Rachel Kim is a retail options trader in Nashville, Tennessee. She was an Unusual Whales subscriber for over a year before switching to OptionsBell two months ago. Recorded August 4, 2026.
What made her switch
Two months with OptionsBell, fourteen with <a href='/vs/unusual-whales'>Unusual Whales</a> before that. The API pricing. I wanted to automate my alerts, and Unusual Whales charges a separate $150 a month for API access on top of the data subscription. I was paying for the terminal I used and the API I barely touched.
OptionsBell bundles both, email alerts and the full REST API, in one $24.99 plan. I did the math. I've saved over $200 in two months. For a retail trader, that's real money.
Was the data comparable?
For unusual flow, yes. Unusual Whales has more: dark pool, congressional, Greek exposure. Their API gives you 100+ endpoints. But I wasn't using any of that. I was using flow alerts.
OptionsBell gives me the same signal, so Vol/OI, premium, IV, sector aggregates, at a fraction of the cost. I'm not paying for the terminal, the dashboard, or data types I don't use. That's the value right there.
The email experience
OptionsBell's alerts are cleaner. The email shows the top trade, then a table of every contract that triggered, and I can scan it in ten seconds. The Unusual Whales emails were denser. More data, more noise.
When you're a retail trader, signal-to-noise matters. I don't need every print. I need the ones that match my thresholds, and OptionsBell gives me that.
Regrets?
Only that I didn't switch sooner. The other thing is the MCP server. I didn't have that with Unusual Whales. I can ask Claude "show me flow history on AMD" and it pulls the data. I honestly didn't expect a feature like that at $24.99.
Would she go back?
No. Unusual Whales is a great platform, but it's priced for professionals. OptionsBell is priced for people like me, retail traders who want institutional-grade flow data without the institutional price tag. That's the whole pitch. And it works.
I was paying for the terminal I used and the API I barely touched.
For a feature-by-feature view of the two products, including where Unusual Whales is the better fit, see our OptionsBell vs Unusual Whales page and the alternatives roundup.
Full interview transcript
Recorded transcript, lightly edited for readability.
Interviewer: Welcome. Today we're talking with Rachel Kim, a retail options trader in Nashville, Tennessee. Rachel was an Unusual Whales subscriber for over a year before she switched to OptionsBell two months ago.
Rachel Kim: Two months with OptionsBell, fourteen with Unusual Whales before that.
Interviewer: What made you switch?
Rachel Kim: The API pricing. I wanted to automate my alerts, and Unusual Whales charges a separate $150 a month for API access on top of the data subscription. I was paying for the terminal I used and the API I barely touched.
OptionsBell bundles both, email alerts and the full REST API, in one $24.99 plan. I did the math. I've saved over $200 in two months. For a retail trader, that's real money.
Interviewer: Was the data comparable?
Rachel Kim: For unusual flow, yes. Unusual Whales has more: dark pool, congressional, Greek exposure. Their API gives you 100+ endpoints. But I wasn't using any of that. I was using flow alerts.
OptionsBell gives me the same signal, so Vol/OI, premium, IV, sector aggregates, at a fraction of the cost. I'm not paying for the terminal, the dashboard, or data types I don't use. That's the value right there.
Interviewer: What about the email experience?
Rachel Kim: OptionsBell's alerts are cleaner. The email shows the top trade, then a table of every contract that triggered, and I can scan it in ten seconds. The Unusual Whales emails were denser. More data, more noise.
When you're a retail trader, signal-to-noise matters. I don't need every print. I need the ones that match my thresholds, and OptionsBell gives me that.
Interviewer: Any regrets?
Rachel Kim: Only that I didn't switch sooner. Like I said, I did the math, and I've saved over $200 in two months. That's real money.
The other thing is the MCP server. I didn't have that with Unusual Whales. I can ask Claude "show me flow history on AMD" and it pulls the data. I honestly didn't expect a feature like that at $24.99.
Interviewer: Would you go back?
Rachel Kim: No. Unusual Whales is a great platform, but it's priced for professionals. OptionsBell is priced for people like me, retail traders who want institutional-grade flow data without the institutional price tag.
That's the whole pitch. And it works.