FULL COMPARISON
This page is the complete promise. The pricing page is a summary of it; where the two ever disagree, this one is right.
| Feature | Free | Pro | Quant |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chart and terminal | |||
| Realtime chart + classic indicators | Included | Included | Included |
| Layouts, synced across devices | 1 layout | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Composite state panes (MEM · AFE · RIP · QMF) | 1 sample pane, delayed 15 min | All, realtime | All, realtime |
| In-chart overlays | 2 of 12 | All 12 | All 12 |
| Widget rail | Selected 2D widgets | All widgets | All widgets |
| Alerts — in-app, while Meridian is open | 3 · in-app | 50 · in-app | Unlimited · in-app |
| Chart + pane image export | Included | Included | Included |
| Research and discovery | |||
| Meridian Research | Delayed snapshot · 15 min | Realtime | Realtime |
| Futures data seams | — | Included | Included |
| Indicator catalog + technical ratings | Free subset | All indicators | All indicators |
| Orrery presets and compose | View only | Included · 1,000 compiles/day | Included · unlimited |
| Evidence | |||
| Local backtest — runs on this device, free | 10/day · 1 year of history | Unlimited · full history | Unlimited · full history |
| Server backtest — durable, citable evidence | — | 2 concurrent · credits | 4 concurrent · credits |
| Edge Atlas | — | Included · credits | Included · credits |
| Forward Evidence | — | Included | Included |
| Execution studies — replayed against a recorded order book | Read any study · request none | Included | Included |
| Quant Lab / optimizer | — | — | Included · credits |
| Trade Plans | Read only | Included | Included |
| Automation | |||
| Desk Brief — the morning read | — | Included | Included |
| Opportunity watches — symbols per watch | 10 | 50 | 100 |
| Background automations | 3 · pauses after 14 days away | 50 · credits | 200 · credits |
| Trade automations, running 24/7 | — | 1 slot included · credits | 5 slots included · credits |
| Capital | |||
| Paper portfolio + analytics | — | Included | Included |
| Live trading + real capital | — | — | 2 of the 5 slots · credits |
| Exchange API key vault | — | — | Included |
| Claude at the desk | |||
| Connect Claude to Meridian | Read what you can read | Author, prove and run paper | + command live capital |
| What the assistant’s work costs | — | Same as the app — quick runs free, durable runs in credits | Same as the app |
| Copilot — your own model, in the app | — | Included · your endpoint, your key | Included · your endpoint, your key |
| Credits | |||
| Included credits per month | 50 | 500 | 3,000 |
| Purchase top-up packs | — | Included | Included |
The line is not "expensive" versus "cheap" — it is whose machine does the work, and for how long. If it computes on your device, or finishes the moment you asked for it, your plan covers it. If our workers keep computing on your behalf, it is metered.
| What you do | How it is bounded | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Local backtest | Plan quota | Runs in your browser, on your machine. Bounded per day so a runaway loop cannot lock up your own device, not because it costs us anything. |
| Orrery compile | Plan quota | Bounds runaway authoring. It is a safety bound on a cheap operation, not a sale of compute. |
| Alerts and layouts | Plan quota | Packaging. Their marginal cost is negligible; the numbers exist to shape the tiers. |
| Server backtest run | Credits | Occupies a worker for the length of the run and produces durable, hash-addressed evidence we store and serve. |
| Quant Lab experiment | Credits | Many runs, dispatched together. The heaviest consumer of the worker pool in the product. |
| Edge Atlas analysis | Credits | Reads durable evidence across a population and computes over it on our workers. |
| Execution study | Neither | The heaviest thing you can ask for: a frame-by-frame replay of a recorded order book across every size and scenario you declare. It is admitted by the plan rather than by a balance, and it is not charged. A rate card for it is authored and published as a shadow price — quoted beside every run, settling nothing — until a month of measured cost says the number is right. |
| Background automation | Credits | Keeps evaluating on our machines while you are away. That is the whole point of it, and it is metered by how long it does so. On Free it follows your attention: fourteen days without a sign-in parks it, and one click puts it back. |
| Paper trade automation | Credits | A continuously running automation with an execution path attached. |
| Live trade automation | Credits | The same, against real capital. Only accepted risk-increasing intents are ever billed. |
| A quick backtest Claude runs for you | Neither | It finishes inside the answer — no worker held, no evidence stored. The same run the browser does for free, reached through a different client. A durable run Claude dispatches is the server backtest row above, at the same price you would have paid yourself. |
| Data export, portfolio sync | Neither | Included with the tiers that have them. Neither is metered while their provider and legal costing remains open. |
A local run is yours. A server run is evidence Meridian keeps. Everything downstream consumes evidence — and evidence is what costs credits.
| Local run | Server run | |
|---|---|---|
| Where it computes | Your device, in the browser | Our worker pool |
| Cost | Free, always | Credits, quoted before it starts |
| Where results live | This browser only | Stored, hash-addressed, served back to you |
| Visible on your other devices | No | Yes |
| Can be cited by Trade Plans, Experiments, Forward Evidence and Edge Atlas | No | Yes |
| Bounded by | Runs per day and history depth | How many may run at once |
You can always run locally first and promote the same run to the server afterwards. You will have seen the answer for free; what you pay for is durability.
A credit is a unit of compute, so the only honest definition is in work. These are computed from the tariff currently in force, not written beside it.
Credits are a unit of compute, so the honest way to describe them is in work, not in numbers. Every figure below is measured through the tariff in force rather than written beside it, and is restated whenever the tariff changes.
Before you commit any of it, Meridian quotes the cost, shows you the ceiling it will reserve, and waits for you to accept. Nothing expensive starts without a number in front of it.
Two different kinds of limit exist in Meridian and it matters which is which. A commercial quota is part of what you bought and moves when you change tier. A safety bound protects the system and every account on it, and is never sold away — no tier, no add-on and no balance raises one.
These two are independent, and the copy says so before checkout does: an extra automation slot reserves concurrency and includes no credits; a credit pack adds balance and unlocks no capability. Buying one never changes the other.
One-time purchases, available to Pro and Quant. Every pack costs more per credit than a subscription’s included allowance — subscribing is always the better deal, and it should be.
Your allowance is granted at the start of each billing cycle — an annual subscription receives twelve monthly grants, never one lump. Included credits are spent before purchased ones. Anything left of the included allowance expires when the cycle ends and does not roll over. Purchased credits stay yours while your plan is a paid one; if you drop to Free they are frozen for 30 days rather than destroyed, and come back if you resubscribe inside that window.
Meridian is analysis software. It reports market state; it does not tell you what to buy or sell, and nothing it produces is investment advice.