How Does Intrinio Stack Up Against Other Data Providers?

You likely have a lot of options for financial data. We’re often asked how Intrinio differs from other financial data providers, so here’s an overview of how we stack up against similar vendors and what sets us apart.

How does Intrinio compare to big providers?

There are a handful of major players in the financial data industry who power some of the biggest companies in the world. While they are deeply entrenched in places like hedge funds and have some significant advantages, they’re not positioned to serve the up-and-coming innovators in the finance industry.

There are a few reasons for this:

1. Their costs are high, which typically prices out all but the largest and most established financial institutions. They have to charge so much because they rely on outdated manual processes that lead to delays, lower quality, and higher prices.

2. They have a conflict of interest. They typically make money off both raw data feeds and workstations or terminals. If they open these raw data feeds to engineers and developers, those users could build a better terminal with the data.  

3. They are faced with the innovator’s dilemma and are being left in the dust. Bloomberg, for example, is built on 15 million lines of Fortran code. There’s an enormous volume of technical debt – you can’t innovate on top of archaic infrastructure.  

Intrinio has automated the data supply chain to keep costs competitive and make data accessible to startups and early-stage companies as well as enterprises. Our mission is to support innovators in the financial space, giving engineers and developers the data and tools they need to build game-changing platforms.

Of course, this requires us to stay on the cutting edge so we can give our customers a leg up on their own innovation. Our tools are built by developers for developers, including our powerful Web API, streaming WebSocket API, software development kits in six languages, direct database access, and other advanced access methods.  

We also use proprietary machine learning technology to source and standardize our fundamental data. Our supply chain technology does the job that big providers hire thousands of overseas contractors to do. This helps us maintain a high level of quality while delivering the data faster than ever before (typically within 30 minutes of a new filing being posted by the SEC), without charging you an arm and a leg for it.  

How does Intrinio compare to small providers?

Obviously, there’s room for substantial innovation within the financial data industry. This has given rise to a new crop of providers who are focused on emerging data technologies. Unfortunately, their innovation often comes at the expense of support and data quality.

These providers are ideal for users who are just experimenting with the data or need it for personal trading and investing. If you have a business use case and need a reliable source, however, you’ll find yourself tripped up by these providers.  

Here’s why:

1. They frequently switch data sources, ripping up all of your work. Changing sources means changing endpoints, which impacts your code. Since many small providers aren’t transparent about their data sources, you may not even know it’s happening. You have no way to gauge the quality of the source, and unfortunately, some providers are known for stealing their data and not following market data rules set by exchanges.

2. Unless they’re helmed by a team with previous experience, new companies typically don’t have a comprehensive understanding of the data landscape. They also likely offer a narrow category of data and won’t have a partner network to tap into for the rest of your financial data needs, which means you’ll have to work with multiple providers to get everything you want.

3. Their support is hit-or-miss. Smaller providers don’t have the bandwidth to provide timely, personal support, which means you could experience an issue and not get a response for weeks or even months.

Intrinio offers complete transparency into our data sources. Our fundamental data is sourced directly from the SEC, while our market data comes from trusted partners and exchanges like IEX, BATS, and QUODD. Since our data comes from established, reputable sources, you can have peace of mind about the quality and reliability of your financial data.

Our team is also comprised of financial data experts who can help you find the right fit for your business use case. We’ve customized data solutions for thousands of clients. We help you navigate connecting with exchanges, correctly submitting paperwork, and successfully integrating the data into your platform.

Because our data supply chain is automated, we can devote more time to support. When you work with Intrinio, you have direct phone, email, and live chat access to your dedicated customer success team. We also offer engineering support for integration and ongoing technical concerns, plus a built-in ticketing system and dedicated data quality team. Basically, if you run into a problem, you’ll never be left on your own.

Who does Intrinio serve?

We’re not everyone’s cup of tea. For retail investors and non-technical financial analysts, our platform isn’t a good fit (although we appreciate you considering us!).

Our founders were former fintech engineers working on their own investment app – until they realized they couldn’t afford the financial data to power it or find tools built for their use case. They knew the future of finance was increasingly technical; every hedge fund was becoming a quant fund, and every bank was hiring data scientists.

They built Intrinio on two foundational pillars: 1) automating the data supply chain to keep costs low, pass the savings onto clients, and focus on other value props like tools and support, and 2) putting developers first in everything we do, like our API, documentation, and tools.

Typically, our customers are innovators on the cutting edge of financial technology, building trading terminals, portfolio management tools, risk analytics software, AI investing tools, and more. We’re also starting to see that innovation inside of traditional financial institutions, and that part of our customer base is growing. Some of the largest hedge funds and brokerage platforms in the world use our data.

Why do innovators come to Intrinio? It’s simple: because of our underlying technology, we provide some of the highest quality data in the world, we get it to our customers faster, and we deliver it through the most modern, easy-to-use developer tools. We love seeing our data come alive inside innovative apps and tools. The future of finance is powered by Intrinio data.

Ready to innovate? Explore our data packages.