Intraday options backtesting
Backtest your favorite options strategy using 10-second intervals for extreme accuracy. When the results hold up, hand the same strategy to an options trading bot to trade it live.
Pay only for what you use, from $0.50 per backtest, with no monthly fees.
The basics
What is options backtesting?
Options backtesting means running a strategy's exact rules against historical market data to see how it would have performed: every entry, every fill, every exit, and every drawdown, computed from real quotes instead of guesswork. A good options backtesting tool answers the only question that matters before you risk capital: has this strategy actually worked, and what did it cost to find out?
Resolution is what separates useful answers from misleading ones. Options are path-dependent: premiums decay by the hour, gamma moves strikes in and out of danger intraday, and stops trigger at specific moments. A backtester built on daily bars cannot see the stop that hit at 10:14 in the morning or the profit target that filled and reversed before lunch. Whispertrades evaluates every trade at 10-second intervals so the backtest walks the same path your live trade would have walked.
Trillions of data points at 10-second intervals
The most accurate options backtester for retail traders
Most backtests rely on minute or day data. If you're trading short duration strategies, this isn't good enough. Use our 10-second backtests to see results that match live trades. That's right, our backtester evaluates trades every 10 seconds going back 10 years!
- Powerful inputs
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Test the most popular options positions, with custom inputs for entry and exit timing, strike selection, and scheduled or observed events like FOMC days, gap downs, and technical indicators.
- Portfolio performance
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Combine multiple strategies into a single backtest to see how your entire portfolio performs with a unified report.
- Quick results
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Don't spend months testing your strategies with live trades. Backtest years of data and view the results in seconds.
The data
Options backtesting software built on real intraday data
Concrete numbers, because superlatives are cheap. Every backtest runs on institutional-grade historical options quotes, evaluated the way your live trades would be.
- 10-second
- Evaluation intervals
- 2016 to now
- History depth
- SPX · SPY · QQQ · IWM · VIX
- Backtest symbols
- Trillions
- Of data points
A single tick can lie: quotes flicker, spreads gap, and one bad print can fill a backtest at a price no live order would ever get. So instead of trusting one tick, Whispertrades samples multiple data points inside every 10-second interval and smooths them into a fair-value quote. Liquidity filters then exclude extreme deltas and wide bid/ask spreads, so your results never depend on fills that would not exist in the real market.
Read exactly how the data works in our data methodology docs.
Backtest options strategies the way you'd actually trade them
A backtest is only as honest as the rules it can express. Whispertrades gives your backtests the same decision vocabulary as your live trading.
- 16 position types, 8 per test
- Long and short calls, puts, spreads, straddles, strangles, iron condors, and iron butterflies, combined into portfolio-level tests.
- Strike selection with intent
- Target strikes by delta, % OTM, or premium, and on SPX even pin them to GEX levels like the put wall, call wall, or flip level.
- Entry filters that mean something
- Gate entries on VIX, IV and IV Rank, moving averages, % moves from the open or prior close, and moves from intraday highs and lows within configurable time windows.
- Economic-event awareness
- Avoid or deliberately trade CPI, FOMC, GDP, and NFP days, with configurable windows around each event.
- The full exit engine
- Profit targets by percent, delta, or premium; stop losses including delta and % ITM stops; trailing stops; moving-average exits; GEX-level exits on SPX; and timed exits.
- Sizing and pacing control
- Allocate by fixed quantity, leverage, or percent of portfolio by max risk, then pace entries with re-entry rules, max entries per day, and minutes between trades.
- Position triggers
- Chain positions together: enter one while another is open, or after another closes at a profit or a loss.
- Fills and fees, modeled
- Configure broker fees per contract, assignment fees, and slippage behavior, with stop sensitivity from Super Patient to Super Aggressive.
Accuracy, measured
Validated against live trades
A backtester should have to prove itself. Whispertrades runs the same mechanical strategies live through its automated options trading bots and compares the backtest's answers with real fills, using fast-moving same-day SPX strategies as the hardest test case. Across thousands of live trades, we've measured less than a 3% margin of error.
That works because backtests and bots share the same machinery: the same 10-second evaluation cadence and the same stop-sensitivity settings. A strategy that survives your backtest converts to a live bot without changing how it is evaluated.
Market intelligence
Dealer gamma exposure (GEX)
Visualize dealer gamma positioning to identify key support and resistance levels driven by options market makers. See put walls, call walls, and the flip level that define where dealer hedging amplifies or dampens market moves.
- GEX by strike and DTE.
- Break down gamma exposure by individual strike prices and days to expiration to pinpoint where dealer positioning is concentrated.
- Strike selection at key levels.
- Backtest SPX strategies with strikes pinned to GEX levels like the put wall, call wall, or flip level to see how dealer positioning affects your fills and outcomes.
- Use as entry and exit conditions.
- Filter SPX backtests by GEX regime, total GEX levels, or proximity to key levels, and even exit when the underlying crosses a GEX wall.
Results you can dissect, share, and re-run
Every backtest produces a benchmark comparison against buy-and-hold of the underlying: total return, CAGR, drawdown, MAR, Sharpe, Sortino, profit factor, volatility, correlation, and beta. Drill into any trade's minute-by-minute timeline, replay the intraday balance curve, and export everything to CSV.
Then iterate: compare up to 20 backtests side by side with a correlation matrix, clone a test to tweak one variable, or use Span to sweep a whole parameter range in one pass. When a result is worth showing off, share any completed backtest with a public link that anyone can view, no Whispertrades account required.
Pay per backtest, not per month
Each position in a backtest costs $0.50 for the full 2016-to-present history, prorated down for shorter date ranges: a one-month test runs for under a penny. A single backtest holds up to 8 positions, you see the exact charge before you run, and the charge comes out of your prepaid balance when the run finishes. Compare that with the $99 to $299 monthly subscriptions typical elsewhere.
- $0.50
- 1 strangle, 10+ years
- ~$0.004
- 1 iron condor, one month
- $0.195
- 1 strangle since 2022
See the full breakdown on our pricing page, or the backtest pricing details in the docs.
Empowering retail traders with institutional-grade software
Many retail traders find themselves stumbling in the dark, following so-called "pro" traders, only realizing their strategy doesn't work after they lose money trying. Then comes DIY solutions that often fail as well. You don't need to do this. Backtest your strategy before you invest your money into it.
We've partnered with the best data providers in the industry to bring to you an intraday options backtesting engine that you can rely on.
Don't waste your time and money trying trading strategies that do not work. Run them through the Whispertrades backtester to immediately see detailed results and then modify the parameters until you find a combination that works for you and your goals.
- Launch date
- September 2022
- Backtest trades
- 688M+
Backtesting questions, answered
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$0.50 per position for the full 2016-to-present history, prorated down for shorter date ranges. A one-month test costs under a penny, and you see the exact charge before you run. There is no subscription; charges come from a prepaid balance when the run finishes.
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Whispertrades has no free tier. What we offer instead is pricing that scales to zero commitment: short backtests cost fractions of a cent, so proving out an idea usually costs less than a coffee. Tools that advertise free backtesting typically gate it behind a funded brokerage account or a subscription.
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SPX, SPY, QQQ, IWM, and VIX. SPX coverage is the PM-settled weekly (SPXW) chain. Full details are in the data documentation.
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January 2016 to present, evaluated at 10-second intervals. There is no artificial DTE cap on strategies; option quotes begin roughly 130 days before each expiration.
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Multiple data points are sampled within every 10-second interval and smoothed into a fair-value quote, and liquidity filters exclude extreme deltas and wide bid/ask spreads so results never rely on fills the real market would not give you. You also control broker fees, assignment fees, and slippage behavior per position, and our live-trade comparisons have measured less than a 3% margin of error.
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Yes. Any completed backtest can be shared with a public link, and viewers don't need a Whispertrades account to see the full results and benchmark comparison.
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Yes, by rebuilding the same rules as a bot on the same platform. Backtests and bots share the 10-second evaluation cadence and stop-sensitivity settings, so the strategy behaves the way the backtest measured it.
Put your strategy to the test
A full-history backtest starts at $0.50, and a short one costs less than a penny. Know your edge before you risk a dollar.