Who exactly needs to pay the 249$ per month? http://www.tradestation.com/pricing/software-and-data-pricing Thanks
Simple, Non Brokerage clients, those who do not maintain the minimum account balance. Park $5K, don't trade it. Monthly fee drops down to about $150/month with Data Trade the minimum contracts per month drops down to $50/month for the Data
There is a special TradeStation data offer on this month only, for new customers only, that is even better. It is better than the generally advertised offer and is suitable even for low-activity customers. Maybe it would work to call them up and ask about this month's unpublished "Free Data" offer. I just opened an account under this offer. It is even better than I imply above - I left out the best part of it - but I do not want to be too explicit in public since they do not want that.