Plans and live data

Overview

As a licensed distributor for 45+ trading venues, Databento redistributes real-time and intraday market data from the last 24 hours. This page allows you to manage your subscription plans and live data licensing.

Activate live data

Info

A Standard, Plus, or Unlimited subscription plan is required to access live data for Databento US Equities. Usage-based live data is not available for this service and will be deprecated for other datasets in the near future.

1. Navigate to the Plans and live data page of your Databento portal.
2. Complete a short questionnaire for your desired dataset to determine your subscriber status. You can also upload an existing license agreement.

Instant approval is available for certain venues and use cases. Your contracts will be auto-generated to meet venue licensing requirements, and you can view clear pricing breakdowns before signing your documents. Databento will then operate as a vendor of record (VoR) and report your devices under our license agreement.

Venue licensing requirements

Each venue defines subscriber statuses, use cases, device counts, and their corresponding license fees differently. License fees refer to any monthly charges imposed by venues for the internal and external use (display, non-display, and distribution) of live market data for personal or commercial applications.

• Internal. Any use of market data within the licensed company or individual user's private environment.
• External. Any use of market data that involves sharing, disseminating, or making data visible to external parties outside the licensed organization or individual.
• Personal. Market data is used solely for a non-professional individual's own investment decisions, research, or educational purposes and cannot be shared or leveraged for profit.
• Commercial. Market data is used within a company, by a professional individual, or in applications that generate profit, serve clients, or support business operations.

Databento standardizes venue terminology to streamline licensing workflows. See the table below for general definitions and examples.

See also

Databento's market microstructure guide or three-part licensing FAQ series for more information and examples.

Applying for a license agreement

Most commercial users* without an existing license will need to apply for a direct license agreement with the venue before they can access live data on Databento or via any other data vendor.

Databento facilitates this process for you. To get started, select License directly with venue(s) within the questionnaire on the Plans and live data page of your portal.

1. Start the application by completing the form.
2. Databento will use this information to submit a data feed request (DFR) to the venue on your behalf.
3. The venue will contact you via email to complete any additional paperwork and confirm license fees.
4. Databento will receive approval from the venue and activate live data on the effective date of your license agreement.

Info

*IEX TOPS, ICE Europe Commodities, ICE Europe Financials, ICE Endex, and ICE Futures US offer instant access for commercial use cases.

Venue license fees

License fees are assessed by the venue and are typically charged per user or device each month. If you're licensed through Databento, fees are passed through without an upcharge. However, a 2.9% Stripe processing fee is applied to license fees. These are paid monthly in advance, and you can terminate at any time.

This table summarizes 2025 license fees per dataset, alongside an overview of each venue's supported applications and a link to its official fee schedule. The monthly license fees listed below reflect the most common use cases among Databento users.