By Scalpel Team. . 10 min read.
In short
To get Level 2 on Interactive Brokers, you need live US stock quotes plus at least one depth-of-book feed. For non-professionals today, NASDAQ TotalView-OpenView is $16.50 a month, NYSE ArcaBook $11.00, Cboe BZX $8.00 and NYSE OpenBook $25.00. You add them in Client Portal under Settings, Market Data Subscriptions. TWS then shows depth in BookTrader, Market Depth Trader and the Mosaic Market Depth window, for at least 3 symbols at once (one per 100 market data lines). Depth tells you what each venue is showing right now. It does not tell you what happens next, and pre-market it shows less than it seems.
"IBKR Level 2" is a common search for traders who have just opened a TWS window and found a bid and an ask but no book. This post covers which subscriptions to buy and what they cost today, how to switch them on, how many books TWS will show at once, which TWS windows display depth, and how to read the book for a scalp. If you use Scalpel, the guide The IBKR market data you need for Level 2 covers the exact setup the app needs. This post covers the wider picture.
Scalpel is independent and not affiliated with or endorsed by Interactive Brokers.
Level 1 is the top of the book: the best bid, the best ask and the last trade. Level 2 (also called depth, depth of book or the order book) is every displayed limit order behind them: the bids stacked below the inside bid and the offers stacked above the inside ask, with the size at each price.
Each depth feed is one exchange's book. NASDAQ TotalView is Nasdaq's book, ArcaBook is NYSE Arca's, and so on. In TWS, each row is labeled with the venue the order rests on. When you ask for aggregated (SMART) depth, IBKR merges the venues you pay for into one ladder. Venues you do not subscribe to are missing from it, so the book you see is always partial. Off-exchange volume never shows on any book.
Every depth feed sits on top of live level 1 data. IBKR's page says each US depth feed requires top-of-book data for all three US networks (NYSE, Network B and Nasdaq). Most people get that through the bundle in the first two rows below.
| Subscription (IBKR's name) | What it gives you | Non-pro per month | Pro per month |
|---|---|---|---|
| US Securities Snapshot and Futures Value Bundle | Snapshot quotes for NYSE, NYSE American and Nasdaq stocks; required for the add-on | $10.00, waived in a month with $30 of commissions | Separate pro bundle |
| US Equity and Options Add-On Streaming Bundle | Streaming level 1 for all three US networks plus options | $4.50 | $125.00 |
| NASDAQ TotalView-OpenView (L1, L2) | Nasdaq's full book, including stocks listed elsewhere that trade on Nasdaq | $16.50 | $90.00 |
| NYSE ArcaBook (L1, L2) | NYSE Arca's book | $11.00 | $65.00 |
| Cboe BZX (L1, L2) | The Cboe BZX exchange book | $8.00 | $47.00 |
| NASDAQ BX TotalView (L1, L2) | The Nasdaq BX exchange book | $3.50 | $48.00 |
| NYSE OpenBook (L2) | The NYSE exchange book for NYSE-listed stocks | $25.00 | $64.50 |
Fees checked on October 15, 2026, on IBKR's market data pricing page. Prices change, so check that page before you subscribe.
Things on that page worth knowing before you click:
A worked example. A non-professional scalping small caps adds the bundle ($10.00), the add-on ($4.50), TotalView ($16.50) and ArcaBook ($11.00). That is $42.00 a month, or $32.00 in a month with $30 or more in commissions. For low-priced momentum stocks, Nasdaq and Arca carry much of the pre-market activity, so those two are the usual first picks. Cboe BZX is a cheap third. NYSE OpenBook matters mainly if you trade NYSE-listed names.
Log in to Client Portal, click the head-and-shoulders icon in the top right, then Settings. Under User Settings, find Market Data Subscriptions. Subscriptions belong to a username, not an account. A second username pays again.
Click the Configure gear. If IBKR asks, answer the non-professional questionnaire honestly. Your answer decides which price column applies.
On the North America tab, tick the US Securities Snapshot and Futures Value Bundle and the US Equity and Options Add-On Streaming Bundle. Without these, depth feeds will not stream.
Tick NASDAQ TotalView-OpenView, then any others you want: NYSE ArcaBook, Cboe BZX, NYSE OpenBook. Each one adds one venue's rows to your book.
Click Continue, review, and sign the exchange agreements. If you will use depth through the API (Scalpel or any other program), accept IBKR's market data API acknowledgement too. Then log out of TWS or IB Gateway and back in so the new data loads.
Do not stream live data on the same username in two places at once (two TWS sessions, or TWS and the phone app). IBKR gives live data to one session and can leave the other delayed.
This limit catches most new IBKR day traders. IBKR does not let you stream unlimited books. Its rule: one depth symbol for every 100 market data lines, with a minimum of 3 and a maximum of 60.
Every account starts with 100 lines. After the first month, IBKR gives you the largest of three numbers: your monthly commissions divided by 8, your equity times 100 divided by $1,000,000, or 100.
| Your situation | Market data lines | Depth symbols at once |
|---|---|---|
| New account, or under $800 a month in commissions | 100 | 3 |
| $3,200 a month in commissions | 400 | 4 |
| $4,000 a month in commissions | 500 | 5 |
| Default 100 lines plus 2 Quote Booster packs | 300 | 5 (3 plus 1 per pack) |
A Quote Booster pack costs $30.00 a month and adds 100 lines and one more depth symbol, up to 10 packs per account. Opening the same symbol in several depth windows (BookTrader, Market Depth Trader and the Integrated Stock Window) counts once. When you go over the cap, a new depth window falls back to aggregated top-of-book data and hides its exchange buttons. Programs that use the API draw on the same allowance, because IBKR ties API depth requests to the same lines.
For a scalper, three books is usually enough: the stock you are in, the next one up and one spare.
TWS has three windows that show depth. All of them come from the New Window button in the top left of Mosaic (IBKR Guides). In Classic TWS, BookTrader and Market Depth Trader are under Trading Tools.
| Window | How it shows depth | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| BookTrader | A vertical price ladder: bid size and ask size beside each price | Clicking orders at a price. Left-click a bid size for a buy limit, an ask size for a sell limit, and right-click for a stop |
| Market Depth Trader | The classic Level II table: bids left, asks right, a row per venue per price, with Deep Book buttons to choose which exchanges to include | Seeing who is at each price |
| Market Depth (Mosaic) | A smaller version of Market Depth Trader, linked to your Mosaic window group, rows shaded by price group | Keeping a book on screen without a separate window |
In Market Depth Trader, click an exchange's Deep Book button to add that venue's Level II rows. If the book looks thin, check that the buttons for the feeds you pay for are on. BookTrader is the fastest for clicking orders. Market Depth Trader is the one to read. If you trade TWS alone, the TWS day trading layout shows where to place each one, and TWS hotkeys for day trading covers sending orders from the keyboard instead of the mouse.
Read the book for three questions: what will it cost to get in, how much stock sits between you and the next level, and can you get out?
The stacks. Add up the size in the first few price levels on each side. Suppose ABCD is 5.70 bid, 5.71 ask, and the asks hold 300 shares at 5.71, 400 at 5.72 and 9,000 at 5.75. Buyers can push through 5.71 and 5.72 easily, and 5.75 is where the move may stall. The spread is 1 cent here. On a $5.70 stock that is about 0.18% each round trip, before commissions.
Size. Size you can see is size someone is willing to show. It is not a promise. A 9,000-share offer can be cancelled the moment price gets near it.
Market makers and ECNs. Old Level II screens showed market maker IDs (MMIDs) on every row. On IBKR, the label you will mostly see is the venue: NSDQ, ARCA, EDGX, BATS, IEX, MEMX, NYSE. An ECN (electronic communication network) is just one of these electronic venues. Nasdaq's feed can carry a firm's ID when that firm chooses to attribute its quote, but most orders are not attributed. A row that says ARCA could be a market maker, a fund's algorithm or another day trader. See the glossary entry for MMID.
Refreshing size. Watch the time and sales tape against the book. If a venue keeps showing 200 shares at 5.75 while 3,000 shares trade there, that order is refilling.
Icebergs. A refilling order like that is usually an iceberg: a large order that displays a small piece and reloads as it fills. A hidden seller at the offer can cap a breakout until it is done. A hidden buyer under you is not a floor, because once the order is filled there is nothing left at that price.
Who is taking. The book shows intent. The tape shows action. Prints at the ask eating through the offers is buying you can see. Prints at the bid with the bids pulling away is selling. When the book and the tape disagree, trust the tape.
Momentum traders do most of their work between 04:00 and 09:30 ET, which is when depth is least reliable:
Use pre-market depth to judge cost and liquidity. Do not use it to predict direction.
TWS shows the same data any IBKR platform gets, and BookTrader is very fast for clicking orders. What TWS does not do is the arithmetic. Spotting a refilling order, adding up each side's size, or checking whether you could sell into the bid is left to your eyes, across separate windows.
Scalpel draws the same IBKR SMART depth as a montage in the style of the DAS Trader montage that many momentum traders learned on: bids left, asks right, one row per venue, each price level in its own color band, with the tape in a column beside the book. On top of the book it shows the spread, both sides' size, an imbalance gauge and buy-minus-sell delta. It marks a refilling venue with a layers icon once enough trades into it. The rule is in the iceberg orders guide.
To be fair to the alternatives: DAS Trader Pro is the more complete platform if you want direct routing choices or shorting, and TWS alone is enough if you trade slowly. Scalpel is narrower. It is long only, for US stocks, with no paid data beyond your IBKR subscriptions, and it still needs the same depth subscriptions and the same depth cap. The Level 2 guide walks through every number on the panel, and reading the players shows each footprint (refills, size that vanishes, bids stepping up) as it looks on the montage. For how depth fits into the rest of an IBKR setup, see day trading on Interactive Brokers. For a side-by-side comparison, see DAS Trader vs Interactive Brokers.
Scalpel is independent and not affiliated with or endorsed by DAS Trader.
Trading carries a significant risk of loss. Nothing here is financial advice.