Yes, the price includes a lot of things that you most likely do not need as a trader but is needed by those in your office. Yet, you mention you want to use it at home. I don't know if you meant as a retail (at home) trader but if that's the case...the info you need access to most likely you can get that much cheaper elsewhere as others have noted. Some of these high price data vendors like Bloomberg and Reuters includes a ton of data that if you subscribe to at one of the 3rd tier data vendors like eSignal or data at the broker...they will charge you a bundle. Thus, they are not so cheap after all. For example, call eSignal and ask them how much it will cost to subscribe to all of the worlds exchanges for trading futures...it adds up fast. Yet, the typical retail (at home) trader doesn't need access to data for all of those markets. In contrast, an institutional trader may occasionally need access to multiple different markets especially in an office which is most likely the case. There's many other things that retail traders typically don't need but the pros do use...things like private messaging with professionals from other financial institutions or with those within their own firm instead of sending emails to each other or making phone calls. Then there's the data integrity. The top tier firms like Bloomberg and Reuters have the best and that may be important to those that depend greatly on accurate data. In comparison, compare the data between several 2nd tier or 3rd tier data vendors...its common to see differences in their data from one to the other and the history may be very limited. Then there's the issue involving the bid/ask screens and times & sales screens. For example, pretend you did a 30 contract Crude Oil CL futures trade and its all filled at the exact same price and time as shown on Bloomberg. On Tradestation the same fill may show 5, 25 contracts with a second difference between the 5 contracts and the 25 contracts while on eSignal it may show the exact time but filled as 10, 10, 10 contracts. Then there's the differences in delays (split seconds) in the bid/ask screens from one data vendor to the next data vendor. It's not often you'll see strange fills shown between different data vendors but its not uncommon. There must be a reason why your office is using Bloomberg and not something like Reuters or one of the 2nd tier or 3rd tier data vendors. Most likely for security, maintenance and the need for the best possible data integrity. Also, maybe Bloomberg has something that others don't have others isn't as in-depth. For example about Reuters, I know someone and her firm uses Reuters. I asked her why Reuters instead of Bloomberg ? She said Reuters has better coverage of economic news all over the world. She's an FX trader and I understand how that can be important to her.