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A Trade Ideas chart with live alerts.
The quick answer
Most technical analysis software is built around one chart at a time. That is great once you know what to look at. The tools below split into two camps: chart-first tools, where you study a symbol, and scan-first tools, where the software finds symbols that already show the setup.
Trader tip
For pure charting, TradingView is the common pick. For automated chart analysis, TrendSpider. For finding stocks that are breaking out, crossing averages or forming patterns right now across the whole market, Trade Ideas, which is ours. Plenty of traders use one of each.
The list
OddsMaker results for a tested strategy.The Trade Ideas Web Dashboard.
1. TradingView
400+ built-in indicators, 100K+ community indicators, 110+ drawing tools, Pine Script and strategy backtesting, per its pricing page. Paid tiers are Essential, Plus, Premium and Ultimate; Premium was a $29.95 special on Oct 12. See Trade Ideas vs TradingView.
2. TrendSpider
Key point
Automated trendlines and Fibonacci, chart pattern recognition, 300+ indicators, multi-timeframe analysis and backtesting are listed on every plan. Plans differ by limits, like scan frequency and backtest depth. See Trade Ideas vs TrendSpider.
3. TC2000
$24.99, $49.99 and $99.99 a month. Charting, drawing tools and EasyScan, with Personal Criteria Formulas for writing your own conditions. See Trade Ideas vs TC2000.
$39.50 a month or $299.50 a year. A screener with technical filters, automatic pattern recognition on charts and up to 12 charts in a layout. See Trade Ideas vs Finviz.
6. ChartingLens
A browser charting app with 50+ indicators, 25+ drawing tools, auto pattern recognition on paid plans and an AI analyst. Free, $14.99 and $29.99. See Trade Ideas vs ChartingLens.
How we picked these six
We picked tools that technical traders actually use day to day and that list their features and prices on their own site. For each we looked at the depth of charting, whether you can scan for technical setups, backtesting, and cost. We make Trade Ideas, which is in the list and labeled as ours.
Best by trading style
Day trading: Trade Ideas for real-time setup alerts, paired with any chart you like.
Swing trading: TC2000 or TradingView for daily charts, with Trade Ideas daily filters like distance from the 20-day.
Chart automation: TrendSpider.
Quick screening: Finviz Elite.
Lowest cost: ChartingLens or TradingView's free plan.
Indicators that matter most
Most traders end up relying on a handful: moving averages, VWAP, RSI, ATR and volume. In Trade Ideas each has a live filter or alert: 20-day cross up, VWAP reclaim, Daily RSI, ATR and relative volume. Learn those well before adding more. A cluttered chart rarely makes better decisions.
Chart-first or scan-first?
Key point
If you already have a watchlist, a chart-first tool is enough. If you want to know which of thousands of stocks just crossed its 200-day average or broke resistance, you need a scanner that does the technical work for you. Filters like ADX, Daily RSI, Bollinger position and distance from the 50-day let you scan on indicators directly.
Side by side
Tool
Strength
Scans the market for setups?
List price checked
TradingView
Charts, community scripts, Pine Script
Yes, with auto-refresh every 10 sec or 1 min
Premium $29.95/mo special
TrendSpider
Automated trendlines, Fibs, patterns, backtests
Yes, frequency by plan
Regular entry plan $59 to $89/mo
TC2000
Desktop charts, EasyScan, formulas
Yes, on upper tiers
$24.99, $49.99, $99.99/mo
Trade Ideas
Technical events across every US stock as they happen
Yes, streaming on the trade
$127/mo or $1,068/yr
Finviz Elite
Fast screener with technical filters
Yes, 10-second refresh
$39.50/mo or $299.50/yr
ChartingLens
Low-cost charts with an AI analyst
Screener on paid plans
$0, $14.99, $29.99/mo
Each tool in more detail
TradingView. If you want the deepest chart, start here. The plan table lists 17 to 21 chart types depending on tier, intraday Renko and Point & Figure on upper plans, and second-based intervals at the top. Pine Script means you can write almost any indicator, and the community has already written most of them. Where it is thinner is live, market-wide alerts: its watchlist alerts are capped by plan, from 2 on Premium to 15 on Ultimate.
Idea Surfing cycling through charts.Chart pattern alerts streaming in Trade Ideas.
TrendSpider. TrendSpider tries to do the drawing for you. Automated trendlines, automated Fibonacci, machine vision and pattern recognition all come on every plan, and the plans differ by limits such as scanning frequency, from 2-hour scanning on the entry plan to 1-minute on the upper ones. Good for traders who want consistent lines without drawing by hand.
Formula
TC2000. A long-running desktop charting package. EasyScan steps you through building a condition, and Personal Criteria Formulas let you write your own. Real-time US stocks come through Nasdaq Basic, with consolidated tape as a $14.99 add-on per its pricing page.
Trade Ideas. Trade Ideas approaches technical analysis from the other end. Rather than drawing on a chart and waiting, you tell it the technical event you care about, like a 5-minute MACD cross above signal or an 8/20 SMA crossover, and it watches every US stock for it. Charts show % change for the visible range and update as you zoom, and PiP lets you see a longer range inside the intraday chart.
Key point
Finviz Elite. The quickest way to filter a list of stocks by technical conditions in a browser. Elite adds real-time data, intraday charts and a 10-second refresh.
ChartingLens. Real-time data on stocks, crypto, forex and metals on every tier, 50+ indicators, and on paid plans an AI that will analyze a chart screenshot. The low price is the main reason people pick it.
A technical scan you can copy in Trade Ideas
Here is a simple pullback-in-an-uptrend scan built entirely from standard filters and alerts. It shows how chart rules turn into a market-wide scan.
Test it in OddsMaker (TI Premium) with a stop and a timed exit before trading it.
How to choose
Start with your timeframe. Intraday traders need live data and fast alerts. Weekly traders can live with end-of-day data.
Decide who does the finding. If you already have a watchlist, buy the chart you like most. If you need ideas, buy a scanner.
Count your indicators. TradingView's plans cap indicators per chart, from 2 on Basic to 50 on Ultimate. Make sure your setup fits.
Check the data source. Several tools use Nasdaq Basic for US stocks by default. Trade Ideas explains its feed on the Data Difference page.
Pair tools if you need to. Plenty of traders run Trade Ideas to find the stock and TradingView or TC2000 to study it.
Common technical analysis traps
Adding indicators until every chart looks like a signal.
Trusting a single timeframe. Check the higher one; PiP in Trade Ideas puts it inside the chart you are already on.
Backtesting on one symbol and assuming it works on all of them.
Ignoring volume. A breakout on light volume often fails; filters like Volume Today (%) help.
Drawing lines after the fact to fit what already happened.
What the yearly bill looks like
Using the prices we read: TC2000's lowest tier is about $300 a year paid monthly. Finviz Elite is $299.50 a year. ChartingLens Premium is $149. TradingView and TrendSpider move with promotions. Trade Ideas TI Standard is $1,068 a year. If all you need is a chart, the cheaper tools make sense. Trade Ideas costs more because it is doing the watching for you across the whole market.
Who each tool suits best
TradingView: chart lovers, script writers, people who like sharing ideas with a community, and anyone trading several asset classes.
TrendSpider: traders who want the software to draw consistent trendlines and Fibs, and who like testing chart strategies.
TC2000: people who want a fast desktop chart and a scan wizard, and who may already have a brokerage account there for the discount it lists.
Trade Ideas: active US stock traders who want to be told when a technical event happens anywhere in the market, and who want to test those events across all stocks.
Finviz Elite: anyone who wants a quick daily list sorted by technical conditions, without a heavy install.
ChartingLens: beginners and budget traders who want charts plus an AI to ask questions.
Moving averages, VWAP and RSI as live scans
Most charting tools let you add a moving average and look at it. Turning that into a scan is where tools differ. In Trade Ideas every common average has both a filter, which measures distance, and an alert, which fires on the cross.
Key point
For daily averages, the 20-day, 50-day and 200-day distance filters let you find stocks stretched far from an average or sitting right on it. For crosses, the 20-day, 50-day and 200-day cross-up alerts fire the moment price crosses, and the 200-day cross down covers the other side. Intraday averages on 2, 5, 15 and 60-minute charts have their own filters, like change from 20-period SMA (5 min).
VWAP works the same way: Crossed Above VWAP and Crossed Below VWAP alert on the cross, and multi-day anchored VWAP filters like 1-week VWAP measure distance. RSI is a filter on the daily chart, Daily RSI, that you can combine with any alert.
Questions to ask in a free look
Can I put my three favorite indicators on one chart without hitting a plan limit?
Can I scan for those same indicators across all stocks, or only chart them?
How fresh is the scan? Every few minutes, every few seconds, or on each trade?
Does it show premarket and after-hours data?
Can I test a rule before I trade it, and does the test cover many stocks?
How many alerts can I keep running at once?
Support, resistance and Fibonacci as alerts
Drawing support and resistance is the most common thing technical traders do, and the most subjective. Two people will rarely draw the same line. Software helps by being consistent. TrendSpider draws trendlines automatically. Trade Ideas works from levels it calculates on every stock, and alerts when price crosses them.
Fibonacci gets its own category: buy signals at the 38%, 50%, 62% and 79% retracements, and matching sell signals. They are a fair way to find pullbacks in stocks that have already made a strong move, without drawing a single line.
A week-one plan for a new technical trader
Pick one chart tool you enjoy looking at. Learn its drawing tools and keep the chart clean.
Choose two indicators, not ten. A moving average and volume is a fine start.
Write your setup in one sentence, like: stock above its 50-day pulls back to VWAP and reclaims it.
Turn that sentence into a scan, so the software finds the stocks for you.
Paper trade every alert for a week and log what happened.
Change one thing at a time, then test again.
Volume, the indicator people skip
Price tells you where a stock went. Volume tells you how many people agreed. A breakout through resistance on twice the normal volume is a very different event from the same breakout on half the normal volume, even though the candles may look alike.
Every tool here shows a volume bar under the chart. Fewer let you scan on volume in a useful way. Relative volume, which compares today with the stock's normal pace at this time of day, is the measure most day traders lean on. Trade Ideas has it both as an alert, High Relative Volume, and as a filter, Volume Today (%). Float Turnover goes one step further for small caps by comparing volume with the shares available to trade.
If you take one habit from this page, make it this: before acting on any technical signal, look at volume. Most of the false signals we see come from moves with nobody behind them.
An alert marked on a Trade Ideas chart.What is the best technical analysis software?
For charting, TradingView. For automated chart analysis, TrendSpider. For scanning every US stock for technical setups in real time, Trade Ideas.
Is there free technical analysis software?
TradingView has a free Basic plan, Finviz has a free version and ChartingLens has a $0 plan, each with limits.
Can I scan for technical indicators across all stocks?
Yes. Trade Ideas has filters for RSI, ADX, ATR, Bollinger Bands and moving averages that work across every US stock, plus alerts for crosses and breakouts.
How much does Trade Ideas cost?
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).
Which technical analysis software has the most indicators?
TradingView lists 400+ built-in and 100K+ community indicators. TrendSpider lists 300+.
Can I use Trade Ideas with TradingView?
Yes. Many traders find stocks with Trade Ideas alerts and chart them in TradingView.
