BTU Pricing
Backtest Units (BTUs) are the platform's usage currency. Each backtest consumes BTUs based on the computational complexity of the run.
What are BTUs?
BTUs (Backtest Units) are the internal currency of the BacktestLM platform. Every time you run a backtest, screener, or analysis, the operation consumes a number of BTUs proportional to the computational resources required.
Every new account starts with 10 free BTUs — no credit card required. There's no subscription: when you need more, you purchase a BTU bundle and it's added to your balance immediately. BTUs don't reset on a billing cycle — you only spend what you use.
What's always free?
A large part of BacktestLM costs 0 BTUs, not just during a trial period:
- •Describing, editing, and reviewing the AI-translated strategy before you run anything
- •Browsing Community Strategies & Templates
- •Screeners
- •AI Symbol Analysis (social sentiment + 14-day price forecasts)
- •Saving, rating, and comparing unlimited backtests in My Strategies
- •Walk-Forward, Monte Carlo, and Blind Data Testing — included in the backtest run itself once your strategy qualifies (100+ trades), no extra BTU charge
What determines BTU cost?
BTU cost scales with the amount of data the engine must process. The primary factors are:
A 10-ticker backtest costs roughly 10× a single-ticker backtest at the same interval and period.
1-minute data has ~390 bars per trading day vs. 1 bar for daily. A 1m backtest over the same period costs significantly more than a 1D backtest.
10 years of data costs roughly 2× a 5-year backtest at the same interval.
Walk-forward with 5 cycles costs roughly 5× the base backtest, since each cycle runs a full optimization.
A grid search testing 100 parameter combinations costs roughly 100× the base backtest.
Reading a chart image to extract a strategy adds a fixed BTU cost on top of the backtest cost.
How to estimate BTU cost before running
The platform shows an estimated BTU cost before you confirm a run. Use this to plan your usage. As a general guide:
- •Single-ticker daily backtest, 5 years: low BTU cost
- •Single-ticker 1-hour backtest, 5 years: moderate BTU cost
- •Single-ticker 1-minute backtest, 1 year: high BTU cost
- •10-ticker daily backtest with walk-forward (5 cycles): high BTU cost
- •Grid search (50 combinations) on daily data, 5 years: high BTU cost
Tips for optimizing BTU usage
- Start with daily data — validate the strategy logic on daily bars first. Only move to lower timeframes once the daily version shows a real edge.
- Narrow your grid search range — test a coarse grid (e.g., steps of 10) first, then refine around the best region.
- Use the AI chat to refine before re-running — discuss changes with the AI before committing to a new full backtest run.
- Save promising strategies — use the heart icon to save strategies you want to revisit, avoiding re-running the same setup.
- Explore validation freely — Walk-Forward, Monte Carlo, and Blind Data Testing are included in the backtest run itself (once your strategy has enough trades), so there's no extra BTU cost to review them.
Viewing your BTU balance
Your current BTU balance is visible in your account settings. The balance updates after each run. There's no monthly plan or reset date — your 10 free signup BTUs and any purchased bundles are added to your balance and stay there until used.