The sources behind Alpaca's feeds, the CT Plan transition due in 2027, how competitors license data, a month-end calendar, and a working desk for usage reporting, entitlements and audits.
Keep every feed Alpaca redistributes licensed, reported and auditable: agreements and renewals, monthly usage reports per source, partner redistribution evidence, and the switch that turns a feed on or off.
CTA and UTP become one CT Plan on 1 April 2027. Alpaca and every partner that redistributes SIP data need new DataCT agreements by 1 March 2027. That falls inside a new hire's first four months.
A working desk for the monthly cycle: counts from raw entitlement logs, pro and non-pro settled, partner evidence checked, reports by source with due dates, CT Plan fee preview and an audit re-run.
Alpaca sells data two ways: plans for Trading API users and plans that Broker API partners pass to their own customers. The second route is redistribution, and it is where licensing work concentrates.
| Plan or feed | What is public | Licensing consequence |
|---|---|---|
| Basic (free) | Real-time IEX only; options on the indicative feed. | IEX's 1 Nov 2026 schedule sets a $1,000 monthly real-time TOPS access fee, so the free plan now has a direct cost line. |
| Algo Trader Plus ($99/month) | Real-time SIP (CTA and UTP) and OPRA options. | Every subscriber is reported monthly, professional or non-professional, per tape and to OPRA. |
| Broker API standard plans | "Real time IEX or 15 mins delayed SIP"; options add $1,000/month. | Delayed SIP redistribution carries a $250 UTP fee today and becomes fee free under the CT Plan, but still needs a licence. |
Overnight (boats, overnight) | Blue Ocean ATS feed and a derived Alpaca overnight feed. | Derived data is its own licensing category; BOATS publishes no fee schedule, so terms sit in the agreement. |
OTC (otc) | Broker partners only, FINRA tape O. | A separate source and agreement to track. |
| Nasdaq Data, March 2026 | Named "preferred market data provider" for Broker API. Product not named. | A new upstream agreement, new reporting and new partner entitlements to administer. |
The build-out is visible on the job board: a Product Manager for Market Data posting that mentions "multiple new exchange onboardings in flight", a Market Data marketing role opened the same day as this one, and an engineering team on stocks, options, crypto and FX.
Each customer feed draws on one or more licensed sources. Each source has its own fees, report and audit rules. Public schedules, read 12 Nov 2026.
| Source | Administrator | Pro / user / month | Non-pro | Report due | Audit lookback |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CTA Tape A | NYSE for the CTA Plan | $45 to $19 by device band | $1.00 | Monthly | Not stated in the schedule |
| CTA Tape B | NYSE for the CTA Plan | $23 | $1.00 | Monthly | Not stated in the schedule |
| UTP Tape C | Nasdaq for the UTP Plan | $24 | $1.00 | Within 15 days of month end | 3 years |
| OPRA | OPRA LLC | $31.50 per device | $1.25 down to $0.60, tiered | At least monthly | Records kept 3 years |
| IEX TOPS | IEX Exchange | No per-user fee | None | Monthly report for the new-subscriber rebate | Per agreement |
| Nasdaq Basic | Nasdaq | $28.50 (2026) | $1.00 | Monthly summary and detail | 3 years plus interest |
| Blue Ocean ATS | Blue Ocean | Not public | Not public | Per agreement | Per agreement |
Data vendors that sell to fintechs all run the same licensing machinery. How well they run it shows up as onboarding speed and as surprises on a customer's bill.
| Provider | How it handles licensing | Gap Alpaca can use |
|---|---|---|
| Massive (formerly Polygon.io) | Individual and business plans; non-pro limited to natural persons; business plans for redistribution; on the OPRA and IEX vendor lists. | Data only. A partner still needs a broker for execution and a second contract. |
| Databento | Venue fees passed through and billed monthly in advance; redistribution rights by dataset; online non-pro attestation; carries BOATS. | Clear pricing and paperwork, aimed at quant and institutional buyers. |
| Intrinio, Xignite | Publish exchange-licensing guides for clients; on the OPRA vendor list. | Data vendors with no brokerage behind them. |
| Tradier, Interactive Brokers | Brokers that also distribute data; on the OPRA vendor list. | Closest model to Alpaca, with less of an API-first partner business. |
| IEX Cloud | Shut down 31 Aug 2024 on three months' notice. | Fintechs remember it. Licensing continuity is part of what a partner buys. |
Alpaca's own line in its Market Data PM posting: "Nobody else is both the execution layer and the data layer." The ops job is to make that one contract easy to license and safe to audit.
On 1 April 2027 the CTA Plan (Tapes A and B) and the UTP Plan (Tape C) become one Consolidated Tape Plan administered by DataCT. The SEC approved its fee schedule on 26 June 2026.
Firms without them lose SIP data at go-live.
April usage. The 15th is a Saturday, so it rolls to Monday.
| Item | CTA and UTP today | CT Plan from 1 Apr 2027 | Work for Alpaca |
|---|---|---|---|
| Professional fee | Tape A $45 to $19 by band; B $23; C $24 | Tape A flat $26; B $23; C $24 per individual | Re-price pro plans sold to partners. |
| Non-professional fee | $1.00 per tape | $0.90 for the first 2,000, falling by bracket to $0.25 above 1 million | Retail scale now lowers the unit cost; model it per tape. |
| Non-pro test | Registration based | Usage based, one attestation across tapes, each person counted once | Rebuild the partner attestation flow. |
| Redistributor fee | $1,000 per tape | $1,155 per tape | Budget line. |
| Delayed redistribution | $250 per month at UTP | Not fee liable, still licensed | Keep delayed-only partners on file. |
| Non-display categories | CTA Category 3 covers trading platforms | Category 1 covers electronic trading systems | Remap before the first report to avoid a silent mis-report. |
| Reporting | UTP NORA portal, NYSE vendor reporting, separate codes | One administrator, one portal, 15th after month end | New report codes and a reconciled April baseline. |
The demo carries a CT Plan readiness board for partners and prices every month under both schedules side by side.
| Duty | How I would run it | In the demo |
|---|---|---|
| New licences and renewals | One register with term, renewal, notice period and the act-by date; reviews scheduled 45 days before each notice date. | Licence register |
| Track terms so nothing lapses | Obligations listed per agreement (reports, attestations, display statements, record keeping) with owners. | Licence register |
| Monthly usage reporting | Counts from the entitlement system, deduplicated per person per source, reconciled to last month, filed before the due date. | Month-end run |
| Partner redistribution licensing | Evidence per partner per source with expiry; chasers before expiry; CT Plan agreements tracked separately. | Entitlements |
| Enable and disable feeds | A feed goes on only with valid evidence and a contract line; every change logged with a reason. | Entitlements |
| Audits and inquiries | Re-run past months from raw logs, price any difference, send the evidence pack with the root cause and the fix. | Audit |
| Improve and automate | Scripted extracts and checks in SQL or Python; one source of truth for partner evidence. | Whole desk |
| Customer support on feeds and licensing | Template answers for pro status, delayed data, display statements and non-display declarations. | Draft chasers |
Dates are US Eastern calendar days. A weekend deadline rolls to the next business day.
| When | Task | Rule |
|---|---|---|
| Day 1 to 3 | Pull the entitlement extract; run duplicate, status and evidence checks; send partner chasers. | Missing non-pro questionnaires count as professional until they arrive. |
| Day 4 to 8 | Resolve exceptions; explain swings over 25%; review non-display declarations. | Misclassification is back-billed (OPRA: to the approval date). |
| By day 15 | File UTP and, from April 2027, CT Plan reports; file OPRA and Nasdaq reports. | UTP and CT Plan: 15 days after month end. |
| Within 2 months | Corrections to filed reports. | Credits only within two months. |
| Always | Keep entitlement files, agreements and attestations. | Three-year lookback at UTP, Nasdaq and the CT Plan. |
A few places where public pages differ. Small items, and the kind of drift that creates support tickets.
| Item | One page says | Another says |
|---|---|---|
| IEX market share | Alpaca docs: IEX is "~2.5% of the market volume". | IEX's own site: 8.6% of US equities volume (Q3 2026). |
| Algo Trader Plus API limit | alpaca.markets/data plan table: "Unlimited". | The same page's header and the docs: 10,000 calls per minute. |
| Historical depth | Data page: "7+ years". | Docs: since 2016. |
| IEX cost | Free plan presented as the no-subscription feed. | IEX's 1 Nov 2026 schedule adds a $1,000 monthly real-time access fee and a 75% rebate on new external subscribers. |
Role: Operations Analyst, Market Data, Alpaca (public job posting, 2026).
Alpaca's docs, data page, blog and job board; fee schedules and policies from the CTA Plan, UTP Plan, DataCT, OPRA, IEX, Nasdaq and Cboe; vendor pages from Massive, Databento, Intrinio and Xignite. Read 12 Nov 2026.
The demo is my own build for this application. Its partners, usage logs and licence dates are fictional. Fee figures are public headline rates; agreements can differ.
Demo: alpaca-md-ops.pages.dev · CT Plan transition · CT Plan fee schedule · CTA charges · UTP data policies · OPRA fees · IEX fee schedule · Nasdaq price list · Alpaca market data docs · Nasdaq Data announcement
Independent homework for the Alpaca Operations Analyst role · 2026 · edwardtay.com