By Daniel Mirkin · Updated · Competitor prices checked
ChartingLens is a low-cost charting app with an AI chat, research data and a daily board of 25 stock picks. Its blog also writes about Trade Ideas often, and several of those statements are out of date or wrong. Here are the facts, dated October 7, 2026, followed by the real difference between the two: one list a day from one setup, or events across the whole U.S. market while it trades.
Free account, just an email. No card. Live access for a limited time.
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
Real Stock Race replay, recorded.
The short answer
Pick ChartingLens if you swing trade from one list a day, want charts for crypto, forex and metals next to stocks, and value insider, Congress and hedge fund data at a low monthly price.
Pick Trade Ideas if you trade U.S. stocks while the market is open and want every event you care about the moment it prints, your own setups tested in OddsMaker, and Holly AI Signals with an entry and a stop to manage risk.
Two ways to build a scan. Describe it and the AI Assistant sets it up, or click it together from 308 alerts and 249 filters with no code. A filter you can't find can be written in the Formula Editor. On top of that, TI Premium adds OddsMaker, which replays your filter over past events, Holly's daily signals with entry and stop levels, and Money Machine to automate the orders.
Starting out, and after the premium experience? Go with Trade Ideas. Open a ready-made channel on the Channel Bar with no configuration, ask the AI Assistant for a scan in your own words, and learn next to other traders in the free Trading Room. See Trade Ideas for beginners.
On price, TI Standard is $127 a month or $1,068 a year, and TI Premium is $254 a month or $2,136 a year. ChartingLens Premium is $14.99 a month and Pro is $29.99.
Trade Ideas publishes this page and makes one of the two tools.
Setting the record straight
What ChartingLens says about Trade Ideas, checked
ChartingLens mentions Trade Ideas across many of its blog posts. On October 7, 2026, its pages gave our price three different ways, said we have no AI assistant and no free option, and described Holly as a morning list. None of that matches Trade Ideas today. Each statement below is quoted from a ChartingLens page we read that day, next to the fact.
What ChartingLens publishes
Where it says it
What is accurate (Oct 7, 2026)
Trade Ideas costs "$118" a month, or "$84" (Standard) and "$167" (Premium), or "about $89 to $178"
Trade Ideas AI article; best AI trading tools and best AI stock screener roundups; best stock scanners and AI trading signals guides
TI Standard is $127/mo or $1,068/yr; TI Premium is $254/mo or $2,136/yr. $89 and $178 are the annual prices per month, which those pages do not say.
"no conversational AI assistant"; "doesn't include AI assistants"
Best AI stock screener and best AI trading tools roundups
The AI Assistant is in every TI Pro plan. It builds Alert and Top List (Screener) windows from plain English and gives a market readout.
"Standard plan is $84/mo for AI scanning"
Best AI trading tools roundup
Holly AI Signals are a TI Premium feature. TI Standard has Streaming Alerts (Scanner), Top Lists, the AI Assistant and paper trading.
"There is no free tier"
Best free AI trading tools roundup
A free account opens the Trade Ideas web dashboards in a browser.
Holly presents "a curated set of trade ideas" each morning, "before the market opens"
Trade Ideas AI article; best free AI trading tools roundup
Holly AI Signals fire live during the session, each with an entry and a stop to manage risk (TI Premium). The overnight work is choosing strategies.
Mac use not addressed
Its roundups describe Trade Ideas as a desktop scanner
TI Pro runs on Windows, and on a Mac through Parallels. The browser-based Web Dashboard needs no download.
Competitor prices and features checked October 12, 2026.
Credit where it is due: ChartingLens's own best stock scanners 2026 guide ranks Trade Ideas second and labels it “Best Real-Time Streaming Scanner,” and its AI trading signals guide says Holly “streams entries with stops in real time during the day.” Those two lines describe Trade Ideas correctly. The price figures and the “no assistant” line on its other pages do not.
Trade Ideas charts, recorded.
The real difference
A daily list, or the live market
Settings
ChartingLens explains its signal engine in its AI trading signals guide. Every trading day it scans more than 2,000 U.S. stocks for one momentum setup, ADX turning up while MACD is positive, and publishes 25 picks with a fixed plan: a 10 percent target, a 5 percent stop and a 28-day maximum hold. That is a finished answer delivered once a day, and it suits a swing trader who checks in after the close.
Key point
Trade Ideas works while the market trades. Streaming Alerts can fire on every trade, across U.S. stocks, for whatever events you pick: a new high, a volume spike, a halt or a break of the opening range. There are opening range breakout and breakdown alerts at 1, 2, 5, 10, 15, 30 and 60 minutes, such as the 5 minute opening range breakout and the 15 minute opening range breakdown. The Top List (Screener) re-ranks the stocks that meet your filters every 15 seconds.
Our help documents all 308 alerts and 249 filters. Any alert can be combined with any filters, each with a min and max, and 191 alerts have their own setting, such as the minimum ratio over normal volume on a 1-minute volume spike. With one alert and two filters alone there are 9,571,560 pairings, so the scans you can build are effectively unlimited.
Key point
So the choice is about coverage. A daily board shows what one rule found yesterday. Streaming Alerts show any setup you define, on any U.S. stock that meets it, at the moment it happens, from 308 alerts and 249 filters you combine yourself.
AI signals
How Holly AI Signals arrive
This is what a working TI Pro screen looks like.
Holly AI Signals start from a bank of strategies rather than a single rule. Overnight, Holly backtests that bank on market history and reselects the strategies that qualify for the next day. During the session, a signal fires when a selected strategy's conditions are met, and it gives you the symbol, an entry and a stop to manage risk. Holly AI Signals come with TI Premium.
Key point
The AI Assistant is a separate tool, included in every TI Pro plan. Describe a scan in plain English and it builds the live Alert window or Top List (Screener); ask what the market is doing and it gives you a readout.
TI Pro toolbar latency readout.
Testing
Test your own setup in OddsMaker
ChartingLens tests indicator rules with a plain-English AI backtester. OddsMaker tests the event itself: any alert you build becomes the trigger, and OddsMaker replays each time it fired over recent sessions with your entry, exit and stop rules, then reports how those trades played out. OddsMaker is part of TI Premium.
Formula
ChartingLens documents that its price, indicator, trendline and strategy alerts are checked server-side every 5 minutes, and its AI Strategy Backtester can turn a tested preset into a live alert (both checked Oct 7, 2026). Trade Ideas adds steps around the test: measurements you define in the Formula Editor, Optimization tab breakdowns by time of day, price and symbol, and a nightly Holly run that backtests and re-selects strategies before the next session, with OddsMaker and Holly AI Signals on TI Premium. The Data Difference loop shows the full order.
Know its limits before you rely on it. OddsMaker works on one-minute bars, not ticks, and does not model the bid-ask spread. It uses recent regular-session days only, so it never covers the current day, pre-market or after-hours. Past results, including backtests, don't guarantee future results.
Fair credit
Where ChartingLens fits
Key point
ChartingLens costs a fraction of Trade Ideas and has a free plan. It bundles research you will not find in Trade Ideas, including insider Form 4 filings, Congress trades and hedge fund holdings, along with chart courses, bar replay practice and charts for crypto, forex and spot metals.
Swing traders who look once a day and want a short board of momentum candidates with fixed exits.
Multi-asset chartists who want stocks, crypto, forex and metals in one browser tab.
Research-first investors who lean on insider, Congress and fund-holdings data.
Side by side
Trade Ideas vs ChartingLens, side by side
Feature
ChartingLens (from its own site)
Trade Ideas
How ideas arrive
25 AI buy signals a day from a scan of 2,000+ U.S. stocks, on a watching, active and resolved board.
Streaming Alerts as events happen, all session, across U.S. stocks; Top Lists (Screeners) re-rank every 15 seconds.
What decides a pick
One published momentum setup: ADX turning up while MACD is positive.
Alerts and filters you choose from 308 and 249, or a Holly strategy that passed its overnight test.
Exits on a signal
Fixed: +10% target, 5% stop, 28-day maximum hold.
Each Holly AI Signal carries an entry and a stop to manage risk (TI Premium).
Opening range
Presets for gappers and pre-market movers in its screener.
Opening range breakout and breakdown alerts at 1, 2, 5, 10, 15, 30 and 60 minutes.
AI assistant
AI chat that gives a verdict on a chart, builds indicators and converts Pine Script and ThinkScript.
AI Assistant in every TI Pro plan (not in the Web Dashboard).
Backtesting
Plain-English AI backtester; AI credits per day by plan.
OddsMaker tests any alert you build as the event (TI Premium).
Research data
Insider Form 4 filings, Congress trades and hedge fund holdings.
Stock details and news; not a filings research tool.
Markets
Stocks, crypto, forex and spot metals.
U.S. stocks, plus an Unusual Options Activity channel.
Placing trades
Bar Replay for paper practice; it describes itself as broker-agnostic.
Brokerage Plus, paper trading and Money Machine (TI Premium) in TI Pro.
Runs on
Web browser, with cloud sync across devices.
TI Pro on Windows or, via Parallels, a Mac; the Web Dashboard runs in any browser with no download.
List price
Free; Premium $14.99/mo or $149/yr; Pro $29.99/mo or $299/yr.
TI Standard $127/mo or $1,068/yr; TI Premium $254/mo or $2,136/yr.
Competitor prices and features checked October 12, 2026.
ChartingLens details checked on its pricing page and blog on Oct 7, 2026.
A real Top List built from filters.
What is better, Trade Ideas or ChartingLens?
For the hunt itself, finding stocks in play right now, Trade Ideas is often the better tool; ChartingLens is there for a daily list of chart setups. Plenty keep both bookmarked.
Why consider Trade Ideas over ChartingLens?
For the ChartingLens or Trade Ideas call, these points hold up.
Trader tip
ChartingLens hands you a daily list built from one setup. Trade Ideas watches the live market for the whole session instead. Streaming Alerts (Scanner) report events on every trade, instantly, from every US exchange plus off-exchange trades and the NBBO, and Top Lists (Screeners) re-rank every 15 seconds, so a stock that starts moving at 11 a.m. still shows up. You can type what you want to the AI Assistant in either plan and get a working window. On TI Premium, Holly AI Signals arrive during the day, and OddsMaker lets you test your own setup first. Try it with a free account, no card.
Channel Bar scans, ready to load.
Same company since 2002.
Pricing
What each one costs
Prices checked October 2026
ChartingLens: Free ($0, no card, with daily quotas). Premium, $14.99 a month or $149 a year. Pro, $29.99 a month or $299 a year. Its pricing page says both paid tiers unlock the same toolkit and that Pro removes the quota caps.
Key point
Trade Ideas: TI Standard costs $127 billed monthly or $1,068 billed yearly, which is about $89 a month. TI Premium costs $254 billed monthly or $2,136 billed yearly, about $178 a month. TI Standard covers real-time data, Streaming Alerts, Top Lists (Screeners), 308 alerts and 249 filters, paper trading, in-app trading and the AI Assistant. TI Premium adds Holly AI Signals, OddsMaker backtesting and Money Machine.
Next to ChartingLens Premium at $14.99 a month and Pro at $29.99, the difference pays for a custom database built in-house and improved for more than two decades, Streaming Alerts that can fire on every trade, Top Lists that refresh every 15 seconds, and 308 alerts with 249 filters to combine.
Partly. Both give you stock ideas with levels, an AI you can ask questions, and backtesting. ChartingLens posts 25 momentum picks a day for swing trades and adds charts for crypto, forex and metals. Trade Ideas watches U.S. stocks all session with Streaming Alerts and Top Lists (Screeners), and adds Holly AI Signals, OddsMaker and Money Machine on TI Premium. If you trade during the session, they do different jobs.
What does Trade Ideas cost compared with ChartingLens?
On October 7, 2026, TI Standard was $127 a month or $1,068 a year, and TI Premium was $254 a month or $2,136 a year. The $89 and $178 figures ChartingLens quotes are those annual prices divided by twelve; its $84, $167 and $118 figures are not current Trade Ideas prices. ChartingLens lists Premium at $14.99 a month or $149 a year and Pro at $29.99 a month or $299 a year, plus a free plan.
Does Trade Ideas have an AI assistant you can talk to?
Yes. The AI Assistant is in every TI Pro plan. You type what you want in plain English, and it builds a live Alert window or Top List for you; you can also ask it for a readout of the market. It runs in TI Pro, not in the Web Dashboard.
Does Holly send a list of trade ideas each morning?
No. Holly does its strategy work overnight, backtesting a bank of strategies and keeping the ones that qualify. The signals themselves fire live during the session, each with an entry and a stop to manage risk. Holly AI Signals come with TI Premium.
Is there a free way to try Trade Ideas?
Yes. A free Trade Ideas account opens the web dashboards in your browser, with nothing to install, so you can look at the market data before you pay for a plan.
Does Trade Ideas work on a Mac?
Yes. TI Pro is a Windows app that runs on a Mac through Parallels, and the browser-based Web Dashboard needs no download and gives you Top Lists, Races, TreeMaps, Market Pulse, charting with Picture in Picture, stock details and news, and the Unusual Options Activity channel. Streaming Alerts, the AI Assistant, Holly AI Signals and OddsMaker run in TI Pro.
Method
How we checked
Green bars for gainers, red names for the ones slipping.
Read on the day. Every ChartingLens statement on this page was read on chartinglens.com on October 7, 2026, and the quotes are copied as written.
Our own facts from our own pages. Trade Ideas prices came from trade-ideas.com/pricing the same day; feature details come from our product pages and help docs.
No results claims. We compare what each tool does, not trading results.
Key point
Sources (on chartinglens.com, listed as text per our linking policy for this page): /pricing, /blog/trade-ideas-ai, /blog/best-ai-trading-platforms-2026, /blog/best-ai-stock-screener, /blog/best-free-ai-trading-tools, /blog/best-stock-scanners-2026 and /blog/ai-trading-signals. ChartingLens is a trademark of its owner.
