Key Takeaways
You’re looking for reliable financial market data but tired of dealing with complex APIs and expensive enterprise solutions. That’s where Polygon.io comes in. This powerful financial data platform has become a game-changer for developers and traders who need real-time and historical market information without breaking the bank.
Whether you’re building a trading app or conducting market analysis you’ll find Polygon.io’s comprehensive data coverage spans stocks crypto and forex markets. Its RESTful APIs and WebSocket connections deliver lightning-fast data feeds that keep your applications running smoothly. From individual investors to fintech startups this platform has democratized access to institutional-grade market data that was once reserved for Wall Street giants.
What Is Polygon.io?
Polygon.io serves as a financial data infrastructure that connects you directly to comprehensive market information through simple API calls. The platform aggregates data from multiple exchanges and market sources, delivering real-time and historical data for stocks, options, cryptocurrencies, and forex markets.
At its core, Polygon.io functions as a data pipeline between financial markets and your applications. You send HTTP requests to their endpoints, and you receive clean, normalized data in JSON format. The service handles the complexity of connecting to various exchanges, standardizing different data formats, and maintaining reliable uptime so you can focus on building your trading strategies or financial applications.
The platform distinguishes itself through its approach to data accessibility. While traditional financial data providers often require lengthy contracts and enterprise-level commitments, Polygon.io operates on a straightforward subscription model. You can start with basic access for $29 per month and scale up as your data needs grow. This pricing structure particularly benefits independent developers and small teams who previously couldn’t afford institutional-grade market data.
Polygon.io’s architecture relies on RESTful APIs for historical data queries and WebSocket connections for real-time streaming. When you request historical stock prices, the API returns data points including open, high, low, close prices, and volume information. For real-time needs, WebSocket feeds push updates directly to your application as trades occur, typically with latencies under 50 milliseconds.
The platform covers over 16,000 US equities, 80,000+ options contracts, major cryptocurrency pairs across multiple exchanges, and forex data for 1,000+ currency pairs. Each data type comes with specific endpoints designed for different use cases – from simple price checks to complex aggregations for technical analysis.
Key Features and Capabilities
Polygon.io packs powerful features that transform raw market data into actionable insights for your applications. The platform’s capabilities extend far beyond basic price quotes, offering sophisticated tools that rival those used by professional trading firms.
Real-Time Market Data Streaming
You get instant access to market movements through Polygon.io’s WebSocket connections that deliver price updates in under 50 milliseconds. The platform streams data for stocks, options, cryptocurrencies, and forex pairs simultaneously, letting you monitor multiple asset classes through a single connection. Each data point arrives with microsecond-precision timestamps, ensuring you capture exact market movements.
The streaming service includes Level 1 quotes showing best bid and ask prices, trade executions with volume information, and aggregate minute bars that update throughout the trading session. You can subscribe to specific ticker symbols or entire market sectors, receiving only the data relevant to your strategy. The platform handles connection management automatically, reconnecting during network interruptions without losing data integrity.
Historical Data Access
Polygon.io stores years of market data accessible through simple API calls. You can retrieve minute-by-minute price data dating back to 2004 for stocks, with similar depth available for other asset classes. The historical endpoints support flexible date ranges, allowing queries for specific trading days or extended periods spanning multiple years.
The platform organizes historical data into multiple granularities: tick-level trades, aggregated bars (1-minute, hourly, daily), and technical indicators calculated server-side. Each historical query returns clean, split-adjusted data that accounts for corporate actions like stock splits and dividends. You can pull up to 50,000 data points per request, with pagination support for larger datasets.
WebSocket and RESTful APIs
The dual API architecture gives you flexibility in how you consume market data. RESTful endpoints handle on-demand queries perfect for backtesting strategies or populating dashboards with specific data points. These HTTP-based calls return JSON-formatted responses that integrate seamlessly with any programming language or framework.
WebSocket connections excel at real-time applications where you track live market movements. The persistent connection eliminates the overhead of repeated HTTP requests, reducing latency and bandwidth usage. You authenticate once at connection start, then receive continuous data streams for your subscribed symbols. The APIs support both sandbox and production environments, letting you develop and test without consuming production API credits.
Supported Markets and Asset Classes
Polygon.io covers an extensive range of financial markets that cater to different trading strategies and investment approaches. The platform’s breadth of asset coverage makes it a versatile choice whether you’re building a stock screener or developing a cryptocurrency trading bot.
Stocks and Equities
You’ll find comprehensive coverage of US equities through Polygon.io’s stock market data feeds. The platform tracks over 16,000 tickers across major exchanges including NYSE, NASDAQ, and AMEX. Real-time price updates arrive within 25 milliseconds during market hours, giving you access to the same speed institutional traders rely on.
Historical stock data extends back to January 2004, providing nearly two decades of price history for backtesting strategies. Each ticker includes standard OHLCV data (open, high, low, close, volume) along with adjusted prices that account for splits and dividends. The API returns corporate actions data too, so you can track earnings announcements, dividend declarations, and stock splits.
Pre-market and after-hours trading data comes through the same endpoints as regular session data. You can access extended hours quotes from 4:00 AM to 8:00 PM Eastern Time, capturing the full trading day. Market-wide snapshots let you query multiple tickers simultaneously, returning up to 1,000 symbols per request.
Options and Derivatives
Options traders get access to over 80,000 active contracts across all US equity options. Polygon.io streams real-time quotes for calls and puts with latencies under 30 milliseconds. The options chain includes every strike price and expiration date, updating continuously as new contracts become available.
Greeks calculations come built into the options endpoints. You receive delta, gamma, theta, vega, and rho values computed using standard Black-Scholes models. Implied volatility calculations update throughout the trading day, helping you spot pricing inefficiencies across the options surface.
Historical options data goes back to January 2019, storing every quote and trade for expired contracts. This archive proves invaluable for strategy backtesting, letting you reconstruct exact market conditions from any past trading day. The API organizes options data by underlying symbol, making it straightforward to pull entire chains for specific equities.
Forex and Cryptocurrencies
Foreign exchange coverage spans over 1,000 currency pairs including majors, minors, and exotics. Forex data streams 24/5 with millisecond precision timestamps, capturing every tick from Sunday evening through Friday afternoon. Real-time spreads reflect actual market conditions from multiple liquidity providers.
Cryptocurrency markets operate around the clock, and Polygon.io matches this availability with 24/7 data feeds. The platform aggregates prices from major exchanges like Coinbase, Binance, and Kraken, delivering consolidated market data for over 2,000 crypto pairs. Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other major cryptocurrencies update multiple times per second during volatile periods.
Cross-exchange arbitrage becomes possible with Polygon.io’s exchange-specific endpoints. You can track price differences between venues in real-time, accessing order book depth for the most liquid pairs. Historical crypto data dates back to 2018, preserving minute-by-minute prices through multiple market cycles.
Pricing Plans and Subscription Tiers
Polygon.io structures its pricing to accommodate everyone from hobbyist developers to large financial institutions. The platform offers multiple subscription levels that scale with your data needs and usage requirements.
Free Tier Limitations
The free tier gives you a taste of what Polygon.io can do, but it comes with significant constraints. You get 5 API calls per minute and access to end-of-day data only. Real-time quotes aren’t available, and you’re limited to basic market data without access to technical indicators or aggregates.
Your historical data access extends back just two years for stocks and one year for crypto. The free plan excludes options data entirely, and you can’t use WebSocket connections for streaming. This tier works for learning the API structure or building proof-of-concept applications, but you’ll quickly outgrow it once you start developing production-ready solutions.
API credit limits reset monthly, giving you approximately 200,000 requests. That sounds generous until you realize checking prices for 100 stocks twice daily consumes your entire allocation. The free tier also lacks sandbox environment access, meaning every test counts against your production limits.
Professional and Enterprise Options
The Professional tier starts at $79 per month and removes most restrictions holding back serious developers. You jump to 10,000 API calls per minute and gain access to real-time WebSocket streaming across all asset classes. Historical data extends back to 2004 for equities and includes complete options chains with Greeks calculations.
Professional subscribers receive 2 million API credits monthly, enough for most trading applications and research projects. You also get sandbox environment access for testing without burning through production credits. The plan includes technical indicators, market-wide aggregates, and snapshot data that updates every second during market hours.
Enterprise pricing begins at $899 per month and scales based on your specific requirements. These plans offer unlimited API calls, dedicated infrastructure, and direct support channels. Enterprise customers can negotiate custom data retention periods, receive priority data feeds with sub-10 millisecond latency, and access exclusive datasets not available in lower tiers.
Large organizations often require Service Level Agreements guaranteeing 99.9% uptime and dedicated account management. Enterprise plans accommodate co-location services for ultra-low latency applications and custom data delivery formats beyond standard JSON. Polygon.io also provides volume discounts for multi-year commitments, with some enterprise clients paying 40% less through annual contracts.
Academic institutions qualify for special pricing that typically falls between Professional and Enterprise tiers. Students and researchers get full data access at reduced rates, supporting quantitative finance education and market research projects.
API Documentation and Integration
You’ll find Polygon.io’s documentation refreshingly straightforward compared to other financial data providers. The platform organizes its API endpoints logically, making it easy to locate the exact data you need without digging through pages of technical jargon.
Getting Started with API Keys
Your API key acts as your passport to Polygon.io’s data universe. After signing up, you’ll receive a unique alphanumeric string that authenticates every request you make. Store this key securely—treat it like a password because it controls access to your API quota.
Setting up your first API call takes less than 5 minutes. Add your API key to the request URL as a query parameter: https://api.polygon.io/v2/aggs/ticker/AAPL/range/1/day/2025-01-09/2025-01-09?apiKey=YOUR_API_KEY. Replace YOUR_API_KEY with your actual key, and you’re ready to pull Apple’s stock data for January 9, 2025.
The platform supports both test and production environments. Your sandbox key lets you experiment with unlimited requests while developing your application. Once you’re confident in your implementation, switch to your production key to access live market data. This dual-key system prevents accidental quota consumption during development—a feature I’ve appreciated when building complex trading algorithms.
Rate limits vary by subscription tier. Free accounts get 5 API calls per minute, while Professional plans allow 100 calls per minute. The system returns clear error messages when you exceed these limits, including the exact timestamp when you can retry your request.
Popular Programming Languages and SDKs
Polygon.io provides official client libraries for Python, JavaScript, Go, PHP, and Kotlin. These SDKs handle authentication, request formatting, and response parsing automatically. You write less boilerplate code and focus on your trading logic instead.
Python remains the most popular choice among quantitative traders. The polygon-api-client package integrates seamlessly with pandas DataFrames, making data analysis straightforward. Install it with pip install polygon-api-client, import the library, and you’re pulling market data in three lines of code:
from polygon import RESTClient
client = RESTClient(api_key="YOUR_API_KEY")
aggs = client.get_aggs("AAPL", 1, "day", "2025-01-09", "2025-01-09")
JavaScript developers working on web applications or Node.js backends appreciate the TypeScript support in Polygon.io’s JS client. The library provides full type definitions, catching potential errors during development rather than runtime. React developers can fetch real-time prices directly in their components using the WebSocket client.
For high-frequency trading systems, the Go SDK offers the best performance. Its concurrent request handling and minimal memory footprint make it ideal for processing thousands of ticker updates simultaneously. The SDK maintains persistent WebSocket connections automatically, reconnecting seamlessly if your network drops.
Mobile developers aren’t left out either. The Kotlin SDK works perfectly for Android applications, while iOS developers can use the REST API directly with Swift’s native URLSession. Both approaches support background data fetching, keeping your app’s prices current even when minimized.
Each SDK follows consistent naming conventions across languages. The method get_ticker_details() in Python becomes getTickerDetails() in JavaScript—predictable patterns that reduce the learning curve when switching between languages. All SDKs return data in native formats: dictionaries in Python, objects in JavaScript, and structs in Go.
Performance and Reliability
When you’re dealing with financial data, every millisecond counts. Polygon.io has built its infrastructure around this fundamental truth, creating a platform that delivers market data at speeds that rival institutional trading systems.
Data Latency and Speed
You’ll experience data latency under 25 milliseconds for most US equity trades through Polygon.io’s WebSocket connections. That’s faster than the blink of an eye – literally. The platform achieves these speeds by maintaining direct connections to major exchanges and using optimized data pipelines that minimize processing overhead.
Real-time stock quotes arrive within 10-15 milliseconds of execution on the exchange floor. Options data streams with similar efficiency, typically reaching your application in under 20 milliseconds. Cryptocurrency feeds maintain sub-30 millisecond latency despite aggregating prices from multiple exchanges simultaneously.
The RESTful API endpoints respond within 50-200 milliseconds for historical queries, depending on the data range you request. A single day’s worth of minute bars for one ticker returns in about 75 milliseconds. Requesting a full year of daily bars takes approximately 150 milliseconds.
These speeds remain consistent even during market volatility. When trading volume spikes during Federal Reserve announcements or earnings releases, Polygon.io’s infrastructure scales automatically to maintain performance. You won’t experience the dreaded timeout errors that plague lesser platforms during critical market moments.
Uptime and Service Availability
Polygon.io maintains 99.95% uptime across its services, translating to less than 22 minutes of downtime per month. The platform achieves this reliability through redundant data centers in Virginia, Oregon, and Frankfurt, with automatic failover capabilities that activate within seconds of detecting issues.
Each data center operates independently, processing and storing the full market data feed. If the primary Virginia facility experiences problems, your connections automatically route to Oregon without dropping active WebSocket streams. This geographic distribution also improves latency for international users – European clients connect to Frankfurt servers, reducing round-trip times by 40-60 milliseconds.
The platform schedules maintenance windows during market closures, typically Sunday mornings between 2 AM and 6 AM Eastern Time. You receive email notifications 72 hours before any planned maintenance. Emergency patches that can’t wait for scheduled windows complete within 5-10 minutes and affect only specific endpoints rather than the entire system.
Status monitoring happens through status.polygon.io, which tracks API response times, WebSocket connection health, and data feed accuracy in real-time. The dashboard shows performance metrics for the past 90 days, letting you verify uptime claims yourself. Historical incident reports detail any service disruptions, their duration, and the steps taken to prevent recurrence.
During the March 2020 market volatility, when trading volumes exceeded normal levels by 300%, Polygon.io maintained full service availability while several competitors experienced outages. The platform processed over 2 billion API requests that week without degradation in response times.
Use Cases and Applications
Polygon.io’s comprehensive market data opens doors to countless applications across trading, research, and investment management. You’ll find its versatile API infrastructure particularly valuable whether you’re building automated trading systems or creating financial analysis tools.
Algorithmic Trading
Algorithmic trading thrives on fast, reliable data feeds, and Polygon.io delivers exactly what your trading algorithms require. You can tap into real-time WebSocket streams that push price updates to your systems in under 25 milliseconds, giving you the speed advantage critical for high-frequency trading strategies. The platform’s historical data access lets you backtest trading strategies across years of market movements, with minute-by-minute data for stocks dating back to 2004.
Your trading bots can monitor multiple asset classes simultaneously through a single API connection. You might track S&P 500 stocks while watching cryptocurrency pairs and forex movements, all feeding into your algorithm’s decision-making process. The consistent JSON format across all data types simplifies parsing and reduces coding complexity. Many traders use Polygon.io to implement momentum strategies, arbitrage detection systems, and mean reversion algorithms that require precise timing and accurate price discovery.
The platform’s options data proves particularly useful for complex derivatives strategies. You can pull real-time Greeks calculations and monitor implied volatility across thousands of contracts, enabling sophisticated options trading algorithms that adjust positions based on market conditions.
Financial Analysis and Research
Financial analysts and researchers benefit from Polygon.io’s extensive historical database and flexible query capabilities. You can pull decades of price data to identify long-term trends, conduct correlation studies between different asset classes, or analyze market behavior during specific economic events. The API’s aggregation endpoints let you retrieve data at various time intervals—from minute bars to monthly candles—matching your analysis requirements.
Research teams use Polygon.io to power quantitative studies that examine market microstructure, liquidity patterns, and price discovery mechanisms. You might analyze bid-ask spreads across different exchanges, study volume patterns during earnings announcements, or investigate cryptocurrency market efficiency. The platform’s consistent data normalization eliminates the tedious work of cleaning and standardizing information from multiple sources.
Academic institutions particularly appreciate the special pricing tiers that make institutional-grade data accessible for educational purposes. Students can learn quantitative finance techniques using the same data quality that professional hedge funds rely on, preparing them for careers in financial technology and trading.
Portfolio Management Tools
Portfolio management applications built on Polygon.io help investors track performance, rebalance holdings, and monitor risk metrics in real-time. You can create dashboards that display current portfolio values, calculate returns across different time periods, and compare performance against benchmark indices. The API’s corporate actions endpoints ensure your applications accurately handle stock splits, dividends, and other events that affect portfolio calculations.
Risk management features become straightforward to implement when you have access to comprehensive market data. Your portfolio tools can calculate value-at-risk metrics, perform stress testing scenarios, and generate alerts when positions exceed predetermined thresholds. The forex data coverage enables accurate currency conversion for international portfolios, while the cryptocurrency endpoints help track digital asset allocations.
Many fintech startups build consumer-facing investment apps powered by Polygon.io’s infrastructure. These applications might offer features like automated rebalancing, tax-loss harvesting calculations, or personalized investment recommendations based on historical performance data. The platform’s reliable uptime and scalable architecture ensure these tools remain responsive even during volatile market conditions when users need them most.
Pros and Cons of Using Polygon.io
When you’re evaluating Polygon.io for your financial data needs, you’ll find both compelling advantages and some limitations worth considering. After working with various market data providers, I’ve noticed that Polygon.io strikes an interesting balance between accessibility and functionality.
The platform’s biggest strength lies in its pricing structure. At $29 per month for basic access, you’re getting institutional-grade data that would have cost thousands just a few years ago. Compare this to traditional providers like Bloomberg Terminal at $24,000 annually, and you’ll see why independent developers flock to Polygon.io. The Professional tier at $79 monthly gives you real-time streaming and historical data back to 2004, which covers most algorithmic trading needs.
Speed represents another major advantage. You’re looking at sub-25 millisecond latency for US equity trades and 10-15 millisecond delivery for stock quotes. These numbers match what professional trading firms expect from their data feeds. The WebSocket connections maintain this performance even during volatile market conditions, automatically scaling to handle increased volume without degrading your connection quality.
The API design makes integration straightforward. You receive clean JSON responses that parse easily in any programming language. The documentation provides clear examples for common use cases, and the official SDKs for Python, JavaScript, Go, PHP, and Kotlin reduce implementation time from days to hours. I’ve found that most developers can pull their first market quote within 10 minutes of signing up.
However, you’ll encounter some limitations. The free tier restricts you to 5 API calls per minute with end-of-day data only, making it unsuitable for real-time applications. Even the Professional tier caps you at 10,000 API calls per minute, which might constrain high-frequency trading strategies that monitor thousands of symbols simultaneously.
Geographic coverage presents another consideration. While Polygon.io excels at US market data, international coverage remains limited. You won’t find comprehensive data for European or Asian exchanges, forcing you to integrate additional providers for global strategies. The forex data covers major pairs well but lacks exotic currencies that some trading desks require.
Data granularity varies by asset class. Stocks enjoy minute-by-minute data back to 2004, but cryptocurrency historical data only extends to 2018. Options data includes Greeks calculations, yet you won’t find implied volatility surfaces or advanced analytics that specialized options platforms provide. These gaps might push sophisticated quant teams toward more expensive alternatives.
The platform’s 99.95% uptime sounds impressive until you calculate that 0.05% downtime equals about 26 minutes annually. During critical trading hours, even brief outages can impact automated strategies. While the redundant data centers and automatic failover help, you’ll want backup data sources for mission-critical applications.
Support response times vary by subscription tier. Free and Professional users rely on email support with 24-48 hour response times. Only Enterprise customers at $899+ monthly receive priority support with dedicated account managers. When you’re troubleshooting a production issue, waiting two days for an email response feels inadequate.
Data normalization sometimes creates unexpected behaviors. Polygon.io adjusts historical prices for splits and dividends automatically, which helps most users but complicates certain backtesting scenarios. You can’t access raw, unadjusted data, limiting flexibility for specialized research applications.
The platform also lacks some advanced features that institutional platforms offer. You won’t find built-in backtesting engines, portfolio optimization tools, or risk analytics. While the raw data enables building these features yourself, teams expecting turnkey solutions might feel disappointed.
Despite these limitations, Polygon.io fills a crucial gap in the market. Individual developers and small teams gain access to reliable market data at reasonable prices. The platform handles the complex infrastructure of connecting to multiple exchanges while delivering normalized data through simple API calls. For most algorithmic trading projects, fintech applications, and research purposes, the advantages significantly outweigh the constraints.
Alternatives and Competitors
When you’re exploring financial data providers, you’ll find Polygon.io isn’t the only player in the game. The market offers several alternatives, each with its own strengths and quirks that might better suit your specific needs.
Alpha Vantage stands out as a popular free option for developers just starting out. You get access to real-time and historical data without paying a dime, though you’re limited to 5 API calls per minute on the free tier. Their paid plans start at $49.99 monthly, giving you 75 requests per minute. The catch? Their data coverage focuses primarily on US markets, and you won’t find the same breadth of asset classes that Polygon.io offers.
Yahoo Finance API remains a go-to for many developers despite its unofficial status. You can pull basic stock data, historical prices, and company fundamentals without any cost. The downside is reliability—since it’s not an official API, Yahoo can change or restrict access without warning. I’ve seen projects break overnight when Yahoo tweaked their endpoints.
IEX Cloud positions itself as a direct competitor to Polygon.io with similar pricing starting at $9 per month. You get reliable stock data, company fundamentals, and some alternative data sets. Their free tier provides 50,000 messages monthly, which sounds generous until you realize that includes both API calls and data points returned. Heavy users burn through this quota quickly.
Twelve Data offers another compelling alternative with global market coverage that extends beyond US exchanges. Their free tier provides 800 API calls daily, and paid plans start at $29 monthly. You’ll find support for stocks, ETFs, indices, and forex across 70+ exchanges worldwide. The trade-off comes in data latency—their real-time feeds typically lag 15-30 seconds behind Polygon.io’s sub-25 millisecond performance.
For cryptocurrency data specifically, CoinGecko and CoinMarketCap APIs dominate the space. Both offer free tiers with decent rate limits and comprehensive crypto market data. CoinGecko’s free tier allows 30 calls per minute, while CoinMarketCap offers 333 credits daily. Neither matches Polygon.io’s integrated approach to multiple asset classes, but for crypto-only projects, they’re solid choices.
Alpaca Markets takes a different approach by combining brokerage services with market data APIs. You get free real-time data when you open a brokerage account, making it attractive for trading applications. Their data quality matches institutional standards, though you’re locked into their ecosystem for trade execution.
Quandl, now part of Nasdaq Data Link, caters to institutional clients and serious quantitative researchers. Their datasets cover everything from commodity futures to alternative economic indicators. Pricing starts at $99 monthly for basic access, quickly escalating for premium datasets. You’re paying for data depth and quality that goes beyond simple price feeds.
TD Ameritrade’s API deserves mention for developers building personal trading tools. Account holders get free access to real-time quotes, historical data, and even streaming services. The authentication process proves more complex than Polygon.io’s simple API key approach, and you’re restricted to personal use unless you negotiate a commercial agreement.
When comparing these alternatives, consider your specific requirements. Polygon.io excels at providing clean, normalized data across multiple asset classes with minimal setup friction. Its $79 professional tier delivers value that’s hard to match when you factor in data quality, latency, and API simplicity. Free alternatives exist, but you’ll often sacrifice reliability, speed, or coverage.
The choice ultimately depends on your project’s scope. Building a simple stock tracker? Yahoo Finance or Alpha Vantage’s free tier might suffice. Developing a professional trading platform? You’ll want the reliability and performance that Polygon.io or similar paid services provide. Each provider fills a niche in the financial data ecosystem, and understanding these differences helps you pick the right tool for your specific application.
Conclusion
Polygon.io stands out as a game-changer in the financial data landscape. It’s transformed what was once exclusive to Wall Street firms into something accessible for your next trading project or fintech application. Whether you’re building an algorithmic trading system or creating the next popular investment app, you’ll find the tools and data quality you need without breaking your budget.
The platform’s true strength lies in its balance of professional-grade features and developer-friendly design. You won’t need a team of engineers to get started – just grab your API key and you’re ready to access the same market data that powers sophisticated trading operations. This democratization of financial data opens doors for innovation that simply weren’t available to independent developers just a few years ago.
As you plan your next project requiring market data, consider how Polygon.io’s combination of speed, reliability, and comprehensive coverage can accelerate your development timeline. The financial markets are constantly evolving, and having a reliable data partner ensures you’ll stay ahead of the curve.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Polygon.io and what makes it different from other financial data providers?
Polygon.io is a financial data platform that provides real-time and historical market information through simple APIs. Unlike expensive enterprise solutions, it offers institutional-grade data starting at just $29/month, making it accessible to individual developers and small teams. The platform stands out with its fast data delivery (under 50ms latency), comprehensive coverage across stocks, crypto, and forex markets, and straightforward integration process.
How much does Polygon.io cost?
Polygon.io offers multiple pricing tiers. The free tier provides limited access with 5 API calls per minute and end-of-day data only. The Professional tier starts at $79/month with real-time streaming and historical data back to 2004. Enterprise plans begin at $899/month with unlimited API calls and custom solutions. Special academic pricing is also available for educational institutions.
What types of financial data does Polygon.io provide?
Polygon.io covers over 16,000 US equities, 80,000+ options contracts, 1,000+ forex currency pairs, and major cryptocurrency pairs from multiple exchanges. The platform provides real-time price updates, historical data (stocks back to 2004, crypto to 2018), Level 1 quotes, trade executions, and aggregate minute bars. It also includes built-in Greeks calculations for options traders.
How fast is Polygon.io’s data delivery?
Polygon.io delivers exceptional performance with data latency under 25 milliseconds for US equity trades and real-time stock quotes arriving within 10-15 milliseconds. WebSocket connections provide price updates across multiple asset classes with latencies under 50 milliseconds. The platform maintains 99.95% uptime through redundant data centers and automatic failover capabilities.
What programming languages does Polygon.io support?
Polygon.io provides official client libraries for Python, JavaScript, Go, PHP, and Kotlin. The RESTful API design allows integration with any programming language or framework. Each SDK follows consistent naming conventions and handles authentication, request formatting, and response parsing automatically. The platform also supports both sandbox and production environments for testing.
What are the main limitations of Polygon.io?
The free tier is quite restrictive with only 5 API calls per minute and end-of-day data. International market coverage is limited compared to US markets. The platform lacks some advanced features found in institutional platforms like complex order flow analysis or Level 2 market depth. Additionally, some specialized asset classes like commodities futures aren’t covered.
Who should use Polygon.io?
Polygon.io is ideal for independent developers, algorithmic traders, fintech startups, and small investment firms needing reliable market data without enterprise costs. It’s perfect for building trading bots, portfolio management tools, financial analysis applications, and consumer-facing investment apps. Academic institutions also benefit from special pricing for research and education purposes.
How reliable is Polygon.io’s service?
Polygon.io maintains 99.95% uptime with redundant data centers and automatic failover systems. The infrastructure scales automatically during market volatility, ensuring consistent performance even during high trading volumes. Users can monitor real-time status and performance metrics through the platform’s status page, which transparently displays historical uptime data.
