Unusual Whales Alternative? News Gurus vs Cheddar Flow vs TradeAlgo (2026)
People searching “Unusual Whales alternative,” “Cheddar Flow alternative,” or “TradeAlgo vs Unusual Whales” are usually shopping for options-flow and dark-pool scanners. Those three names are popular scanner products. This page does not audit their current features or prices. Check each vendor’s site before you buy.
News Gurus is a different job. It is multi-agent synthesis, a digest for people who do not want a terminal, and a keyless pay-per-call API for autonomous agents. Educational data only, not financial advice.
Quick verdict: who should use what
There is no score and no ranking.
- If you want a dedicated scanner interface, start on that vendor’s site and confirm what you are buying. This page will not tell you that Unusual Whales, Cheddar Flow, or TradeAlgo lack a feature.
- If you want a daily read instead of a session in a terminal, News Gurus Everyday is $19/mo or $190/yr. It is a digest plus education. The plan says follow the AI, with no execution access.
- If you want the live dashboard — real-time signal feed (40+ agents), dark pool and options flow, congressional and insider trades, AI chat with live market context, and the institutional intelligence dashboard — News Gurus PRO is $130/mo or $1,300/yr.
- If you want PRO without another bill, Lifetime is $5,000 once: everything in PRO, priority feature requests, and direct access for strategy questions.
- If you are building an agent, skip the seat. The News Gurus Intel API is pay-per-call on x402 (USDC on Base, chain eip155:8453) or a subscriber API key. The free tool is
get_catalog.
What this page will and will not compare
A fair matrix needs current vendor facts. Those have not been re-checked, so the competitor columns stay blank on purpose.
| Question | News Gurus (published on newsgurus.ai and the Intel API catalog) | Unusual Whales, Cheddar Flow, TradeAlgo |
|---|---|---|
| Primary job | Synthesis and a digest, plus an agent API. Not sold here as a raw-tape terminal. | Check the vendor. |
| Options flow | Yes, on PRO, and on the API as get_options_flow at $0.05/call. Derived signals with a size bucket (block / large / mid / small). The catalog calls this “the per-call alternative to $50-150/mo flow subscriptions.” | Check the vendor. |
| Dark pool | Yes, on PRO, and as get_dark_pool_prints at $0.05/call. Direction, strength, confidence, and size bucket. Raw notional and price are not redistributed. | Check the vendor. |
| Congressional / insider | Yes, on PRO. API: get_congress_trades at $0.05/call (STOCK Act disclosures). The catalog calls this a “per-call alternative to $25-75/mo congressional-data subscriptions.” Insider is named on the PRO plan. | Check the vendor. |
| Interpretation layer | 40+ AI agents, a Tier-1→4 source hierarchy, and a 40-source SharedBrain. | Check the vendor. |
| Mobile or terminal | Everyday is a digest, not a terminal. PRO is a web dashboard. No News Gurus mobile-app claim is on the site. | Check the vendor. |
| Entry price | Everyday $19/mo ($190/yr). PRO $130/mo ($1,300/yr). Lifetime $5,000 once. Free Telegram channel. | Check the vendor. |
| Builder API | Keyless x402 and a remote MCP server at https://api.newsgurus.ai/mcp/. Homepage: “37+ endpoints … priced from $0.002 to $5.00 per call.” get_catalog is free. | Check the vendor. This page does not claim they have no API. |
| Track record | Trades logged to the second, reconcilable on-chain and via broker statements. Full verified P&L publishes when it is green. Homepage win rate and trades logged both show “—”. No win rate is stated here. | Check the vendor. No claim is made about their audits. |
How News Gurus differs
The shopping list is three scanners with overlapping categories. News Gurus answers a different question: who interprets institutional noise, and can an agent buy that read one call at a time?
40+ agents, 30+ sources, 24/7
The homepage says 40+ AI agents, 30+ data sources, and 24/7 monitoring. The API describes SharedBrain as a 40-source cross-agent store. Those are the site’s own labels. They are not a promise that every source is in every response.
SharedBrain is sold as:
get_recent_intel($0.005) — recent cross-agent ideasget_narratives($0.02) — NARRATIVE_SYNTHESIS and CATALYST_CONVERGENCEget_anomalies($0.01) — pump, psyop, rug, and data-integrity flagsget_trade_decisions($0.10) — the model’s routing chainget_kelly_outcomes($0.05) — the Kelly outcome ledgerGET /api/v1/brain/{symbol}($0.02) — symbol context on the HTTP API. HTTP-only, not an MCP tool, and not inget_catalogon October 3, 2026: confirm it is live before you rely on it.
Tier-1→4 source hierarchy
From newsgurus.ai/llms.txt: Tier 1 institutional inputs — Form 4 buys, 13D/13G, congressional trades, and dark pool prints over $1M — can generate a signal alone. Tier 4 retail social is used only as a contrarian input. Tiers 2 and 3 are named in the “Tier-1→4” label and are not spelled out on that page.
Dark pool, options flow, and congressional trades
Yes. PRO lists dark pool, options flow, and congressional and insider trades. The same families exist on the API at $0.05 per call. What you do not get from the API, because the catalog says so:
- Raw dark-pool notionals and prices
- Raw gamma dollar exposures (
get_gamma_exposureis a dealer-regime label, $0.10) - Redistributed Statcast, park, weather, or sim fields on the MLB tools
- Analyst ratings and fundamentals on the institutional stock call
- Raw PropsMadness fields on sports props
Everyday if you do not want a terminal
Everyday is $19/mo or $190/yr: daily signal digest, win/loss track record, an educational breakdown of each call, and free Telegram channel access. No execution access. The homepage win rate and trades-logged figures are both “—”, so “win/loss track record” means the log exists, not that a win rate has been published.
Auditable track record, and what is not claimed
Every trade is logged to the second and independently reconcilable on-chain and via broker statements. The site says full verified P&L publishes automatically once it is green, with no cherry-picking. Until that page exists, do not treat a blank “—” as a number.
For builders: same intel, pay per call
Autonomous agents can call the API over HTTP 402 with USDC on Base, or with a subscriber key. MCP clients, CrewAI, and LangChain are the clients the homepage names. The MCP URL is https://api.newsgurus.ai/mcp/. Opening it in a browser returns HTTP 406; it speaks JSON-RPC to agents.
Catalog lines worth reading before you buy a scanner API instead:
- Composite signal, $0.05: “The only x402 API selling derived US-equity signals rather than raw quotes.”
- Tearsheet, $0.50: “the single call an agent needs before a trade decision.”
- Polymarket whale leaders, $0.10: “elsewhere this data class sits behind $599/mo API plans.”
Worked examples: the agent market-data guide, the paid MCP guide, and how x402 works. Machine menus: newsgurus.ai/llms.txt, api.newsgurus.ai/llms.txt, and the free catalog at api.newsgurus.ai/x402/catalog. Free public probes also exist for regime, narratives, and the catalog. A single free-tier reading is not a permanent market call.
MLB props exist on the API ($3 and $5 per call, 21+, entertainment only, not betting advice). They are not what this comparison is about.
Pricing paths
- Learning, or a busy-day digest: free Telegram channel, or Everyday. Store: t.me/NewsGurusbot?start=store. Channel: t.me/NewsGurusBots.
- Full dashboard: PRO.
- One-time: Lifetime.
- Agents: x402 or a subscriber key. Request a subscriber key from News Gurus.
Community: Discord
FAQs
Is News Gurus an Unusual Whales killer?
No. Unusual Whales, Cheddar Flow, and TradeAlgo are the scanner queries this page is written for. News Gurus is synthesis, a $19 digest, and a pay-per-call agent API. If a scanner UI is the job, buy the scanner.
Do you execute trades for me?
Everyday says no execution access. This page does not claim PRO or Lifetime place orders for you.
Is this financial advice?
No. Educational data only, not financial advice. Sports endpoints are 21+ and are not betting advice.
Can I try it before PRO?
The homepage says “Start free trial” and links a free Telegram channel. No trial length is stated here.
What does it cost an agent?
get_catalog is free. Priced MCP tools in the live catalog run from $0.002 (get_market_regime, get_agents_status) to $5.00 (get_mlb_props_sheet). The homepage summarizes that as “37+ endpoints … priced from $0.002 to $5.00 per call.” The API llms.txt file describes the OpenAPI spec as 47 paths. The extra HTTP routes are not all exposed as MCP tools.
Educational data only, not financial advice.