Sounds like Sierra let AMP build up the customer base and now Sierra wants to monetize that base Nice deal for Sierra..hardball
Yup. The "way of the world". Bottom Line, IMV... If you're already set up with SC and like it, pay 'em. The effort to save the $300/yr in fees might be more than it's worth. And besides... if you're trading even a 1-lot, you're putting ~ $200,000 into play. What's $300 compared to that? In the current world of "money printing", "government deficit spending", and "Fed pumping inflation"... there are going to be LOTS of similar "price increases". Not much one can do about it other than to suck it up and move on, sadly. (If you want to try to eliminate the monthly platform fee with SC, you might check into MultiCharts... which is still currently free. No guarantee, of course, that it will remain free. I looked into MC when I set up with AMP, and chose SC instead. I don't recall exactly why, but I question whether trying to switch over to MC would be worth the hassle... considering how well Sierra Charts works and what hoops I'd have to jump through to make a change. FWIW....)
FWIW... SierraChart has been around since 1996 Amp, according to nfa registration, has been around since 2009-2010. Who helped who by offering a "free" SC version? IMO, SC is now offering many contortions of platform and feeds, including their own feed and setup. It is better for clients to pay and deal with the developer rather than the broker. As I said, JMO.
Have to wonder whether that was part of SC's business plan all along... It's kind of a laffer... Give potential customers "something for free", get 'em hooked, then charge 'em up the wazoo.... you know, the "drug dealer model".
DS, I’m also with AMP/CQG for futs and had been using IB TWS for stocks. Reading the SC documentation a few weeks back I spotted that I could run a second copy of SC for no extra cost. So at the end of last month I asked AMP to stop my SC thru them and I switched to paying for it myself. All went smoothly and by paying 6 months upfront you get a 20% discount, so around $28 pm. So for the extra $3 pm I now have SC charting for my stock trading and because you create an identical SC copy you have exactly the same charting as you had with AMP/CQG by simply changing the symbols. You can have both running simultaneously and so far I’ve had no probs with this. If you do it make sure you follow the SC documentation exactly, I messed up first time and the 2 copies were corrupting each other.
Ha, I used to run Sierra Chart via Dorman/TT and that also had issues. Whilst SC are always moaning about CQG it works pretty well for me, when I find a release that everything works on including my custom studies I stick with it until SC force me to update