Compare · Options flow
Unusual Whales is one of the best-known names in options flow, and if you're reading this you're probably deciding what to pay for on the options side. I build Sharpnel, so read me accordingly — but this page is written to be useful even if you choose them, because the two products answer different questions and the way to choose is to know which one you are asking.
A flow service delivers information as a product: the prints, the sweeps, the screeners, read in a browser beside whatever you trade on. A terminal turns the consequence of that flow into a layer: Sharpnel computes the call wall, put wall and gamma flip from the option chain every session and draws them on the price axis of the chart you already trade — recomputed through the session for the index books as 0DTE flow rebuilds the surface, nightly for single names — with the DOM ladder, footprint, TPO and reconstructed tape on the same screen. Whether that difference matters is the whole decision: if the levels live where the order flow lives, you see the defense of a wall as it happens instead of checking a dashboard after.
A native desktop trading terminal (Windows + notarised macOS). Gamma walls on-chart, deep DOM with pull/stack detection, footprint in five modes, TPO, the options suite, and a primary-source stock research desk. Pro is $125/mo or $1,125/yr paid once; a free Explorer tier runs everything on delayed data.
Flow data is a real edge for the trader who reads it well, and a browser dashboard with alerts is the right shape for it. The honest question is what you do with the flow once you have seen it: if the answer is find the level it creates and trade the futures around it, that level is what Sharpnel draws.
Which option chain feeds the computation; which expirations count; open interest or volume; the dealer-positioning assumption; how often levels recompute; and how they're delivered. Ask these of anyone — the answers explain why two vendors' walls sit at different prices on the same day.
Where is the published, graded record? Sharpnel grades its own free ES and NQ levels against the real session daily and keeps the misses up. As of 31 July 2026: 88 wall tests, 28 broke. About a third — because that's what a wall is. Any provider unwilling to publish that number is asking you to take their word.
It depends on what you use it for. Unusual Whales is a well-known options-flow service: what is being bought and sold, surfaced as prints, alerts and screeners in a browser. Sharpnel is a desktop trading terminal whose options work is positioning — computing the call wall, put wall and gamma flip from the option chain every session and drawing them on the price axis of the chart you trade, next to the DOM, footprint and TPO. If your question is where dealers will have to hedge, Sharpnel answers it on the chart. If your question is what somebody just bought, that is what a flow service is for.
Sharpnel is not an unusual-activity alert feed and does not pretend to be one. It has a full options surface, per-ticker dealer-gamma pages recomputed nightly, and the GEX walls drawn on the index and futures charts through the session. Positioning, not prints — the two answer different questions, and plenty of traders use both.
Sharpnel Pro is $125/month (or $1,125 for a year, paid once) and includes the terminal itself: gamma levels on-chart, the DOM ladder, footprint, TPO, the options suite and the stock research desk. A free Explorer tier runs everything on delayed data, and today's ES and NQ walls are free to read on the levels page without an account.
If what you trade on is the flow itself — unusual prints, sweeps, what the crowd is buying — a flow service is the right tool and Sharpnel will not replace it. Sharpnel is for the trader who wants the dealer positioning that flow creates drawn as levels on the chart they execute from, with the order flow defending those levels visible next to them, and with a graded public record of how often the levels held.
The cheapest way to decide: read today's free graded ES levels, then put the terminal on your screen with the free tier and see the walls on your own chart.
Unusual Whales is a trademark of its owner; it's named here for comparison only. Figures about Sharpnel's record are date-stamped and live at the graded-record page; nothing on this page states Unusual Whales' prices or features — check theirs with them.
