Compared with Option Omega
An Option Omega alternative you buy once
Volatlas runs multi-leg backtests and parameter sweeps on your own Mac, against market data you buy from your own vendor. The licence is paid once and the data bill stops when the research stops.
Buy Volatlas, $49Perpetual licence · one year of updates · macOS
Side by side
What each one does with a backtest
| Volatlas | Option Omega | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $49 once, rising to $99, with one year of updates. The licence stays yours at the price you paid. | $49.99 a month on the backtesting tier billed annually, or $99.99 month to month. |
| Market data | Bought from your own vendor and billed to you. $40 a month on ThetaData, cancel-anytime, or metered on Databento. | Included in the subscription, sourced from an OPRA vendor they do not name. |
| Underlyings | Any root your data vendor sells. SPX, SPY, XSP, NDX and single names load the same way. | A fixed list. XSP is excluded, which their documentation puts down to it being too illiquid to model. |
| Fills | Halfway between the mid and the side you are crossing to, plus commission on every contract, charged by default. | The mid by default, with slippage available as an opt-in setting. |
| Stops and targets | Resolved inside the minute. The move from the previous mark is walked a second at a time and the fill is taken at the level itself. | 1-second stop-loss resolution. |
| Session coverage | Whatever your data covers, including extended hours. | Regular trading hours. |
| Sweeps | Up to 10,000 cells per grid, run in parallel over the cached chain, with no limit on how often you run them. | Optimizations are capped by tier, at 250 a day on the top tier. |
| History depth | Whatever you pull. Databento's OPRA history opens in 2013, ThetaData reaches four to twelve years by tier. | 1-minute precision back to 2013. |
| Margin | Reg T, uncovered rules included. An entry the account cannot carry is skipped and counted rather than filled. | Not documented publicly. |
| Platform | macOS desktop, signed and notarized, Apple Silicon and Intel. | Web, so any operating system with a browser. |
| Automation | None. Volatlas is the research half and does not place trades. | Live trading on the top tier. |
Option Omega figures come from its own published pricing and documentation, shown as of August 2026.
Cost over three years
Three years of the same job
| What you pay | Three years |
|---|---|
| VolatlasLicence once, plus four research months a year on ThetaData | $529 |
| VolatlasLicence once, plus a year of 1-minute SPX weeklies on Databento each year | $862 |
| Option OmegaBacktesting tier, billed annually | $1,800 |
Volatlas rows are the $49 licence plus data billed to your own account, either four months a year of ThetaData’s $40 cancel-anytime tier or a year of 1-minute SPXW quotes on Databento at about $271 including contract definitions, metered, so it moves with what you pull. Option Omega is its cheapest published billing option for a backtesting seat. Prices shown as of August 2026.
Which to pick
Where Volatlas lands
- Research arrives in bursts and you would rather not pay through the quiet months.
- You want a root that is not on a platform's list, XSP and NDX included.
- You already hold a ThetaData or Databento subscription.
- You sweep parameter grids and want each run to cost nothing extra.
- You want the trade log, equity curve, stats and sweep grid out as CSV.
- You work on a Mac.
Common questions
Switching and setup
- Can I bring my Option Omega strategies across?
- There is no import. You rebuild the strategy in Volatlas, which for a mechanical rule set means the legs, the entry schedule, the strike selection and the exits. Most take a few minutes.
- What does the data cost on top of the licence?
- On Databento a year of 1-minute SPX weekly quotes runs about $263, plus about $8 of contract definitions, metered and billed to your own account, and new accounts start with $125 of credit. ThetaData starts at $40 a month for four years of history and is cancel-anytime.
- Why is the data not included?
- Bundled data is what a platform subscription mostly pays for, and it is the part that keeps billing when you are not researching. Buying it yourself means you can stop, and it means no approved ticker list, because the chain comes from your vendor rather than from us.
- Does it keep working when my data subscription lapses?
- Yes. Everything you download is cached as Parquet on your own disk and replays with no vendor involved. Cancelling costs you new history, not the research you have already done.
- Does Volatlas place trades?
- No. You build, test and sweep in Volatlas and trade wherever you already trade.
Own the backtester, rent the data
One licence, one year of updates, and a seat you can move between Macs from inside the app. The recurring cost is data you control and can cancel between research bursts.
Buy Volatlas, $49