Is personal trading with PineForge codegen and HPO free?
Yes: a natural person who uses PineForge codegen and PineForge HPO (pineforge-hpo, from version 0.11.0) to research, backtest or trade for their own account with their own capital needs no commercial license, even when trading is their living; trading through a company is not personal trading: a company they wholly own, alone or with their household, holding only their household's capital, where no one but them uses the software and no one outside their household works on its trading or research, needs Solo, $490 per year, and any other company needs Team or Fund.
Your own account includes accounts you hold alone or jointly with your household (you, your spouse or domestic partner and your dependants), their accounts, and retirement or other tax-advantaged accounts or a revocable trust for your benefit. Your own capital includes your household's capital and ordinary margin or other borrowing you are liable for. An account of a company, partnership, fund or trust, other than the accounts above, is not your own account even if you own it. An account that a prop firm or a funded-trader program gives you to trade, a challenge, evaluation or simulated account included, is not your own account either, and the capital in it, real or simulated, is not your own capital.
Plans and prices that apply
| Plan | Band | Price per year | How to buy |
|---|---|---|---|
| Solo | own trading capital up to $10M, others' capital up to $1M | $490 | Buy |
Prices in US dollars, plus tax where it applies, for 12 months. Self-serve plans renew automatically each year unless you cancel; plans bought by quote, invoice or purchase order, and the pilot, do not renew automatically.
- Above this: more than one person (Team); own trading capital above $10M (the Team band for that amount); others' capital above $1M (the Fund band for the AUM, own and others' capital together).
Which number you state
- Owners of capital state only their own trading capital: the net liquidation value of the accounts traded with the software (the sleeve), on the same 3-month-end average; borrowing adds nothing. Own capital is what the licensee and its wholly owned subsidiaries own with no outside investor, client or beneficiary: a fund, pooled vehicle, managed account or other entity with outside holders holds others' capital, counted as AUM (Fund), even when the licensee controls it. An endowment, a public pension or public fund and a foundation's treasury count their own investment capital the same way: they pay on that sleeve, not on the whole fund.
- Exchange-rate moves count as market movement. You state the number at checkout, with how it was measured and as of which date.
What the LICENSE says
From the LICENSE: PineForge Source License 1.2
Personal Trading means use of the software by a natural person to do any of the following, solely for trades that meet conditions (a) and (b) below: research, develop or backtest trading strategies, or execute trades in securities, derivatives, currencies, crypto-assets, commodities or other financial instruments.
(a) The trades are, or will be, placed for that person's own account.
(b) The trades are, or will be, funded solely by that person's own capital.
The guide's answers for this case
The decision guide on the home page asks these questions. These answers lead to the result shown, as the guide and POST /api/recommend give it.
- Will you manage, advise on, or trade capital that belongs to any other person or entity outside your household, whether or not for a fee?No
- Will you use it by, for, or on behalf of a company, fund, partnership, or other organization, including your own company or your work for one?No
- Will you embed the software or its Output into a product or service made available to others, distribute either bundled with such a product or service, or use the software to generate Output for one?No
- Will you operate a hosted, software-as-a-service, or otherwise public-facing service through which others can run the software or receive its Output?No
- Are you an individual (a natural person) using it to research, develop or backtest trading strategies, or to execute trades in financial instruments?Yes
- Are the trades placed, or will they be, for your own account?Yes
- Are the trades funded, or will they be, solely by your own capital?Yes
Result: No commercial license needed: Personal Trading
- Will you manage, advise on, or trade capital that belongs to any other person or entity outside your household, whether or not for a fee?No
- Will you use it by, for, or on behalf of a company, fund, partnership, or other organization, including your own company or your work for one?Yes
- Is the organization a charitable organization, educational institution, public research organization, public safety or health organization, environmental protection organization, or government institution?No
- Is the organization one you wholly own, alone or with your household, holding only your household's capital, where no one but you uses the software and no one outside your household works on its trading or research?Yes
- Will you embed the software or its Output into a product or service made available to others, distribute either bundled with such a product or service, or use the software to generate Output for one?No
- Will you operate a hosted, software-as-a-service, or otherwise public-facing service through which others can run the software or receive its Output?No
Result: You need a commercial license: Solo
Next steps
For software agents: /api/plans lists every plan, band and price as JSON, and /openapi.json describes the API.