Trading APIs in India: what a broker API is, what 12 brokers charge, and the SEBI rules for API orders

API at a glance, checked 13 Oct 2026

Brokers whose API pages we read

12

Zerodha, Upstox, Dhan, FYERS, Angel One, ICICI Direct, Kotak Neo, 5paisa, Shoonya, Alice Blue, Groww and Motilal Oswal

Order API at ₹0

11 of 12

Shoonya's pages state no API fee either way. Zerodha's free Personal plan and Groww's Free Trial come without live data.

Monthly data fee at the three that charge one

₹499 to ₹500

Dhan ₹499 + taxes every 30 days; Groww ₹499 + taxes a month or ₹4,999 a year; Kite Connect ₹500 a month per app

Brokerage per API option order

₹0 to ₹20

₹0 on Kotak Neo's Trade Free plans, ₹5 + GST at Shoonya, ₹10 at Upstox till 31 Dec 2026 per its staff, ₹20 at seven others

Orders per second before your algo needs registering

10

Per exchange, under NSE's implementation standards of 5 May 2025

Source: [3]

One year at 120 option orders a month, five brokers

₹0 to ₹41,639

Brokerage plus API or data fees with GST, before statutory charges, from the example in our charges guide

Broker APIs side by side: fees, brokerage and static IP slots, checked 13 Oct 2026

A short version of the fee table in our algo trading charges guide and the whitelisting table in our static IP guide, both checked on 13 October 2026. If anything here differs from those pages, they are the record. Brokerage is for F&O options and is before GST. Fees show "+ taxes" or "+ GST" only where the broker says so.

Checked 13 Oct 2026, from each broker's own pricing page, API page, developer docs, support FAQ, blog or staff forum post, as listed in the sources. Conditions behind some prices (Kotak Neo's plan eligibility and switching fee, Zerodha's brokerage-based credits, Groww's early-bird label) are set out in the charges guide. Not a ranking, and we have no tie to any broker.

Start here: from the rules to a reviewed month

1. 1

   Work out which rules cover your setup

   Your own script, code a friend wrote for you, or a platform that places orders for you? The first two are treated as your algo; the third must be an exchange-empanelled provider. The summary above covers the first two; for a platform, look it up in our empanelled algo providers guide.

2. 2

   Pick an API by data needs and order count

   The order side costs ₹0 almost everywhere, so the bill is the data fee plus brokerage on every executed order. Count the orders your strategy sends in a month, list the data it reads, then price a full year with our algo trading charges guide. Check its rate-limit table against your busiest minute, not your average one.

3. 3

   Get a static IP and register it

   Either a fixed address on your home or office connection, or a rented server in India that comes with one. Put a main address and a backup on file with the broker before the first live session. Our static IP guide shows where each broker keeps the setting and what each route costs. A platform hosted on your broker's servers uses the broker's address instead.

4. 4

   Test with one small order call

   At six of the seven brokers in the static IP guide, price and candle requests are not checked against your IP, so live prices arriving on screen don't show that orders will. Log in fresh, send one small order, and read the brokerage on the contract note.

5. 5

   Write down what the code did, and what you did

   Record each day's fills, rejections, and every time you paused, overrode or switched off the strategy. That record is what tells you, a month later, whether the strategy or your handling of it moved the result.

Trading API guides in this section

Each guide is researched on its own from regulators' circulars and brokers' own pages, with a check date on every figure.

• Algo trading charges at 12 Indian brokers: API fees, data fees, per-order brokerage and rate limits

  Algo trading charges at 12 Indian brokers, checked 13 Oct 2026: API and data fees, brokerage on API orders, rate limits, and a year's cost for one setup.

  Checked 2026-10-13

• Choosing a broker API for algo trading in India: start with the job

  Choose a broker API for algo trading in India by data, execution, login and controls, with costs at 0, 50 and 500 option orders and source conflicts.

  Checked 2026-10-14

• Empanelled algo providers: NSE and BSE names, status and dates

  Check empanelled algo providers on NSE and BSE lists, with exact names, provisional or final status, dated notices and limits of what empanelment establishes.

  Checked 2026-10-14

• Historical data API India: what each archive actually contains

  Compare historical data API India lookbacks, candle intervals and expired options, with official NSE/BSE downloads and a clearly labelled request-time estimate.

  Checked 2026-10-14

• Kite Connect API pricing in 2026: Personal, Connect and renewal credits

  Kite Connect API pricing checked 14 Oct 2026: free Personal vs ₹500 Connect, the dated price changes, renewal credits, history limits and daily login.

  Checked 2026-10-14

• Paper trading API India: what broker sandboxes actually test

  Paper trading API in India: what the Upstox, Kite Connect and Dhan sandboxes let you test with no real money, their limits and SEBI's 2024 warning.

  Checked 2026-10-14

• NSE real time data price: pay for the feed, fields and rights you need

  NSE real time data price checked 14 Oct 2026: broker WebSocket fees, vendor quote limits, depth and option-chain fields, plus data-use conditions.

  Checked 2026-10-14

• Static IP for algo trading in India: the exchange rule, three ways to get one, and how to whitelist it at seven brokers

  Static IP for algo trading in India: what NSE's rule requires, how to whitelist it at 7 brokers, and what an ISP, VPS or cloud IP costs, checked 13 Oct 2026.

  Checked 2026-10-13

Trading API questions from Indian traders