Named to the Inc. 5000 list of America’s fastest-growing private companies six years in a row (2017–2022).
Investopedia: Best Short Term Stock Screener, 2024
The Trade Ideas Web Dashboard with heat maps and Top Lists.
Why people look past ChartingLens
ChartingLens is a browser charting app with an AI analyst built in. It is cheap, it has a $0 plan, and it covers stocks, crypto, forex and metals in one place. For a lot of people that is plenty.
Key point
The folks who go looking for something else usually hit one of three walls. They want alerts across the whole US market the moment something happens, not a daily batch of picks. They run out of AI credits on the lower plans. Or they want to test a scan across every stock, not one chart at a time. This page sorts the alternatives by which of those walls you hit.
What ChartingLens offers, from its own pages
Free plan at $0 with 1 AI credit a day (2 on the first day), 3 indicators per chart and 3 active alerts.
Premium at $14.99 a month or $149 a year, with 20 AI credits a day, unlimited indicators and 20 active alerts.
Pro at $29.99 a month or $299 a year, which lifts every quota to unlimited.
25 new AI signals daily, according to its homepage, and an AI Pattern Screener across 2,000+ stocks or a watchlist on paid plans.
Bar Replay, Pine Script and ThinkScript conversion, insider and politician trade data, and hedge fund holdings on paid plans.
If the reason you are leaving is that daily picks feel late, Trade Ideas Streaming Alerts (Scanner) are the other end of the spectrum. They watch every US stock and fire on the trade that triggers them, not once a day. You pick from about 300 alert types, from high relative volume to triangle bottoms, and narrow with filters like float and ATR.
A Stock Race with a Holly AI buy signal.
Holly AI Signals give you AI trade ideas too, but they come during the session with a time, an entry and a stop to manage risk, and only from strategies that passed testing the night before. OddsMaker tests a scan across the whole market. TI Standard is $127 a month, or $1,068 a year (about $89 a month). TI Premium is $254 a month, or $2,136 a year (about $178 a month). There is no metered credit system; you use the AI Assistant as much as you want.
What you give up: Trade Ideas is US stocks and options only, and it costs more. If crypto and forex charts are why you picked ChartingLens, keep it for those.
TradingView: when you want bigger charts and a community
Trader tip
TradingView's own pricing page lists 400+ built-in indicators, 100K+ community indicators, Pine Script and strategy backtesting. Its screeners auto-refresh every 10 seconds or 1 minute on paid plans, and Premium was listed at $29.95 a month as a special price on Oct 12. If the ChartingLens chart feels limited, TradingView is the usual next stop. See Trade Ideas vs TradingView.
OddsMaker results for a tested strategy.
TrendSpider: when you want automated chart analysis
Idea Surfing cycling through charts.
TrendSpider's pricing page lists automated trendlines and Fibonacci, chart pattern recognition, multi-symbol backtesting and its Sidekick AI, with 25 free Sidekick messages a month on every plan. It costs more than ChartingLens but goes deeper on chart automation. See Trade Ideas vs TrendSpider.
Finviz: when you want a fast, simple screener
Key point
Finviz Elite is $39.50 a month or $299.50 a year on its own page, with real-time data, premarket and after-hours sessions, a 10-second screener refresh and chart pattern recognition. It is a screener first and a charting app second, which suits people who want a quick list. See Trade Ideas vs Finviz.
TC2000: when you want classic desktop charting
An alert marked on a Trade Ideas chart.
TC2000 lists plans at $24.99, $49.99 and $99.99 a month. The middle and top tiers add real-time scanning and the EasyScan wizard. Real-time US stock data comes from Nasdaq Basic. See Trade Ideas vs TC2000.
Daily picks vs live alerts: what changes in practice
Settings
This is the biggest difference between ChartingLens and Trade Ideas, so it is worth a minute. A daily pick list is a batch: the AI looks at its universe, ranks names, and posts a set. You read it, check the charts, and decide. That works fine for swing trades where a few hours do not matter.
A Trade Ideas chart with live alerts.Chart pattern alerts streaming in Trade Ideas.
Live alerts work the other way. Nothing is posted in advance. When a stock does the thing you care about, like crossing above resistance on heavy volume, the alert shows up right then. For day trading, the difference between seeing a breakout as it happens and reading about it later is often the whole trade.
Key point
Neither is better in every case. If you trade a few times a week and like a short list to research, daily picks are easier to live with. If you trade the open or small caps, you want alerts.
Cost over a year
The AI Assistant building a scan.
On the list prices we checked: ChartingLens Premium is $149 a year and Pro is $299 a year. TradingView Premium was listed at a $29.95 monthly special. Finviz Elite is $299.50 a year. TC2000 runs $24.99 to $99.99 a month. Trade Ideas is $1,068 a year for TI Standard and $2,136 a year for TI Premium.
Trade Ideas is clearly the priciest here. What the extra buys is market-wide real-time scanning, Holly AI Signals with dated entries and stops, and OddsMaker testing across every stock. If those do not matter to how you trade, one of the cheaper tools will serve you better, and we would rather you know that up front.
What carries over if you switch
Watchlists: most tools import a plain symbol list, so export yours first.
Indicators: ChartingLens converts Pine Script and ThinkScript in; TradingView runs Pine Script natively. Trade Ideas uses filters and the Formula Editor instead of chart scripts.
Habits: if you used the ChartingLens AI to ask for setups, the AI Assistant in Trade Ideas does a similar job for building scans in plain English.
Alerts: chart-level alerts do not transfer anywhere. In Trade Ideas you rebuild them as alert windows that cover every stock instead of one chart.
Which one to pick
You want live alerts across every US stock: Trade Ideas.
You want more chart power and community scripts: TradingView.
You want automated trendlines and chart backtests: TrendSpider.
You want a fast, simple screener: Finviz Elite.
You want desktop charting with scans: TC2000.
You want cheap multi-asset charts with an AI chat: stay with ChartingLens.
It depends on why you are switching. For live alerts across all US stocks, Trade Ideas. For bigger charts and community scripts, TradingView. For chart automation, TrendSpider.
Is there a cheaper alternative to ChartingLens?
ChartingLens is already low-cost at $14.99 or $29.99 a month. Finviz has a free version and TradingView has a free Basic plan, both with limits.
Does Trade Ideas use AI credits like ChartingLens?
No. The AI Assistant is in every Trade Ideas plan without a daily credit count, and Holly AI Signals come with TI Premium.
Does Trade Ideas cover crypto?
No. Trade Ideas covers US stocks and options data. ChartingLens, TradingView and TrendSpider cover crypto.
What is better, Trade Ideas or ChartingLens?
Trade Ideas is the better fit when you want the whole US market scanned live, and ChartingLens makes sense when a daily list of chart setups is the main need. Many folks pair them rather than pick just one.
Why consider Trade Ideas over ChartingLens?
Key point
ChartingLens or Trade Ideas: here is what Trade Ideas puts on the table.
Trader tip
If you're leaving ChartingLens because one daily list isn't enough, Trade Ideas watches the whole US market live. Streaming Alerts (Scanner) and Top Lists (Screeners) read every US exchange, plus off-exchange trades and the NBBO, all session long. The Channel Bar has scans ready the first day, and the AI Assistant, in both plans, builds a new one when you describe it. On TI Premium, Holly AI Signals arrive as stocks qualify, and OddsMaker tests your idea on past data. You can try it free with an email and no card.
