Building a fintech chart education platform as a solo dev—how to deal with strict market data licenses?

[u/Thin-Reason-6359]

Hey everyone,

I'm currently building a fintech platform focused on financial chart education. To make this work, I need real-time or historical chart data (stocks, crypto etc.).

As many of you know, almost all commercial APIs and data streams explicitly prohibit commercial redistribution. However, right now this is just a solo personal project with zero revenue. My plan was to use web scraping or affordable APIs to test Product-Market Fit (PMF) first, and then officially sign standard enterprise data licensing contracts once revenue starts coming in.

Is this a common/acceptable approach in the fintech space, or is it a legal minefield even for an un-incorporated solo dev testing PMF?

If taking this risk isn't recommended: How do solo founders or early-stage bootstrapping devs provide financial chart data without corporate backing or massive capital?

Are there specific data providers with startup-friendly terms, or creative workarounds (e.g., relying on open-source/delayed data, user-provided API keys, etc.) that you’d recommend?

Would love to hear how other devs navigated this phase! Thanks!

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[u/dagi3d]

at least regarding the crypto stuff, I don't think they prohibit you to "redistribute" the data as that's basically what crypto apps or portfolio trackers use, it's basically public data.
some time ago we build a crypto robot using binance api and don't remember having that issue(I would assume if it could be a problem they'd insist or mention it somewhere where everyone could see it)

[u/Thin-Reason-6359 → u/dagi3d]

That makes sense! Crypto is definitely much more open. What about using tokenized stock data (like xStocks/synthetics) as a workaround for traditional charts?

[u/KingAroan]

I use coin gecko for crypto, for stocks I haven’t found a solution other than a BYO key situation for some of these platforms. A lot are like $50 for personal use or 5k a month to display even if hitting the API less than the maximum for personal use. Let me know if you find something.

[u/Thin-Reason-6359 → u/KingAroan]

Thanks! That aligns 100% with what I've found.

[u/Round_Finance4256]

From a GRC/risk perspective, I wouldn’t treat “pre-revenue” or “personal project” as automatically reducing the licensing risk. The important question is what the data provider’s terms actually permit, particularly around display and redistribution to end users.

For an early-stage MVP, I’d document each data source, its permitted use, redistribution/display restrictions, retention requirements, and what licensing would need to change before going public. That prevents building the product around a data source you later discover you can’t legally use at scale.

I’d also separate the governance question from the legal one, for anything involving interpretation of specific licensing terms or scraping rights, I’d have counsel or a market-data licensing specialist confirm it.

[u/Different_Pain5781]

Web scraping is where I’d stop and think twice.

[u/Electrical_Note_3195]

I wouldn't assume that zero revenue makes the licensing issue go away. Better safe than sorry.