# Sip data collection

**URL:** <https://forum.alpaca.markets/t/sip-data-collection/19863>\
**Category:** Uncategorized\
**Created:** [October 14, 2026, 7:47pm UTC](https://forum.alpaca.markets/t/sip-data-collection/19863 "2026-10-14T19:47:37Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![paul\_green2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/73ab20/32.png) [@paul\_green2000](https://forum.alpaca.markets/u/paul_green2000)\
**Post date:** [October 14, 2026, 7:47pm UTC](https://forum.alpaca.markets/t/sip-data-collection/19863/1 "2026-10-14T19:47:37Z")

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I am an individual, not a business and currently use Alpaca’s market-data APIs for an internal, non-commercial algorithmic trading research project.

I need confirmation that my basic account and market-data subscription permit the following activities:

- Collecting and retaining IEX market-data bars using the existing API entitlement.

- Accessing historical SIP trades and quotes through the delayed historical market-data API, where permitted by my basic subscription.

- Retaining market-data records locally for internal research, replay and verification.

- Performing offline analysis and backtesting against retained market data.

- Generating and retaining derived research results, statistics and model-evaluation reports.

The research is strictly for our own internal use. I will not redistribute, publish, resell or provide third parties with access to the underlying market data.

Could anyone confirm whether these activities are permitted under a basic account and subscription?

Thanks

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**Author:** ![Dan\_Whitnable\_Alpaca](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/user_avatar/forum.alpaca.markets/dan_whitnable_alpaca/32/1658_2.png) [@Dan\_Whitnable\_Alpaca](https://forum.alpaca.markets/u/Dan_Whitnable_Alpaca)\
**Post date:** [October 15, 2026, 12:20pm UTC](https://forum.alpaca.markets/t/sip-data-collection/19863/2 "2026-10-15T12:20:18Z")

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@paul_green2000 the simple answer is yes. But I have a question for you. The Alpaca terms are very open ended and state “you agree to use the Services and Content solely for your own personal and non-commercial purposes”. Why would you feel the answer to any of these questions would be no? I’m guessing these questions were generated by an AI bot.

Alpaca support staff probably gets 50 of these types of requests every day and spends a lot of time providing what seem like obvious answers. For example, you asked if "_Accessing historical SIP trades and quotes through the delayed historical market-data API, where permitted by my basic subscription."_ and if “_Performing offline analysis and backtesting against retained market data_”. As a real live thinking individual, wouldn’t the answer to these two questions be a resounding yes? Otherwise, one could not effectively use the data for anything.

I’m not trying to be facetious, but rather wish to understand why these questions are being asked, and what Alpaca can do to minimize the time spent responding to them.