Kotak’s Neo Trade API is free to use, and its support pages say so plainly: no subscription charges for the service, brokerage on trades aside. That settles the first question anyone searching for the kotak neo api asks. The second is what it serves a data consumer, and here the answer has an unusual shape, because the same support pages say historical data is not available. This guide reads the kotak neo api from the analytics seat, as the documentation and support answers stood in September 2026.
The data surface, precisely
Access starts in the Neo app or web platform, where the Trade API card issues the long-lived access token, and continues with TOTP registration in an authenticator app. The daily login is two steps: the mobile number, client code and a six-digit TOTP code return a view token and session id, and the MPIN then returns the trading token, the trading session and the base URL for the day. Session validity is not published, so a fresh login each trading day is the safe assumption, and the MPIN is needed raw at every login, which is a fact to design the secret storage around.
Six segments are covered: NSE and BSE cash, NSE and BSE futures and options, MCX commodities, and currency derivatives for market data only. Instruments are identified by tokens from downloadable scrip-master files, refreshed daily. Quotes come in types, last price, depth, OHLC, 52-week range, circuit limits and scrip details, or all of them in one call, and for derivatives the quote payloads carry open interest. Live data streams over a WebSocket feed, delivered in the current Python SDK as typed messages enriched with the trading symbol, with a separate feed for order and position updates.
History is the gap. The support answer on historical data states that historical data is unavailable at the moment, while the newer Python SDK lists a historical-data function among its features. Treat the support page as the current truth and check the live documentation before designing anything around candles.
Limits and quirks
Rate limits are not published for the kotak neo api; the SDK ships an opt-in token-bucket limiter, which is a hint to be gentle. The feed’s subscription cap per request is answered in a support FAQ rather than the reference, so read it before sizing a chain-wide subscription. Two habits from the SDK are worth copying whatever language you use: never auto-retry an order request, and never automate the TOTP secret into a config file.
What having the data does not give you
Free quotes with depth and open interest are an ingredient. To turn the kotak neo api into the analytics an options trader reads, you still build the chain assembler, the open-interest baselines per strike, the build-up classification, the change in OI by interval, an implied-volatility solver and Greeks, and gamma exposure across strikes. And because history is not served, every backtest, every seasonal study and every look at a past expiry depends on a recorder you wrote and ran without gaps from the day you started. That is the largest single item on the list.
When the API is the right tool
Build on the kotak neo api when your edge is execution or a proprietary live computation and you already hold history from elsewhere: an execution system with its own eyes, a live indicator that needs only today’s tape. Free access, a live feed across six segments and zero brokerage on API orders, as the platform page advertises, make that a sound foundation.
When it isn’t: the analytics are already built
If what you want is the standard options-analytics stack with history behind it, none of it needs your own recorder. The live option chain, the Trending OI table, the OI Stats chart with its replay, dealer positioning, the screeners and strike history back to a contract’s listing are already running. You connect OIData with your own broker API key, market data streams straight from your own broker account into the analytics, and the baselines, Greeks, replay and reconnect logic are already written. The division that works: the kotak neo api for execution and anything proprietary, OIData for the market-reading layer and its history.
A worked example: the 09:30 gap read
Take one analytic that needs the past. “Gaps of this size were given back by 09:30 in most sessions this year” needs a year of opening prints, previous closes and 09:30 levels. On the kotak neo api that series exists only if you recorded every session. The pre-built version sits on the Opening Auction page, which scores each day’s gap against the sessions before it. Recording against reading is the whole build-or-use question.
A practical starter pipeline
If you do build: a pre-open job that performs the two-step login, refreshes the scrip master and subscribes the day’s chain before 09:10; a feed consumer keyed by instrument token; a quote poller for the fields the feed does not carry; a recorder that writes per-strike open interest and prices to your own store every minute, because that store is the only history you will have; and an alert on the login job.
Kotak Neo API data FAQ
Is the Kotak Neo API free? Kotak’s support page says the Trade API service carries no subscription charge at present; brokerage on trades is a separate matter, and the platform page advertises zero brokerage on API orders.
Does it serve historical candles? The support page says historical data is unavailable at the moment, while the latest SDK lists a historical-data function. Check the live documentation before relying on it.
Which segments does the feed cover? NSE and BSE cash, NSE and BSE F&O, MCX, and currency derivatives for market data only.
Do quotes include open interest? For derivatives the quote payloads carry open interest along with depth, OHLC and circuit limits.
Can I get the analytics without writing code? Yes: connect with your own broker API key and the chain, OI, GEX and screener layers are already built, with recorded history behind them.
Verdict
The kotak neo api is a free, broad live feed with a two-step login and, for now, no history. For execution and live custom computation that is enough. For options analytics it is the most expensive path of all, because the history you need is the part you have to make yourself. Decide which trader you are, and spend accordingly.