces tickers where options volume has diverged materially from normal levels, operating more as a broad scan than a direct flow signal. FlowAlgo describes it as a tool for flagging names worth investigating further. Top Open Interest Changes surfaces the equities where open interest is shifting most significantly day over day, another context layer for traders who want to see where positioning is building or unwinding across the market.
The Trader Chatroom
A live trader chatroom is built into the dashboard. FlowAlgo’s Terms of Service are specific about chatroom conduct: promoting competing services is prohibited, sharing paid external data is prohibited, and soliciting other members for any reason is prohibited. The chatroom is a revocable privilege with chat rules accessible from within the chat window. Traders who want a Discord-style community layered on top of a flow tool will find one here, though FlowAlgo’s community is self-contained within the platform rather than operating on an external Discord server.
Pricing
FlowAlgo has a single all-inclusive plan with 3 billing options. All features are available at every billing level.
| Plan | Price | Billing |
|---|---|---|
| Trial + Monthly | $37 for 2 weeks, then $149/month | Auto-renews monthly after trial |
| Quarterly | $129/month | Billed at $387 every 3 months |
| Annual | $99/month | Billed at $1,188 every 12 months |
All plans include every feature: real-time option order flow, equity block and dark pool order data, Alpha AI Signals, Dark Pool Insights, on-demand historical data, FlowAlgo Levels, Snapshot/Day Recaps, voice alerts, unusual option flow smart highlighting, flow smart filtering, trader chatroom, and top open interest changes. There are no feature tiers.
The no-refund policy applies to all plans. Cancellation of future billing is available at any time from Account Settings. Cancellation must be completed 24 hours before the renewal date to avoid the next charge. One trial per subscriber per 6-month period is permitted, with the system automatically checking for prior trial use.
At $149/month on the monthly plan, FlowAlgo sits at the higher end of the category. The annual plan at $99/month is more competitive. For comparison, platforms like Cheddar Flow charge $99/month for their Professional tier, while BlackBoxStocks offers its full Premium plan at $149/month including community and education. FlowAlgo’s price is justified if the curated, noise-filtered feed matches the trader’s workflow. It is harder to justify if the trader needs community features, news, or IV-specific screening tools that FlowAlgo does not provide.
For a head-to-head view of how FlowAlgo stacks up across the category, the best options flow scanners and best unusual options activity scanners comparisons cover the competitive field in detail.
What FlowAlgo Does Not Offer
Several things are absent that are present in competing tools and are worth naming plainly.
There is no integrated news feed. Traders who use macro and company-specific news as a filter for flow signals will need a separate source. There is no implied volatility screener. The platform does not surface IV rank or IV percentile data, which matters for traders whose strategies involve IV-specific setups. For that type of analysis, dedicated tools like ORATS are more appropriate.
There is no mobile app. The platform is browser-based and the Terms of Service reference TradingView-powered charts that may be delayed 10 to 15 minutes. Traders who need live push notifications to a mobile device while away from a desktop have no native FlowAlgo option for that.
Finally, Alpha AI remains in beta and covers only a limited number of stocks. Traders who are drawn to FlowAlgo specifically for AI signal generation should set expectations accordingly: the feature is functional but explicitly not production-ready, and coverage is limited.
Pros
- All features included at every billing level, no tiers or gated upgrades
- Sweep consolidation across multiple exchanges delivers true aggregate size, not fragmented legs
- Clear distinction between Sweep (multi-exchange), Split (single-exchange), and Block order types
- Historical options flow data available on-demand back to June 2017
- FlowAlgo Levels uses historical block and dark pool data to identify institutional support/resistance zones
- Voice alerts for traders who monitor flow aurally while managing positions
- Algo Score provides an aggressiveness measure on individual orders
- Registered business address disclosed in Terms of Service
- Quarterly ($129/month) and Annual ($99/month) plans offer meaningful discounts versus monthly
Cons
- No refunds under any circumstances. All sales are final, including if a trial converts to billing
- Dark pool data is not real-time. Depending on exchange reporting, it may arrive hours later, the following day, or not until Monday for Friday prints. Equity block data delayed up to 20 minutes additionally
- Monthly plan at $149/month is at the high end of the category for a platform with no community, no news feed, and no IV screening
- Alpha AI is in beta and covers only a limited number of stocks
- No mobile app. Browser-only access
- No integrated news feed
- No Trustpilot presence after nearly a decade of operation, making third-party review validation difficult
- Only options filled at or above the ask are tracked. Bid-side flow is not reported, limiting the bearish flow picture to aggressive put buying only
Bottom Line
FlowAlgo delivers what it says it does: curated, algorithmically filtered institutional order flow with clear sweep detection, block tracking, and dark pool data. The single-tier pricing and all-inclusive feature set make the decision simple. There is no plan comparison to navigate, no feature gating to resent. Either the flow feed at $149/month monthly (or $99/month annually) fits the trading approach, or it does not.
The dark pool delay is the most significant limitation for traders who intend to use prints as intraday signals. That delay is disclosed clearly by the platform itself, which is the right approach, but it does meaningfully restrict how that data can be used in practice. Traders comparing FlowAlgo against Cheddar Flow on dark pool specifically should read both platforms’ latency disclosures before deciding.
The 2-week trial for $37 is the right way to evaluate fit. Screen time with actual flow is the only real test. FlowAlgo’s own guidance says the same thing.
FAQ
How does FlowAlgo filter which orders appear in the feed?
FlowAlgo’s algorithm analyzes each order as it hits the tape using multiple data points: order type, order size, execution speed, fill pattern, order volume relative to average volume, and additional proprietary factors. Only orders that meet the platform’s threshold for being potentially market-moving are reported. Lower-significance activity is filtered out before delivery. The intent is to reduce noise so traders are alerted only to what FlowAlgo determines is worth attention.
What is the difference between a Sweep and a Split in the FlowAlgo dashboard?
Both are sweep-to-fill order types. A SWEEP is a multi-exchange intermarket sweep order, where a large order is smart-routed across multiple exchanges simultaneously to fill quickly while concealing true size. FlowAlgo consolidates the individual legs and reports the aggregate. A SPLIT is a single-exchange sweep-to-fill order. Both indicate execution urgency, but the multi-exchange SWEEP typically represents larger institutional size and is considered the stronger signal.
Does FlowAlgo show bearish flow, or only bullish orders?
FlowAlgo only tracks option orders filled at the ask, above the ask, or closer to the ask than the bid. Orders filled at the bid are not reported because there is no reliable way to determine whether a mid-market fill was bought or sold. This means the feed captures aggressive buy-side activity: calls bought on the ask are bullish signals, puts bought on the ask are bearish signals. But put selling and other bearish structures that print at or near the bid will not appear. Traders who need a complete view of both buy and sell-side positioning should account for this filter.
Is dark pool data on FlowAlgo real-time?
No. FlowAlgo discloses clearly in its pricing page footnotes that dark pool data cannot be reported in real time due to the nature of how dark pools operate. Data is delivered as soon as the exchange reports the order or it is reported to FINRA’s Alternative Display Facility (ADF), which can be a few hours later, the following day, or in the case of Friday prints, not until the following Monday. Equity block and print data carries an additional delay of up to 20 minutes due to exchange regulations. FlowAlgo states it is actively working to reduce this delay.
What is Alpha AI and is it ready to trade on?
Alpha AI is a predictive algorithm that generates Long, Short, and Hedge signals by attempting to forecast near-term momentum in individual stocks. Signals only occur during market hours and average 1 to 5 days in duration. FlowAlgo explicitly labels Alpha AI as currently in beta, covering only a limited number of stocks, and states that Alpha AI signals are not investment recommendations and are for idea generation only. The feature is functional but should not be the primary basis for trade decisions in its current form.
What happens if I forget to cancel before my trial ends?
All plans, including the trial, auto-renew automatically. The trial converts to a paid subscription at the end of the 2-week period unless cancelled from Account Settings. FlowAlgo’s no-refund policy applies once a payment processes: you cannot receive a refund for any amount already charged. Cancellation must be completed at least 24 hours before the renewal date to prevent the next charge. FlowAlgo also limits trials to one per subscriber per 6-month period, with an automatic check in place to enforce this.
Does FlowAlgo have a mobile app?
No. FlowAlgo is browser-based and accessible from any device with a web browser. There is no dedicated mobile application. The embedded charts within the platform are powered by TradingView and may be delayed 10 to 15 minutes. Traders who need real-time mobile push notifications for flow alerts will need to stay browser-active rather than relying on a native app.
How far back does historical flow data go?
Historical options flow data on FlowAlgo goes back to the platform’s beta preview launch in June 2017. Additional historical data going further back is described as planned. For any specific date not yet in the database, FlowAlgo states that data can be requested directly. The dashboard only displays current-day flow in real time; traders must access the historical database separately to review prior sessions.