Options data vendor checklist
Use this checklist before buying an options data API. The goal is to separate vague coverage claims from workflow evidence: contracts, expirations, chains, quotes, trades, Greeks, open interest, historical bars, documentation, pricing, and integration effort.
Evaluation readiness
44%
Requirements still unclear
4 of 9 requirement groups are selected. Use the toggles below to model what your actual buying workflow must validate.
Start with the framework
Define workflow fit, endpoint coverage, historical validation, provider evidence, and implementation risk before scoring vendors.
Verify before buying
Run the same symbol, expiration, timestamp, and selected contract across providers before comparing marketing pages.
Model request volume
Cost is usually driven by selected-contract quotes, trades, snapshots, and historical windows, more than chains.
Test a real workflow
Use Python examples to turn the buying checklist into a reproducible endpoint sequence.
Evaluation strategy
A good vendor checklist is a test plan, not a scorecard
The best comparison starts with the workflow your product must ship. For an options scanner, the critical objects are chains, expirations, Greeks, open interest, quotes, and selected-contract drilldowns. For a backtest, contracts with `as_of`, quote windows, trade prints, aggregates, and reproducible timestamps matter more. Use the checklist to decide what to test, then use docs and pricing to decide whether the commercial fit is acceptable.
Procurement notes
Convert each checked box into evidence before signing
A checked vendor requirement should have a concrete proof point: a request URL, documented response field, timestamp example, pagination behavior, plan entitlement, or support answer. For options data, the important distinction is not whether a provider says "chains" or "quotes"; it is whether the same contract identity can move from expiration discovery into quote history, trade prints, aggregates, snapshots, and risk fields without losing the OCC symbol or timestamp window.
Run the checklist against the exact workflow you intend to ship. A public scanner needs freshness labels, quote access, row rejects, and commercial-use clarity. A backtest needs historical contracts, quote windows, trade context, reproducible pagination, and missing-data handling. A dashboard needs snapshots, Greeks, IV, open interest, and visible delayed/live state. Different products can pass or fail the same vendor for different reasons.
Store the evaluation result in a short internal artifact before procurement moves forward. Include the tested ticker, expiration, selected contract, endpoint sequence, rate-limit assumption, expected monthly request volume, support path, and licensing boundary. That document is more valuable than a generic comparison score because it gives engineers and buyers the same acceptance criteria.
Revisit the checklist after the first prototype, again after purchase. The prototype should reveal whether pagination, retries, stale rows, missing fields, SDK ergonomics, and support response time match the original assumptions. Update the artifact before moving from trial access to production usage.