Cost comparison of popular algo trading APIs available in India

Rishabh Nanda -

In practice, API access is rarely where Indian traders spend money. The real costs surface later, quietly, through execution. Every order still attracts brokerage, exchange charges, GST, STT, stamp duty, and clearing fees. If your strategy trades frequently, these add up faster than most backtests assume.

This article helps you avoid common traps: choosing a broker purely on free API marketing, underestimating costs for high-frequency or intraday strategies, and ignoring the biggest cost drivers that actually decide profitability, execution charges, slippage, and market impact.

Two Important Concepts: Fee vs Execution

When comparing algo-trading brokers in India, pricing pages can feel cluttered. In reality, you only need to look at two numbers upfront. Everything else is secondary.

API fee

Today, most Indian brokers offer execution APIs at zero subscription cost, especially for personal or retail use. You can place, modify, and cancel orders without paying a monthly API fee. That sounds great, and it is, but it’s not the full picture.

  • Most Indian brokers offer execution APIs at zero subscription cost for personal or retail use.
  • You can place, modify, and cancel orders without paying a monthly API fee.
  • However, execution being free is not the full picture.
  • Many brokers charge mainly for market data, not execution.

Cost per executed order

For intraday and F&O trading, discount brokers still follow a simple rule: ₹20 per executed order (or a capped percentage, whichever is lower). That fee applies every time an order is filled.

  • The charge applies every time an order is filled, not per trade idea or strategy.
  • Algo strategies place many more orders than manual trading, scaling in and out, partial exits, stop-loss updates, and re-entries.
  • Brokerage grows with order count, not with profit.

Broker-by-broker cost breakdown

Your real costs show up in three places: brokerage per executed order, statutory charges (STT, exchange charges, GST, etc.), and sometimes market data fees if the broker splits execution and data pricing. With that lens, here’s how the popular options look in 2025–26.

Stratzy API

Stratzy keeps it refreshingly straightforward, so the cost is basically Stratzy’s platform fee + your broker’s normal charges (execution fees, data fees, whatever your broker already charges). That’s it. No surprise “extra API bill” showing up later.

How pricing typically works:

  • Performance-aligned fee: roughly 1–2% per year of the capital you deploy for access to the full algo suite. Simple, predictable, and tied to how much you actually put to work.
  • Subscription plans: monthly, quarterly, or yearly options, with yearly plans usually offering the best value if you’re serious and plan to stick with it.

Best for: traders who want solid, rules-based algos without spending months building, testing, tweaking, and maintaining systems themselves.

Good to know: fees scale clearly with your deployed capital or chosen plan, and broker costs remain what they’ve always been. For a lot of traders, that clarity is the whole point.

Zerodha Kite Connect

Zerodha has made execution APIs free for personal use, which is great because it removes the biggest mental barrier for DIY algo traders. The important catch is that market data is the paid layer, not order placement. Zerodha’s update clearly states execution APIs are free, and they charge ₹2000 for data.

They also explain Kite Connect Personal gives you API access to your Zerodha account minus market data, meaning you can place orders and manage holdings if you bring your own data source.

Brokerage still applies exactly like normal trading:

  • Intraday: ₹20 or 0.03% whichever is lower per executed order
  • Options: flat ₹20 per executed order

Best for: traders who want a mature ecosystem and are comfortable being intentional about data costs and data sourcing.

Watch-outs: if your strategy needs heavy live data streaming and frequent historical pulls, treat data as a real line item, not a footnote.

Upstox API

Upstox’s standard brokerage schedule exists like any broker, but API traders care about one thing: per-order pricing when trading via API.

Upstox’s developer community announcement extends ₹10 per executed order via API until 31 March 2026.

Best for: frequent intraday and F&O traders who want a straightforward API path and feel every rupee of per-order cost in their monthly P&L.

Watch-outs: if your strategy is order-heavy (scalping-style entries, partial exits, frequent re-entries), even small differences like ₹10 vs ₹20 can compound quickly, so keep your assumptions updated to the current offer dates.

Angel One Smart API

Angel One is very direct about SmartAPI positioning: APIs are free of cost.

Where you need to pay attention is brokerage, because Angel One’s pricing is published and plan-based over time, with clear rules by segment.

Their pricing pages explain that after initial offers, intraday is generally lower of ₹20 or a percentage per executed order, and F&O is typically ₹20 per executed order.

Best for: traders who want a full-stack broker plus API access, and who prefer clear published pricing rules.

Watch-outs: always check the latest pricing update page before hard-coding brokerage assumptions into your strategy cost model.

DhanHQ Trading APIs

If you like transparency, Dhan publishes practical API constraints like rate limits, so you understand what the platform can safely handle.

On trading costs, Dhan follows the common discount-broker pattern:

  • Equity intraday and futures: ₹20 or 0.03% whichever is lower per executed order
  • Options: ₹20 per executed order

Best for: DIY Python traders who want a broker that leans into developer workflows and publishes limits clearly.

Watch-outs: free API does not mean infinite requests. Build with rate limits in mind so your system stays stable in fast markets.

FYERS API

FYERS is one of the simplest stories on cost anxiety: they state the trading API is free, and they also say you can access historical data, quotes, and market data for free.

Brokerage is still standard discount pricing:

  • Equity intraday: ₹20 or 0.03% whichever is lower per executed order
  • Options: flat ₹20 per executed order

Best for: API builders who want minimal platform fee friction and a straightforward cost structure.

Watch-outs: even if the API and data are free, your strategy still pays statutory charges and slippage, so test with realistic assumptions.

Alice Blue API

Alice Blue explicitly states you can use their API free of cost, with no charges for accessing or using it.

Brokerage is published on their pricing page and is presented as a per-executed-order structure.

  • Best for: cost-conscious traders who still want API access without subscription friction.
  • Watch-outs: like any broker, the headline “API free” does not reduce trading costs per order, so your main lever remains strategy efficiency, number of orders, and slippage control.

Final takeaway

APIs remove manual effort, not trading risk. They make execution faster and more consistent, but they don’t protect you from poor strategy design, overtrading, or hidden costs.

In practice, the cheapest API isn’t the one with the loudest free label. It’s the one that fits your trading style. A low per–executed-order cost matters if your strategy trades frequently. Predictable data access matters if you rely on real-time signals. Practical limits, rate caps, order restrictions, and plan rules, matter more than glossy feature lists.

When those align with how you trade, APIs become a genuine edge, not a silent drag on performance.

Visit stratzy.in to start integrations quickly.