RadarPulse: a Fintel alternative for scored options flow

Broad data platform vs. focused flow scanner

Fintel's strength is breadth, a wide range of datasets in one place, which suits traders who want many data types under one subscription. RadarPulse takes the opposite approach for options flow: rather than one feed among many, it makes unusual flow the centre of the product, with a transparent 0–100 score on every print, a ranked daily Top 25, and smart-money trackers right beside the flow. If you want a data warehouse, breadth wins; if you want a fast, opinionated read on unusual options activity, focus wins. If you're new to the signal, our primer on unusual options flow explains it.

What RadarPulse delivers

• A 0–100 unusualness score on every trade. Volume/OI ratio, dollar premium, days-to-expiry and aggressor side, four disclosed factors, visible per print.
• A daily Top 25 with clear flags. The day's most unusual activity, ranked and tagged EXTREME, ELEVATED or NOTABLE.
• Whale detection. Block and sweep orders moving real size are surfaced with the aggressor side flagged.
• Congress, Trump and 13F trackers. See congressional stock trades, the Trump trades tracker, and 13F institutional holdings alongside the flow.
• Radar (AI chat) + Vera (AI equity research). Built-in AI explains any print and runs fundamental research on any name.
• Free $100K paper trading + Academy. Practise acting on flow signals at zero cost, no card required.

A factual feature comparison

The table describes RadarPulse's capabilities in detail. For the Fintel column we only note what's widely and publicly known and otherwise defer to their site, verify current Fintel features and pricing on their own site.

"See their site" means we're deliberately not stating another company's specifics, verify current Fintel features and pricing on their own site.

RadarPulse pricing

• Basic: $12/mo, with a 14-day free trial. Scored scanner, daily Top 25, whale detection, Congress and 13F trackers on 15-minute-delayed flow. Radar AI chat and Vera AI equity research included.
• Pro, $29/mo. More headroom for active users, saved filters, more alerts, cross-device sync.
• Elite, $59/mo. Adds the real-time tape for traders reacting inside the same minute.
• Free forever: $100K paper trading + Academy + leaderboard. No card required.

Flow is 15-minute delayed on every tier except Elite. Full breakdown at the pricing page.

Which should you pick?

If you want broad coverage across many datasets in one subscription, Fintel is built for breadth, compare it on its own terms. RadarPulse is the better fit if your priority is a focused, transparently-scored read on unusual options flow, a ranked daily Top 25, Congress and institutional context in the same view, and AI chat plus equity research built in, at a low entry price with a real trial. New to flow entirely? Start at the Learn hub, or our guide to the best free options flow scanner.

Fintel in depth: what it does and who uses it

Fintel is a financial data aggregator that has been operating in the retail-facing financial data market since 2016. It is built around four core datasets that are genuinely hard to find in one consolidated place: institutional ownership (sourced from SEC 13F quarterly filings), short interest (aggregated from multiple exchange and FINRA reports), insider transactions (SEC Form 4 filings disclosing officer and director trades), and fund sentiment scoring, a derived metric that tallies how many institutions are net buying versus net selling a given name across consecutive 13F periods.

Beyond those core datasets, Fintel also covers options flow (unusual options activity scanning), social sentiment tracking across financial communities, dividend history, earnings data, and a proprietary stock screener that lets users filter across all of the above simultaneously. The resulting product is a broad research dashboard: one subscription that surfaces many types of information about a stock without requiring multiple tools.

The users Fintel serves well are typically those doing multi-factor fundamental and quantitative screening, traders and investors who want to see whether institutions are accumulating or distributing before making a medium-term position, or who track short interest as a primary setup variable (for example, identifying potential squeeze candidates by looking for high short float combined with rising institutional ownership).

Fintel's short interest data is frequently cited as one of its stronger differentiators. It aggregates short interest from multiple reporting sources, updates on exchange reporting schedules, and presents it in a way that's accessible without needing to parse raw FINRA or exchange data feeds directly.

Where Fintel differs from RadarPulse most sharply is in how options flow is treated within each product. In Fintel, options flow is one dataset among many, it identifies unusual options activity but does not apply a ranked 0-100 conviction score to each individual print, nor does it produce a daily leaderboard of the highest-conviction trades of the session. There is no EXTREME / ELEVATED / NOTABLE tiering that lets a trader immediately prioritize the top 25 prints from among thousands of daily transactions.

RadarPulse makes the opposite architectural decision: unusual options flow is the primary product, and every other data layer (congressional disclosures, 13F holdings context, AI research) is built to explain and contextualize the flow signal, rather than sitting as a co-equal dataset alongside it. For traders whose primary workflow starts with "what unusual options activity happened today, and why does it matter," that distinction in design philosophy produces a meaningfully different daily experience.

RadarPulse's options flow scoring: depth over breadth

The core differentiator in RadarPulse's flow product is that every single options trade processed by the scanner receives a 0-100 unusualness score computed from six disclosed factors. This score is not a black box: the weight of each component is published and visible per print, so traders understand exactly why a given trade ranked where it did.

The six factors and their weights are:

• Volume / Open Interest ratio (40%). The most heavily weighted factor. A trade representing 15 times the open interest on a strike is far more unusual than one representing 0.3x OI. Vol/OI is the classic signal that something new is being established rather than existing positions being rolled or closed.
• Dollar premium size (30%). Raw premium moving through a single print. A $2.4M sweep in AAPL calls is meaningfully different from a 10-contract retail trade. Size in premium dollars is a strong proxy for institutional involvement.
• Execution type, sweep vs. block (10%). A sweep (market order hitting multiple exchanges simultaneously at the ask) signals urgency and directional conviction. A block (single large negotiated print) signals size but not necessarily urgency. Both matter; sweeps weight higher on the conviction axis.
• Aggressor side (10%). Whether the order was bought at the ask (bullish aggressor) or sold at the bid (bearish aggressor). Directional clarity matters when reading intent.
• Days to expiration, DTE (5%). Short-dated options (under 21 days) carry higher urgency signal, they expire soon, so a large position in them implies a near-term directional view rather than a long-term hedge.
• Time of day (5%). Prints in the first and last 30 minutes of the session carry slightly higher weight, as opening and closing activity tends to reflect more deliberate institutional positioning than mid-day noise.

Trades that score above 85 receive the EXTREME flag. Scores between 65 and 84 receive ELEVATED. Scores between 45 and 64 receive NOTABLE. Everything below that threshold is captured in the scanner but does not appear on the leaderboard.

The daily Top 25 leaderboard aggregates the single highest-conviction prints of the session from among 5,000 or more trades processed each day. On a high-volume session, an earnings day, a macro catalyst, a sector rotation event, the number of raw prints the scanner ingests can be substantially higher. The leaderboard distils that volume down to the 25 that matter most by score, giving a trader a manageable starting point without needing to scroll hundreds of entries.

To make the contrast concrete: on a typical session, the scanner might process 6,200 individual options transactions. Of those, perhaps 140 score above 45 (NOTABLE or higher). Of those 140, the Top 25 represents the highest-conviction cluster. Without that scoring and ranking layer, a trader reviewing raw unusual options activity is effectively filtering manually, assessing each print's premium size or OI ratio by eye, making subjective judgment calls about which trades merit attention. The 0-100 score and the leaderboard do that filtering automatically and consistently, with the weighting fully documented so traders can calibrate their trust in the output and understand what is driving any given ranking. For example: a $3.1M call sweep in a mid-cap biotech name that represents 18x the open interest on the strike, executed at the ask 20 minutes before the close with a 14-day expiry, would score extremely high on Vol/OI, premium size, execution type, and DTE simultaneously, all four major factors firing together. That score of around 93 would place it at the top of the leaderboard with an EXTREME tag. A trader glancing at the leaderboard at end of day would spot it immediately rather than needing to scroll through 140 NOTABLE-or-higher prints to find the standout.

Fintel's unusual options activity scanner surfaces prints that meet its unusual-activity criteria, but it does not apply a ranked 0-100 score to each transaction, and there is no equivalent to the EXTREME/ELEVATED/NOTABLE tiering that lets a trader immediately separate the 25 highest-conviction prints from the day's full flow. That tiering is the specific mechanism RadarPulse uses to solve the signal-to-noise problem in options flow data.

Congressional and political flow: the RadarPulse exclusive

RadarPulse includes two trackers that Fintel does not: STOCK Act Congressional trading disclosures and the Trump trade tracker.

The STOCK Act (Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act) requires all members of the House and Senate to publicly disclose personal stock trades within 45 days of the transaction. These filings are public record and searchable. RadarPulse ingests them, normalizes the data across both chambers, and surfaces them in a searchable tracker that includes late-filing flags (members who file after the 45-day deadline, which itself is a noted pattern for the most controversial transactions).

The Trump tracker covers OGE (Office of Government Ethics) financial disclosures for the policy basket, trades and holdings that intersect with executive branch policy exposure, providing context for sectors directly shaped by administration decisions.

It's important to distinguish STOCK Act congressional trades from the 13F institutional ownership data that Fintel covers, because they are fundamentally different datasets with different implications:

• 13F filings (Fintel's strength): Quarterly filings from institutional investment managers with over $100M in AUM. Filed 45 days after each quarter ends, meaning the most current 13F data is typically 45 to 135 days old by the time you see it. It shows what large funds held at a snapshot in time, useful for spotting accumulation or distribution trends over multiple quarters.
• STOCK Act disclosures (RadarPulse's tracker): Individual trades by specific elected officials, disclosed within 45 days of execution (with a real-money fine for late filing). These are not institutional fund positions, they are personal trades by people with direct access to non-public legislative and regulatory information. The signal type is entirely different: it is a specific individual trade, often small in size but high in informational specificity, particularly in policy-sensitive sectors.

Two sectors where the confluence of unusual options flow and congressional positioning has been repeatedly discussed by analysts are defense and energy. In the defense sector, congressional members on Armed Services or Appropriations committees are among the first to know about significant contract awards or budget allocations; seeing unusual call activity in a defense name at the same time a committee member has recently filed a purchase disclosure in that name is a data point that is genuinely unique to RadarPulse's combined view. In energy and utilities, regulatory decisions, pipeline approvals, LNG export authorizations, offshore drilling lease sales, move on timelines that Congressional oversight committees are aware of well before public announcement; the same confluence logic applies.

Fintel covers institutional 13F data and insider Form 4 transactions (officer and director trades at the company level). Neither of those is the same as STOCK Act congressional trading data. A trader who wants all three data types, institutional positioning, corporate insider activity, and congressional trading, currently needs Fintel for the first two and RadarPulse for the third (and for the flow signal that the first two exist to contextualize).

Short interest and 13F data: where to get what

This section is deliberately balanced, because the honest answer matters more than a promotional one.

Fintel is genuinely strong on short interest aggregation. It pulls from multiple exchanges and FINRA, normalizes the data, and presents short float, short volume, and short interest trend in a format that's accessible without processing raw exchange feeds. If short interest is a primary signal in your trading, identifying potential squeeze setups, tracking changes in short positioning over time, or screening across a universe of names for high short float combined with other factors, Fintel is purpose-built for that workflow in a way RadarPulse is not.

Similarly, for 13F institutional ownership data, Fintel's aggregation and presentation is strong. The fund sentiment score (a derived metric showing how many institutions are net buying versus net selling a name across consecutive quarters) is a useful addition that goes beyond simply showing raw 13F holdings. For traders who make medium-term decisions based on institutional accumulation or distribution trends, Fintel's 13F layer is well-developed.

RadarPulse includes 13F holdings context in its flow view: when unusual activity appears on a name, the platform surfaces which institutions hold it and what their recent positioning trend has been, drawn from publicly available 13F data. This is contextual data within the flow workflow, it answers the question "who else is in this name?" when unusual flow appears, rather than a standalone institutional ownership screening tool. The use case is different: in RadarPulse, 13F data supports the flow signal; in Fintel, 13F data can be the primary signal.

The practical question, then, is what drives your daily workflow:

• If you start your research process with short interest and institutional ownership trends, and options flow is a secondary confirmation layer you use to confirm a thesis already formed from fundamental data, Fintel is more purpose-built for your primary need.
• If you start with unusual options flow as the primary signal, scanning what the highest-conviction prints of the day were, identifying who is acting aggressively in a name, and you want to see institutional ownership and congressional context as supporting data within the same view, RadarPulse is built for that sequence and that order of operations.
• If you need serious depth in both short interest screening and live scored options flow with a daily leaderboard, you may find that each platform has capabilities the other doesn't fully replicate, and some traders do use both tools for different parts of their research process, treating them as complementary rather than substitutes.

One additional distinction worth noting: RadarPulse's flow data is processed with the conviction score applied in real time (or with 15-minute delay depending on tier), so the leaderboard reflects the day's activity as it happens during the session. Institutional 13F data, by contrast, is inherently backward-looking, the most recent 13F filing represents positions held at the end of the most recent quarter, filed 45 days after that quarter closed. The two data types answer different questions across different time horizons, which is part of why traders who use both tend to use them for different stages of the research process rather than as interchangeable inputs.

RadarPulse does not claim to replace Fintel's short interest data. What it does offer is a more developed options flow layer, the 0-100 score, the daily Top 25 leaderboard, the EXTREME/ELEVATED/NOTABLE tiering, the congressional trading tracker, and the integrated AI research tools, than Fintel's flow module provides, at an entry price of $12 per month with a 14-day free trial.

Radar and Vera: AI research in the flow workflow

RadarPulse includes two AI research tools built directly into the flow platform, designed to solve the specific friction that options flow traders encounter: the gap between "unusual activity spotted" and "I understand what this company does and why this print might matter."

Radar is a conversational AI market assistant with live data access. It is accessible from within the platform on every tier. When an unusual print surfaces, for example, a large call sweep in a mid-cap industrial name you don't immediately recognize, a trader can open Radar and ask directly: what does this company do, what is its next earnings date, what are analyst price targets, is there any recent news that might explain a large options position? Radar answers with live market context, without the trader needing to leave the platform and open a second browser window for fundamental research. The character mark for Radar is the two-ring radar face; it is never represented with an emoji substitute.

Vera (available on the Elite tier) provides structured, multi-lens AI equity research reports on any name. Where Radar is conversational and fast, Vera is thorough and formatted, it runs a systematic research pass covering business model, competitive position, recent financial performance, analyst sentiment, and risk factors, structured as a report rather than a chat response. The character mark for Vera is the cyan "V" monogram; like Radar, it is never represented with an emoji. For Elite subscribers who want a deep research foundation before acting on a high-conviction flow signal, Vera provides that layer without requiring a separate subscription to an equity research service.

Fintel does not include a conversational AI assistant or a structured AI equity research tool. The research workflow on Fintel is data-driven: you see the numbers and interpret them yourself. That is appropriate for the data-warehouse model Fintel represents. The trade-off is that when you spot something interesting in the data, the research step that follows happens outside the platform, in a separate browser tab, a different financial site, or a standalone research tool.

The practical difference this creates in a trader's session is measurable in time and friction. If you see an EXTREME-flagged call sweep in a name you don't know well, the typical workflow without an integrated AI layer is: write down the ticker, open a new tab, look up the company on a financial site, check the earnings calendar, check analyst price targets, scan recent news headlines, then return to the flow platform with a formed view. With Radar, that whole sequence happens in a side panel within the flow view, ask, get the answer, decide, move on. For traders who regularly work unfamiliar names, which is common in flow analysis, where the signal often surfaces before the trader has any existing context on the underlying, this integration reduces the time between "spotted" and "decided" significantly. It also reduces the risk of context-switching breaking concentration during an active session where multiple high-scoring prints are appearing simultaneously.

Both Radar and Vera are accessible on the core paid tiers without requiring a separate AI subscription or an additional API key from the trader's side. The AI layer is part of the product, not an add-on.

Case studies: when each platform fits the workflow

The three scenarios below illustrate how traders have described using Fintel and RadarPulse in combination, and where each tool contributes most clearly.

Pricing: data subscription vs. flow intelligence tool

Fintel offers a free tier with access to limited data and paid tiers for full access to short interest aggregation, 13F data, fund sentiment scoring, the screener, and options flow features. Verify current Fintel pricing on their site, as subscription prices change and the tier structure evolves.

RadarPulse pricing at launch:

• Basic: $12/mo, with a 14-day free trial. Full scored scanner with the 0-100 unusualness score on every trade, the daily Top 25 leaderboard with EXTREME/ELEVATED/NOTABLE flags, whale detection, Congress trades tracker, Trump trades tracker, 13F holdings context, Radar AI chat, and Vera AI equity research. Flow is 15-minute delayed.
• Pro: $29/mo. Everything in Basic, with expanded saved filters, more active alerts, and cross-device sync. Designed for traders who use the platform throughout the session rather than checking once a day.
• Elite: $59/mo. Adds the real-time tape, flow prints arriving with no delay, for traders whose strategy requires reacting within the same minute a sweep hits the tape. Also includes the Vera structured equity research tool.
• Free forever: $100K paper trading wallet + Academy + leaderboard. No card required. The paper wallet lets new flow traders practise sizing and acting on EXTREME-flagged prints in a zero-risk environment before committing real capital to the strategy.

The two platforms serve different primary use cases at the product level. Fintel is a data subscription: you pay for access to aggregated short interest, 13F holdings, insider transactions, and supporting data. RadarPulse is a flow intelligence tool: you pay for a scored, ranked, contextualised view of unusual options activity, with congressional data and AI research built in to explain the signal you're seeing.

Traders who treat short interest screening and institutional ownership trends as primary signals will find Fintel's data subscription aligned with how they work. Traders whose primary workflow starts with unusual options flow, who want to know what the highest-conviction prints of the day were, who is acting in the name, and what the congressional and institutional ownership context looks like alongside that flow, will find RadarPulse's focused model more directly suited to that process.

RadarPulse is currently in its pre-launch phase. Full platform access, including the live scored flow scanner, the daily Top 25 leaderboard, the Congress and Trump trackers, Radar AI chat, and the $100K paper wallet, opens to waitlist members first. Join the waitlist to be among the first users when the platform opens publicly.

Frequently asked questions

What is a good alternative to Fintel for options flow?

Fintel is a broad financial-data platform covering options flow, short interest, institutional ownership and more. RadarPulse is an alternative focused specifically on accessible, scored options flow: a 0-100 unusualness score on every trade, a daily Top 25 with EXTREME/ELEVATED/NOTABLE flags, whale detection, and Congress, Trump and 13F trackers, plus AI chat and AI equity research.

How does RadarPulse rank unusual options activity?

RadarPulse computes a 0-100 unusualness score using four disclosed factors: volume relative to open interest, dollar premium, days to expiry, and aggressor side. All four components are visible per print. The highest-scoring prints of the day are collected into a daily Top 25 with EXTREME, ELEVATED, and NOTABLE severity tags.

How much does RadarPulse cost?

RadarPulse Basic is $12/mo with a 14-day free trial. Pro is $29/mo, Elite is $59/mo. The $100K paper-trading wallet, leaderboard, and Academy are free forever with no card required. Flow is 15-minute delayed on every tier except Elite, which adds the real-time tape.

Does RadarPulse track institutional and congressional activity?

Yes. Alongside scored options flow, RadarPulse includes a Congress trades tracker, a Trump trades tracker, and a 13F institutional-holdings tracker, so you can see what informed participants own in any underlying right next to the unusual flow on that name.

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