Bullflow Review
Ease of Use
Value
Quality
Summary
If you’re in search of a new unusual options order flow tool, you may have come across Bullflow. Bullflow is an unusual options order flow tool that is designed to help users monitor the activity of institutional investors and other ‘smart money’ traders. This tool features a real-time feed of major options contract purchases and educational tools. Learn everything you need to know about this tool by reading our complete Bullflow review.
Bullflow is an unusual options order flow tool designed to help you monitor the activity of institutional investors and other ‘smart money’ traders. It offers a real-time feed of major options contract purchases along with educational tools so you can get the most out of monitoring options flow.
Bullflow is a lot cheaper than competing options order flow platforms, but does it offer the same quality of features? In my Bullflow review, I’ll take a deep dive into this software and help you decide if it’s right for you.
About Bullflow
Bullflow launched in 2024. It’s an unusual options order flow scanner that competes with similar platforms like InsiderFinance, OptionStrat, and Unusual Whales. The idea is that monitoring unusually large options orders gives you information about what institutional investors are doing and enables you to find market opportunities.
Bullflow consists primarily of an unusual options order flow feed. In addition, the platform offers an online academy to help you learn how to interpret options order flow for trading.
Bullflow Pricing
Bullflow is relatively inexpensive compared to other unusual options order flow tools. It costs $29 per month or $300 per year. You can get started with a seven-day free trial to test out the platform.
Bullflow Features
Options Order Flow Feed
The main feature you get with Bullflow is a real-time feed of unusual options orders coming across major US exchanges. The feed displays data including the ticker being traded, the total premium value of the trade, the contract strike price, the trade type (block or sweep), the expiration date, the trade volume and the contract’s open interest, and the trade’s out-of-the-money (OTM) percentage.
I found that the Bullflow feed moves a lot faster than other unusual options order flow feeds, in part because it’s less discerning about what’s included in the feed. Each options trade is given an algorithmic signal score from 0 to 1 based on how aggressive it is, and there are a lot of trades with a score of 0.4 or less included in the feed. Thankfully, Bullflow offers a ‘Slow Mode’ that filters out a lot of low-scoring trades and makes the feed a lot easier to follow. It feels like this should be the default.
Bullflow also includes a number of built-in filters you can use to make the feed more actionable. For example, you can toggle filters to see stocks or ETFs only, OTM trades, bullish trades, or trades with a signal score of 0.8 or higher. These quick filters can be stacked, making it easy to quickly zero in on options trades that are relevant for your strategy.
In addition, Bullflow supports custom filters. You can filter trades by any of the columns in the feed and select specific groups of tickers to monitor. While most unusual options order flow platforms offer a comparable degree of filtering, the fact that Bullflow lets you save an unlimited number of filters to your account is a distinct advantage.
That said, there are some notable shortcomings to the options flow feed as well. First, it doesn’t offer much color-coding or highlighting to help draw your attention to highly unusual trades. You really need to build up a set of strong filters to make Bullflow’s data actionable for fast-paced trading.
Second, Bullflow doesn’t offer a feed for dark pool prints, while most competing platforms do. Dark pool prints represent private exchanges of stocks between institutions. They can be challenging to interpret, and it’s possible that this is why Bullflow leaves them out. However, dark pool prints are also a strong indicator of institutional activity, and I’d argue it’s better to have access to this information than not if you’re basing trading on what institutions are doing.
Historical Options Flow
In addition to the real-time options flow feed, Bullflow also offers a historical feed. This lets you enter a specific date range and see all unusual options orders picked up by the platform during that timespan. The data table looks nearly identical to the main flow feed and offers all the same filtering options.
Trending Contracts and Tickers
Bullflow also has a basic dashboard with two key charts for finding potential trade opportunities. One shows put and call contracts with above-average volume. The other shows tickers with the highest total premiums across put and call contracts. Neither of these charts is all that unique, but I like that you can click on any tickers within them to instantly pull up the main flow feed filtered to that ticker.
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Bullflow Academy
The Bullflow Academy is a training center that explains how to use unusual options order flow to identify trading opportunities. It consists of seven videos, including three showing examples of actual trades spotted using Bullflow.
The Academy is nice, but I’m not sure it adds a lot of value. All of the videos are available for free on YouTube, so you don’t need a Bullflow account to access the training.
Is Bullflow Easy to Use?
Bullflow is fairly easy to use, especially compared to more complex platforms like InsiderFinance. It’s simple to jump into the order flow feed and start building filters to suit your strategy. There are no complex visualizations and the signal score allows you to quickly find options trades that are worth a second look.
That said, keep in mind that using options order flow to identify trade opportunities is complex. The trade examples in the Academy can be helpful for building a strategy that incorporates options flow, but Bullflow shouldn’t be used by beginner traders.
Bullflow Platform Differentiators
The unusual options order flow feed that Bullflow offers isn’t significantly different from the feeds offered by competing tools like InsiderFinance, OptionStrat, and Unusual Whales. I like that Bullflow offers ready-made filters and the ability to save an unlimited number of custom filters, but it’s also missing features like dark pool prints. Notably, InsiderFinance and OptionStrat also include tools to help you plan out your own options trades, while Bullflow does not.
With that in mind, Bullflow’s biggest advantage is its price. Bullflow costs $300 per year, while InsiderFinance costs $660 per year and Unusual Whales costs $530 per year. If you’re new to using unusual options order flow or only plan to use it as one of several trading strategy tools, Bullflow’s lower price can be the difference in whether this data pays for itself or not.
What Type of Trader Is Bullflow Best For?
Bullflow is best for advanced stock and options traders who want to monitor the activity of institutional investors. Unusual options order activity can provide insights into what institutions think about a company’s stock. However, it’s relatively complex to interpret, so Bullflow shouldn’t be used by newer traders.
Is Bullflow Worth It?
Bullflow is most worthwhile for traders who are new to unusual options order flow or who plan to use this data in a limited way only. It’s relatively inexpensive, so you don’t need to use Bullflow a ton or have a huge amount of capital to trade to make this service pay for itself.
That said, if you plan to use unusual options activity extensively in your trading, it’s worth considering alternative platforms like InsiderFinance or Unusual Whales. These tools are more expensive than Bullflow, but they include more advanced tools like dark pool prints, integrated charts, options strategy calculators, and customizable alerts.
Pros
Built-in filters and unlimited saved filters
Streamlined user interface
Relatively inexpensive
Free seven-day trial
Cons
Doesn’t offer dark pool prints
No options strategy planning tools
