How OptionsBell works

What counts as “unusual options activity”?

It's a contract trading at unusually high volume relative to its open interest – with real premium behind it. Open interest is how many contracts already exist; volume is how many changed hands today. When a day's volume dwarfs the standing open interest (a high Vol/OI ratio), someone is opening a fresh, sizeable position rather than nibbling at an existing one.

Pair that with the premium – the actual dollars spent – and you can tell a $12M directional bet apart from a handful of lottery tickets. That combination is the fingerprint of conviction: a sized, time-limited position by someone who wanted exposure now.

Big money rarely shows up by accident, and the options tape is usually where it shows up first – often before the move is visible in the stock itself.

Do I need to trade options to benefit?

No. Most subscribers never buy a single contract. The alert is a heads-up about stocks you already own or watch: a cluster of call buying is an early bullish tell, a cluster of puts flags hedging or expected downside.

What you do with that read – buy, sell, hold, or hedge the underlying stock – is entirely up to you. The options flow is simply an earlier, higher-conviction signal than price alone.

Is this investment advice?

No. Unusual options activity is information – evidence that institutional money is positioning – not a recommendation to buy or sell any security. We surface the data; every decision is yours.

Always do your own research, size positions for the loss rather than the win, and respect your own risk tolerance.

How fast do alerts actually arrive?

As fast as five minutes from the print. We rescan the full US options tape every 5 minutes through the trading session and send the alert in the same scan window the activity hits – so you typically know within 5 to 10 minutes of the trade printing, not at end of day.

The exact cadence is your call per alert: run one as tight as every 5 minutes for active monitoring, or stretch it to hourly or once a day if you only want a recap.

How does the alert pipeline work, end to end?

Pick the US stocks you care about (up to 150 tickers per alert), set your filters (Vol/OI, premium, implied volatility, days-to-expiry, calls or puts), and choose how often it checks (every 5 minutes up to once per day).

The scanner runs against the live tape on that schedule. The moment a contract matches your rules, the email lands with the exact print: ticker, type, strike, expiry, Vol/OI, premium and IV. Nothing is batched up for end of day unless you pick that interval yourself.

Can I customize what triggers an alert and how often it runs?

Yes, both. Run up to 10 alerts in parallel, each with its own rules and its own scan interval. One alert can fire on aggressive calls every 5 minutes during the morning session; another can quietly monitor put activity hourly; a third can be a once-per-day recap.

Each alert carries its own ticker list (up to 150 symbols), filter thresholds, active hours, and frequency. Or leave the defaults and the system auto-filters for genuinely unusual activity.

How many emails should I expect?

Entirely down to the filters and interval you set. A tight 5-minute alert on aggressive single-stock activity might fire 0 to 5 times a day. A loose hourly alert across 100 tickers might fire 1 to 3 times. A once-per-day recap is exactly one email per active session.

You stay in control. We never send a daily digest you didn't ask for, and we never send recap newsletters.

Which stocks do you cover?

7,000+ US-listed stocks. The scanner sweeps the full options tape across all of them on your schedule – no exclusions for small caps or low-volume names. If a stock has listed options, we see every print on it.

How fresh is the data?

The options-activity data is refreshed every 5 minutes through US market hours, and your alerts scan against that same feed. That's why an alert can reach you within minutes of the activity rather than after the close.

Outside market hours there's no new tape to scan, so alerts pause and resume automatically when the next session opens.

How much does OptionsBell cost?

$24.99 per month for the full product: up to 10 alerts, 150 tickers each, 5-minute scanning, plus API and MCP access. One plan, no tiers to decode.

Can I cancel anytime?

Yes. Monthly billing, cancel from your account settings in two clicks – access continues to the end of the billing period.

Your tickers, filter rules, and frequency settings stay saved, so if you come back later everything is instantly live again with no setup.

Who handles payment?

Paddle is our merchant of record. They process the payment, handle VAT/sales tax, and issue invoices – we never see or store your card details.

How does this compare to Unusual Whales, Cheddar Flow, and other scanners?

Those are dashboards you log into, configure each session, and search through – typically $40 to $99 per month. They're powerful if you want to sit and hunt.

OptionsBell inverts that: we push the unusual options data, already scoped to your tickers and your filters, straight to your inbox at the interval you choose. Same underlying tape, no dashboard discipline required, at less than half the price. If your day isn't spent staring at a flow terminal, that's the point.

Is there an API?

Yes. A REST API exposes the same unusual options activity, options flow, signals and sentiment that power the app, so you can pull the data into your own notebooks, models or dashboards.

How do I authenticate?

Generate an API key in Settings and send it as a bearer token. Keys can be rotated any time, and the same key also authorizes the MCP server.

What are the rate limits?

30 requests per minute and 2,000 per day on the standard plan – comfortable for research, backtesting and periodic syncs. The full limits and error responses are documented in the API reference.

What is MCP, and why should I care?

MCP (the Model Context Protocol) is an open standard that lets AI assistants call live tools and data sources instead of guessing from stale training data. Our MCP server plugs OptionsBell straight into your assistant.

In practice you can ask, in plain language, “What are today's strongest bullish options flow signals?” and the assistant pulls the real, current data and answers – no dashboards, no exports.

Which AI clients work?

Any MCP-capable client. We document setup for Claude Desktop, Cursor and Continue, but the server follows the standard, so other MCP clients connect the same way.

How do I set it up, and does it cost extra?

It's included with your subscription – no add-on. Point your client at the OptionsBell MCP server, paste in your API key, and the tools appear. The setup guide walks through each client step by step.