Yes. You can use Massive's data from anywhere in the world, and your citizenship is not a factor in what you can buy or reach. The distinction that does matter is professional versus non-professional use, because the exchanges that license the underlying data treat those as different categories, and professional use has to sit on a business license rather than an individual subscription.
Applies to
- Plans: individual subscriptions for non-professional use; business and commercial licenses for professional use.
- Endpoints: all of them. Nothing is geographically restricted.
- Asset classes: all. Note that the market data is US market data, whoever is consuming it.
What decides your classification
What decides your classification is set by the exchanges rather than by Massive, and the test is about how you use the data rather than where you are:
| You are likely non-professional if | You are likely professional if |
|---|---|
| You use the data for your own private trading or research | You use it in the course of employment in financial services |
| You are not registered with a securities regulator | You are a registered representative or investment adviser |
| Nobody is paying you to use or act on the data | You redistribute the data, or show it to clients or your own users |
| You are a student or hobbyist | You are using it on behalf of a firm, whatever its size |
If you are unsure, say what you are doing in the chat at massive.com/contact and we will tell you which side you fall on. Getting it wrong is not a small thing: exchanges audit it.
How to buy as a professional
Professional use needs one of our business products. Email sales@massive.com with what you are building and who will see the data, and they will size the license. That includes team use, anything that redistributes data onward, and anything shown to your own customers.
Why the exchanges care
The exchanges care because their fee schedules charge differently for the two categories, and they hold the vendor, us, responsible for classifying users correctly. That is why the question appears at signup, and it is a licensing distinction rather than a quality one.
Do not assume the commercial plan is the individual plan at a higher price, though. The business plans are packaged differently: some data that an individual Advanced tier includes, such as intraday trades and quotes, is sold as a separate expansion on the business side. Check massive.com/business for what a commercial license includes rather than reading across from the individual tiers.
If you see an error
Nothing in the API refuses a request based on citizenship or location, so a refusal is about your plan rather than where you are.
{"status":"NOT_AUTHORIZED"} means the subscription does not cover the request. It is not a geographic restriction.
