Broker API Capabilities for Automated Trading (2026): Order Types, Sign-In Rules, Fractional Shares, Hours, Assets and Limits at Schwab, tastytrade, Alpaca, Tradier, Kraken and Crypto.com

Most pages that answer "which broker has the best API for automated trading" rank brokers on opinion. This one does something narrower and more useful: it records what each broker's API actually lets software do, as JorgAI's integration uses it today, so you can match a broker to the way you want to trade. It covers the six brokers a JorgAI member can connect right now. Every row was verified against the integration code on November 6, 2026. Brokers change their APIs, so treat each broker's own developer documentation as the authority and this page as the field guide.

Related reading: the ten-broker comparison of API access, fees and order types, rate limits compared, what each API allows for options and what happens to a stop loss when the connection drops.

The matrix

The two crypto exchanges, same rows:

What the rows mean in practice

Exit orders at the broker, or in the software

A bracket is a pair of exit orders, a take-profit limit and a stop loss, that the broker holds on its own servers. Where the broker accepts them (Schwab, Alpaca, Tradier) the exits exist even if the software is unreachable for a while. Where the broker does not (tastytrade, Kraken, Crypto.com) the software's own monitor checks each position on a short cycle and sends the exit order when a level is hit. Trailing stops are run by the monitor at every one of the six, because none of these APIs offers a trailing stop that moves with price the way a rules engine needs. The practical difference is what protects you during an outage, which is the subject of the connection-drop page.

Whole shares, and what that does to small budgets

Four of the six are whole-share only through the API. A $100 per-trade budget cannot buy a $220 stock at Schwab, tastytrade or Tradier; the order is skipped rather than rounded up, and a position that would be a fraction of a share is not placed. Alpaca fills fractional orders on fractionable stocks, and the two exchanges size crypto to the pair's lot or tick size. If you run a small account, this row decides more than the fee schedule does.

Session hours

None of the four stock brokers is used for pre-market or after-hours orders through JorgAI; orders go in during the regular session. The two crypto exchanges trade around the clock, which is why crypto rules can fire at 3 AM and stock rules cannot.

How long the connection lasts

Schwab is the only one that expires the connection on a fixed clock: every seven days you sign in to Schwab again, and JorgAI reminds you the day before. Why Schwab does that, and what happens if you miss the window, has its own page. Tradier access tokens last a day unless the account carries a partner refresh token. tastytrade, Alpaca, Kraken and Crypto.com persist until you disconnect or revoke the key.

One price feed for every broker

Decisions, exits and position values are priced off one feed, Alpaca's IEX feed, for every broker. That keeps a rule's behaviour identical whichever broker it runs on, and it avoids redistributing any broker's own quotes, which some broker terms forbid. Tradier's quotes are read for Tradier accounts, and the two exchanges' public tickers are used only to size and price crypto orders.

Where the day-trade count comes from

Schwab and Alpaca report the account's day-trade count through the API. tastytrade and Tradier do not, so the software keeps its own count from the trades it placed, to respect the member's day-trading switch. The pattern day trader rule itself, and any margin rule, is the broker's to enforce.

Broker by broker

• Schwab. OAuth consent, 7-day re-authorization, broker-held brackets, whole shares, stocks and ETFs. The detail is in the Schwab Trader API page, the fill-speed study on 294 live orders and the Schwab how-to.
• tastytrade. OAuth with two-factor, a connection that does not expire, software-managed exits, whole shares, stocks and ETFs. Detail in the tastytrade API page.
• Alpaca. Key or OAuth, fractional shares, a real paper account, brackets on equity orders, stocks and crypto in one account. Detail in the Alpaca how-to and the paper-trading guide. Order rules in detail: the Alpaca API order rules page.
• Tradier. OAuth or token, daily tokens without a partner refresh, OCO exits after a market entry, whole shares. Detail in the Tradier how-to. Order rules in detail: the Tradier API order rules page.
• Kraken. API keys with no withdraw permission, 24/7, fractional to the lot size, no sandbox. Detail in the Kraken how-to. Order rules in detail: the Kraken API order rules page.
• Crypto.com Exchange. API keys with an IP allow-list, 24/7, market and limit only, no stop orders through the API. Detail in the Crypto.com how-to. Order rules in detail: the Crypto.com Exchange API order rules page.

Quick answers

Which broker API is best for automated trading?

There is no single answer, and this page does not rank them. The table shows the trade-offs: broker-held exit orders (Schwab, Alpaca, Tradier) against a connection that never expires (tastytrade, Alpaca, the exchanges); fractional shares (Alpaca and the exchanges) against whole shares; a real paper account (Alpaca only). Pick the row that matters most for your account size and the way you trade.

Do any of these APIs support trailing stops?

Not in a form a rules engine can rely on across brokers, so JorgAI runs trailing stops in its own monitor at every broker and sends the exit order when the trail is hit.

Which brokers let software trade fractional shares?

Alpaca, on stocks it marks fractionable. Schwab, tastytrade and Tradier are whole-share only through their APIs. Kraken and Crypto.com size crypto to the pair's lot or tick size, which is fractional by nature.

Which brokers have a paper or sandbox account for members?

Alpaca. Schwab, tastytrade, Tradier, Kraken and Crypto.com do not offer a member-facing paper account through the API, which is why JorgAI's demo simulator exists for practice before a real connection.

Can the software trade options or futures through these APIs?

Not through JorgAI. Options, futures, forex and fixed-income positions in an account are visible to the software and left alone. What each API allows for options covers the APIs themselves.

How we put this together. Every row comes from a line-by-line read of JorgAI's broker adapters and auto-trader workers on November 6, 2026, cross-checked against the brokers' developer documentation: Schwab, tastytrade, Alpaca, Tradier, Kraken and Crypto.com Exchange. Where a broker publishes no figure, the table says so. We will re-verify the table whenever an adapter changes and set the updated date at the top of this page. For the cost side, the fee comparison and the broker fee calculator cover commissions and per-contract fees.

To see a rule run against any of these connections before you decide, start on the free plan: the same system on a simulated account, with nothing connected. The current connection status of every broker is on the brokers page.

For the one large-broker API that still runs on OAuth 1.0a, with tokens that expire every midnight, see the E*TRADE API guide.

The figures in this article describe broker API behaviour and are not a prediction or a recommendation to buy or sell any security. JorgAI is software that carries out the rules you set in your own brokerage account; it is not an investment adviser. Trading involves risk of loss.