Pick the right broker for what you trade
Soar supports 10 brokers across spot crypto, US equities, perpetuals, and the full institutional asset stack. Compare them below, then jump to the broker's setup walkthrough.
Open the connect-broker wizard →Pick a broker by what you want to trade
The right broker depends on what assets you want the bot to act on. Pick the row that matches your plan; the recommended brokers are listed with what each one does well.
Crypto-first
You want spot crypto and you want broad coverage.
US stocks + ETFs
You want to trade equities through the US market.
Crypto perpetuals (leverage)
You want perp futures with leverage, not spot.
Multi-market institutional
You want every asset class on one account — stocks, options, futures, FX, bonds.
Try-before-you-deploy
You want to watch a bot trade with fake money first. Easiest path: a Soar Paper bot — no broker, no API keys, no risk. It runs entirely on Soar's own servers, fills orders at live prices, and surfaces on your dashboard exactly like a real bot. Or use Alpaca Paper if you want a broker-side simulated account.
Quick-scan comparison
Same data, side-by-side. Tap any broker name to open the full setup walkthrough.
Per-broker summaries
A two-paragraph read on each broker — what it does well and what to watch out for. The full step-by-step setup walkthrough lives at the link below each card.
Coinbase Advanced
If you're US-based and want crypto with strong liquidity and a familiar brand, Coinbase Advanced is the default pick. The bot trades against Coinbase's professional API, separate from the consumer app.
You need to create keys in the Coinbase Developer Platform (separate from your regular Coinbase login). The default signature algorithm is Ed25519 — you must manually switch it to ECDSA or the bot will reject the key.
Kraken Pro
If you want broad pair coverage (200+ trading pairs) and don't need to be in the US, Kraken Pro is the most flexible spot crypto exchange Soar supports.
Use Kraken Pro (pro.kraken.com), not the regular Kraken site — the API key flow is different. You'll turn on 6 specific permissions; leave Withdraw Funds OFF.
Alpaca
If you want US equities + crypto on one account, with proper paper-trading support, Alpaca is the simplest path. The API was designed for algorithmic trading from day one.
Alpaca has separate Paper and Live dashboards with separate keys. Pick the matching mode in the wizard or the bot will fail with auth errors. Paper mode needs no funding or ID check.
Interactive Brokers
If you want institutional-grade access to global markets — stocks, options, futures, FX, bonds, mutual funds — IBKR is the most comprehensive broker Soar supports.
IBKR connects differently. Instead of a Cloudflare Worker, Soar provisions a small server (a DigitalOcean droplet) on YOUR DigitalOcean account. Your IBKR login goes directly to that server — Soar never sees your password. Plan ~10 minutes the first time.
Webull
If you want US stocks and crypto on a single US account, Webull is a solid commission-light path. It covers the US equity market plus a crypto book.
Webull is US-only, and like IBKR it needs a long-running gateway, so Soar provisions a small server (a DigitalOcean droplet) on YOUR DigitalOcean account rather than a Cloudflare Worker. Your Webull login goes directly to that server — Soar never sees your password. Plan ~10 minutes the first time.
Gemini
If regulatory clarity matters to you, Gemini operates under NYDFS oversight in the US. Lower pair count than Coinbase or Kraken, but the regulatory story is the cleanest.
Your account must be fully ID-verified before you can create an API key. Pick the TRADER role — never Fund Manager, which can withdraw money. Soar will never need that permission.
Binance.US
A US-compliant subset of Binance for spot crypto. Reasonable liquidity, familiar interface if you came from international Binance.
Binance.US does not serve 16 US states (including New York, Texas, and Washington). Two more (Kansas, Wisconsin) are crypto-only with no USD on/ramp. The API key menu only opens on a desktop browser — the mobile app doesn't show it.
Robinhood Crypto
If you're a Robinhood user wanting to automate the crypto side of your account, Robinhood Crypto is now self-serve via API (no waitlist).
The flow is unusual: Soar generates an Ed25519 keypair in your browser, you submit only the public half to Robinhood, and your private key never leaves your device. Desktop only — the mobile app does not expose key creation. Crypto only; equities API is separate.
AsterDEX
A decentralized Binance-style perpetuals exchange on BNB Chain, with hedge-mode and simulated brackets (stop-loss / take-profit handled by the bot since the venue lacks them natively).
AsterDEX is NOT available in the United States. You connect a wallet (MetaMask / Rabby / etc.), then create a trading-only API key that cannot withdraw — by design. Setup involves a wallet signature; no gas fee for sign-in.
Hyperliquid
On-chain perpetuals and spot, with sub-second order placement and a clean single-key setup. Good fit if you want leverage and you trust on-chain venues.
You use a single Ed25519 'agent wallet' key that can trade but cannot withdraw — a structural safeguard. Your main wallet stays untouched even if the agent key leaks. Confirm in your main wallet once to approve the agent.
Asset coverage by broker
Soar publishes signals across several asset categories. Not every broker can act on every category. This table maps broker → tradable category so you can pick one that matches the signals you care about.
Where your bot runs — three hosts
Most brokers — your own Cloudflare Worker
For the REST brokers (every broker except IBKR and Webull), the bot is a small piece of code that runs on Cloudflare's global network. It wakes up once a minute, checks for new Soar signals, and acts based on the risk profile you set during the wizard.
The Worker runs on YOUR Cloudflare account, not Soar's. Your broker keys live in the Worker's secret store on your account. You always have unilateral control — pause it, kill it, or rotate its keys from your Cloudflare dashboard at any time.
Cloudflare's free plan handles a single bot comfortably: the bot ticks 1,440 times a day, well inside the free plan's 100,000 daily request limit. You almost certainly won't pay Cloudflare anything for a single bot.
Interactive Brokers + Webull — your own DigitalOcean droplet
IBKR and Webull are the two gateway brokers. Both need a long-running daemon process — IBKR's is a desktop-style TWS Gateway Java application — that Cloudflare Workers cannot host (Workers are short-lived event handlers).
For these two, Soar provisions a small server (a ~$12/month DigitalOcean droplet — 1 vCPU / 2 GB) on YOUR DigitalOcean account. The droplet runs the gateway, accepts your broker login directly, and exposes a small API the bot uses to place orders. Your broker credentials never touch Soar's servers — they go straight from your browser to the droplet on your account.
The trade-off: ~10 minutes of setup the first time (vs ~5 for Cloudflare brokers) and a small recurring DigitalOcean bill. The upside on IBKR: access to every IBKR asset class — stocks, options, futures, FX, bonds, mutual funds, even crypto.
Soar-hosted — managed infrastructure
If you'd rather not run any infrastructure yourself, you can opt into the Soar-hosted managed option. Soar runs the bot for you on its own infrastructure, so there's no Cloudflare or DigitalOcean account to set up.
This path is consent-gated. Because Soar runs the bot, it has to hold your broker keys — so they are stored encrypted (AES-256) and scoped to trade-only permissions, never withdraw. You choose this explicitly during setup; the self-hosted options keep keys entirely on your own infrastructure.
What if my broker isn't supported?
The current 10 brokers cover ~95% of US-accessible spot crypto, US equities, and the most common perp venues. If yours isn't in the list, the most common reasons are:
- The broker doesn't expose a trading API — most legacy retail brokers (Charles Schwab, Fidelity, E*TRADE) either gate their API behind institutional accounts or don't expose order placement at all.
- The API exists but Soar hasn't built a bundle for it yet — each broker needs its own bot bundle (its own signing logic, its own order shape). New brokers ship when customer demand justifies the engineering work.
- The broker is jurisdictionally restricted — e.g. some perp venues are available in the EU but not the US.
If your preferred broker isn't listed, let us know. We add brokers based on customer requests + traded-volume opportunity. Open a support ticket with the broker name and we'll evaluate it for the queue.