CompareOptions data APIsUpdated September 2026
ORATS vs Databento
ORATS' SMV-smoothed surfaces (smvVol) are particularly valuable for cross-sectional work: saves me from reinventing the wheel on surface fitting across thousands of tickers.
ORATS sells institutional-grade US options data: greeks and implied volatility on every strike, plus volatility forecasts, daily since 2007.
Best for ORATS
- Greeks and implied volatility on every strike, live and since 2007
- An arbitrage-free volatility surface, forecasts, and earnings analytics
- Backtests without building your own pricing model
Databento sells raw market data, including the OPRA options feed, without greeks or implied volatility.
How far back the data goes
Databento's tick NBBO starts March 28, 2023; before that, its finest quote history is one-minute BBO. ORATS daily history since 2007 comes with every API plan.
ORATS
Daily chains with greeks and IV
Since 2007
Databento
Trades, bars, and one-minute BBO
Since Apr 2013
Tick consolidated NBBO
Since Mar 2023
Greeks and IV history
Not offered; Databento does not provide greeks or IV
Feature comparison
Databento details are from their public pages, read on September 29, 2026.
| Feature | ORATS | Databento |
|---|---|---|
| Greeks and implied volatility | ORATS Every strike, live and historical, from a smoothed surface | Databento No; not provided, per their options FAQ |
| Volatility surface | ORATS Arbitrage-free, per expiration and at constant maturities | Databento No |
| Volatility forecasts | ORATS Volatility and skew forecasts, with history | Databento No |
| Earnings analytics | ORATS Implied earnings move and earnings effect, with history | Databento No |
| Backtesting | ORATS One-minute backtester and 300M+ precomputed backtests, as API add-ons | Databento No; code examples only |
| AI agents | ORATS The ORATS CLI, with an MCP server, on every API plan | Databento No MCP server in their GitHub organization |
Pricing
Databento's live OPRA plan is $199 a month plus exchange fees, without greeks or implied volatility. ORATS's live plan is $299 and includes greeks and implied volatility on every strike and volatility forecasts, with no exchange fees for individual personal use; its 15-minute delayed plan is $199.
Databento prices as of September 29, 2026.
Databento passes OPRA's exchange fees through, plus a 2.9% card fee. With ORATS, individual personal use owes no exchange fees; commercial and professional users of live OPRA plans pay OPRA's fees and sign its subscriber agreement.
ORATS
- Delayed Data API
- 15-minute delayed, daily history since 2007, 20,000 requests a month
- $199/mo
- Live Data API
- Live data, 100,000 requests a month
- $299/mo
- Live Intraday API
- One-minute history since August 2020, 1,000,000 requests a month
- $599/mo
- All-In API
- Live Intraday plus the four Tools APIs
- $899/mo
Databento
- Signup credit
- For history or a first month of a plan; expires after six months
- $125
- OPRA history
- Usage-based, metered on uncompressed size
- from $0.04/GB
- Standard plan
- Per dataset; live OPRA data, 13+ years of bars and statistics, and the last 12 months of trades and quotes
- $199/mo
- OPRA exchange fees
- $1.25 a device for personal use; from $2,000 a firm for commercial use
- Passed through
Common questions
Does Databento provide options greeks?
No. Databento's options FAQ says it does not provide pre-calculated implied volatility or greeks, because those values depend on a model's parameters and inputs, and that it publishes tutorials and code samples instead. A request for a greeks schema is on its public roadmap. ORATS provides greeks, implied volatility, and theoretical values on every strike, live and back to 2007.
Can I compute my own greeks from Databento data?
Yes, and Databento intends that workflow. Besides the pricing formula, you need a forward that reconciles calls and puts, dividend and borrow assumptions, a usable mid when the bid-ask spread is wide, and arbitrage checks across strikes and expirations, applied the same way to every year. Databento's own implied volatility example uses Black-76 on CME futures options, not OPRA data.
How far back does Databento's options history go?
To April 1, 2013 for trades, bars, daily statistics, and one-minute consolidated BBO, and to March 28, 2023 for tick-level NBBO. Databento's docs say its data before March 28, 2023 came from subsampled data rather than packet captures, so those years have no tick NBBO and their statistics carry only aggregated open interest. ORATS daily chains with greeks start in 2007.
How much does Databento options data cost?
History is usage-based, from $0.04 a gigabyte for OPRA, metered on uncompressed size. Live OPRA data needs a plan, from $199 a month for Standard, which also includes 13+ years of bars and statistics and the last 12 months of trades and quotes. OPRA exchange fees are passed through without markup, plus a 2.9% card fee, from $1.25 a device for personal use; commercial use starts at $2,000 a firm. Signup includes $125 in credits. ORATS plans are flat monthly prices from $199, with greeks and implied volatility included, and individual personal use owes no exchange fees.
Where do these facts come from?
Databento details come from their public pages, read on September 29, 2026, and may have changed since. If something here is out of date, email support@orats.com and we will correct it. Databento product names and trademarks belong to their owners.
- Databento options page (no greeks or IV)
- Databento pricing
- Databento docs: OPRA Pillar dataset
- Databento catalog: OPRA.PILLAR
- Databento blog: OPRA improvements
- Databento blog: Introducing new OPRA pricing plans
- Databento docs: plans and live data
- Databento docs: estimating implied volatility (Black-76 on CME options)
- Databento public roadmap: calculated options greeks schema
- Databento GitHub organization (no MCP server)
- ORATS Data API pricing
- ORATS API documentation
