There is a certain kind of cost that survives not because it must exist but because everyone is used to it. In trading technology, the standalone market-data contract is the canonical example. Platforms need prices; prices came from data vendors; therefore every firm signed a data contract — and kept paying it monthly, forever, as a law of nature. The contract came with its own negotiation, its own integration project, its own renewal cycle and its own failure mode: no feed, no platform.
eTrader's position is simple: a trading platform without live prices is not a product, so the prices come with the platform. A 70ms-updated data feed is included, free to use, from day one. This article covers what that actually means in practice — and, just as important, what it does not mean.
What "Included" Means, Concretely
When your firm goes live with eTrader, live market prices are already streaming — into the terminal your traders use on web, desktop and mobile, into the charts, and into your connected portals. There is no data vendor to select, no contract to negotiate, no redistribution terms to lawyer, no integration to build and no monthly data invoice to pay. The feed updates every 70 milliseconds, covers the multi-asset catalogue — forex, metals, indices, crypto — and is monitored and operated as part of the fully managed platform. The word "free" is precise here: the feed is included free to use within the platform price, which starts at $6,600/month for brokers and $3,300/month for prop firms plus a one-time setup fee ($3,300 for brokers, $1,650 for prop firms) and a $1.50 per-account fee.
What It Does Not Mean: Lock-In
The reflexive objection from experienced operators is the right one: "if the feed is bundled, am I captive to it?" No — and this is the design decision that makes the model credible. eTrader is source-agnostic: you can plug in your own data sources whenever you want, managed per instrument from the eTrader Broker dashboard. That per-instrument granularity matters. A firm with a strong institutional price source for FX majors can route those instruments to its own feed while the included feed carries metals, indices and crypto. A firm that starts on the included feed can migrate instrument by instrument as its liquidity relationships mature — no cliff-edge cutover, no renegotiation, no permission needed. The included feed is a floor under your operation, not a ceiling over it.
The best of both: launch with zero data procurement, then add your own sources per instrument as your firm grows. The included feed means you are never blocked; source-agnosticism means you are never trapped.
Why the Separate Contract Deserved to Die
Set aside the monthly fee and tally what the standalone data contract really cost a launching firm. Time: vendor evaluation and negotiation added weeks to a launch schedule — often the single slowest procurement in the stack. Integration: feeds had to be wired into the platform and kept healthy, implying technical staff a lean firm should not need. Fragility: the contract was a single point of commercial failure; a dispute or price rise held your entire product hostage. Misaligned scale: pricing structures built for institutions punished small firms hardest, precisely when they could least afford it. The full economics are dissected in market data feeds explained — the summary is that firms paid enterprise-shaped costs for a commodity input.
Where the Included Feed Flows
Because platform and feed are one system, the prices do more than paint charts:
- The terminal — real-time candles, quotes and one-tap order tickets on every device, streaming at 70ms.
- Live P&L and equity — computed currency-correct on live prices, shown to the trader and streamed to the CRM, as covered in live equity and P&L streaming.
- The prop rules engine — positions sync to the Prop Firm CRM every 500ms, so drawdown and risk rules evaluate against prices that are actually current.
- Your portals — client-facing dashboards and storefronts show live markets, not yesterday's closes.
In an assembled stack, each of those consumers is a separate integration against your data contract's redistribution terms. In the bundle, they are simply features that work on day one.
The Launch-Speed Dividend
Singuard's headline launch times — a prop firm ready to sell in 24 hours, a broker in 24 — are only possible because every traditionally slow procurement was either bundled or reduced to configuration. The data feed is the clearest case: an evaluation-and-negotiation phase that consumed weeks now consumes zero, because there is nothing to evaluate. The same logic runs through the whole Broker CRM and Prop Firm CRM bundles — platform, feed, payments, KYC tooling and website arrive as one wired-together box. When operators ask how the launch times are real, the honest answer is that nothing is compressed; the waiting was simply removed.
Questions Worth Asking Any Bundled-Feed Vendor
Healthy scepticism is warranted whenever something traditionally expensive becomes free, so put any vendor — including us — to the test. How fresh is the feed, in milliseconds? Can I bring my own sources, and at what granularity? Is the feed's health monitored as part of the managed service, or is it my problem? Is "free" bounded by hidden volume tiers? For eTrader: 70ms updates; yes, per instrument, anytime; monitored and operated by Singuard as part of the platform; and free to use means free to use. The feed is live in the terminal right now at etraderweb.com.
"Charging separately for market data always felt like charging for the steering wheel. We include the feed because a platform without prices isn't a platform."
— Alex Onta, Executive Director, eTrader & Prop Firm CRM
Key Takeaways
- eTrader includes a 70ms-updated, multi-asset data feed free to use — no contract, no integration, no monthly data bill.
- No lock-in: plug in your own sources anytime, managed per instrument, and migrate at whatever pace suits your liquidity relationships.
- The included feed powers the terminal, live P&L, portals and the 500ms rules engine as one system — integrations you never build.
- Deleting data procurement is a key reason firms launch in 24 hours instead of months.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is There Any Monthly Charge for the Included Feed?
No. The 70ms-updated feed is included free to use within the eTrader platform price — from $6,600/month for brokers and $3,300/month for prop firms plus a one-time setup fee ($3,300 for brokers, $1,650 for prop firms) and a $1.50 per-account fee — with no separate data-feed contract.
Can I Use My Own Feed for Some Instruments Only?
Yes. Sources are managed per instrument in the eTrader Broker dashboard, so you can mix the included feed and your own sources in any combination and change it whenever you like.
What If My Firm Already Has a Data Contract?
Keep it if it earns its cost — plug it into eTrader as your own source — or let it lapse and run on the included feed. Many firms use migration to eTrader as the natural moment to retire the standalone contract; see market data feeds explained for the cost comparison.