As a non-pro you can get access to nearly all market day for like $20/month. As a pro you are forced to pay like $1,000+/month for the same data. And this is per username. So same trader has to pay 3,000/month if using 3 brokers. I think this is a rip-off pushed by exchange monopolies. All LLCs are auto-classified as Pro without regard to how much volume of data consumed or trades placed. Which brokers allow trading without data connection? The free/cheap data available all over is good enough for my firm as we don't trade that much.
If you open an account with your LLC, the answer is you need to pay for Pro-data fees. I'm not sure where you get $1000 per month and why you need 3. Some platforms do not require market data to trade as they get their risk checks outside the system, but how will you trade without it? Are you a manual or automated trader?
Here is sample of fees: CME: 125 CBOT: 125 Nymex: 125 Nasdaq: 112 Comex: 131 NYSE: 46 Not included: CBOE, OTC, ARCA, ICE, etc. Not fully 1k but almost there, and definitely more than 20x non-pro fees.
I guess I need to hire a programmer to create a way to submit orders via API and use separate data/charting platform.
The CME 4 exchanges are very expensive and get worse with non-display fees for automated traders. If you use one trading platform, you should only have to pay that once, even if you clear at a few FCMs. I know some FCMs and trading platform's market up data to deliver it, but the CME only charges $105/exchange. https://www.cmegroup.com/market-data/monthly-real-time-professional-fees.html
I believe you can avoid these fees with delayed data. If you don't need real time, this might be an option. Robert Morse, is this the case?
I do not know if you can trade with delayed data. https://www.cqg.com/partners/exchanges/monthly-fees
Some brokers require data subscription to trade. For example Tradestation, Tradovate. I think IB doesn't require (but they warn you before each time you submit order). So if I submit order via API then I get hit with non-display fee which is even more than market data fees. Its great to be a monopoly.
I agree, but the OP asked about trading with no data connection as he had access to data from other sources.