Connecting a broker

Tradient connects to brokerage accounts through SnapTrade, a regulated aggregation service that handles credentials, order routing, and position sync against ~20 US retail brokers. You don’t need a broker connection to scan or analyze trades — but connecting one unlocks one-click order routing and live P&L in Portfolio.

Why SnapTrade

Building direct broker integrations is a permanent maintenance sink: every broker has a different API, a different OAuth dance, a different idea of what a multi-leg ticket looks like, and a different cadence for breaking changes. SnapTrade abstracts all of that behind a single OAuth flow and a single REST surface. We never see your broker password — you authenticate against your broker directly inside the SnapTrade popup, and SnapTrade hands us back a per-account token scoped to read positions and place orders.

Supported brokers

SnapTrade supports the bulk of US retail and a handful of international brokers. The full list is on snaptrade.com, but the common ones are: Charles Schwab, TD Ameritrade / thinkorswim, Fidelity, E*TRADE, Robinhood, Webull, Tastytrade, Tradier, Interactive Brokers, Alpaca, and Public.

The connection flow

1. 1

   Open the broker connections page

   Go to Portfolio and click Connect broker, or open it directly from the user menu under Profile → Brokers.

2. 2

   Choose your broker in the SnapTrade popup

   A popup window opens to the SnapTrade portal. Find your broker, click it, and authenticate with your normal broker login. Most brokers redirect through OAuth — Tradient never sees your password.

3. 3

   Authorize Tradient to access your accounts

   SnapTrade will ask you which accounts you want to expose (most brokers list multiple — IRA, taxable, joint, etc.). Pick the ones you want Tradient to manage. You can revoke individual accounts later without re-doing the whole flow.

4. 4

   Wait for the first sync

   The popup closes and Portfolio refreshes. The first sync pulls positions, balances, and the last 90 days of orders. This usually takes 5-15 seconds. You’ll see your holdings appear in the positions table as they arrive.

What you can do once connected

• One-click order routing. Every result row in Radar gets a Send to broker button. Tradient builds the multi-leg order, shows you a confirmation modal with all the legs and the estimated debit/credit, and routes it to the account you pick. We support market, limit, and marketable-limit orders out of the box.
• Live Portfolio.Positions, P&L, buying power, Greeks, and notional exposures all aggregate into a single view across every connected account. Day P&L refreshes every minute the market is open.
• Real account size for capital sizing.If you’ve enabled the “use connected balance” toggle in Profile, every scan sizes against your actual buying power instead of a manual number. Worth doing — it stops you from sizing trades against capital you don’t have.

What you can’t do

• Tradient cannot move money in or out of your brokerage. Every deposit, withdrawal, and ACH transfer still happens in your broker’s app.
• Tradient cannot place exotic order types your broker doesn’t expose to SnapTrade. Stop-limits, OCOs, and GTC limit orders work on most brokers; trailing stops and conditional orders vary.
• Tradient cannot trade options for which your broker has not approved you. You’ll get an error from the broker, not from Tradient — and we’ll surface it in the confirmation flow.

Security model

SnapTrade is SOC 2 Type II certified and is regulated as a money transmission abstraction layer in jurisdictions that require it. The credential boundary is intentional: we hold a per-user SnapTrade token, not your broker credentials. Tradient engineers cannot read your broker password or your brokerage positions outside the scope of your active session.

You can revoke the SnapTrade connection at any time from Account → Security. Revoking invalidates the token immediately on both sides — Tradient will not be able to read positions or place orders against the broker until you re-link.

Troubleshooting

The popup closes immediately and nothing happens

Your browser is blocking popups for the Tradient domain. Allow popups for app.tradient.net and click Connect broker again. Safari is the most common offender.

I authorized the broker but Portfolio is empty

First sync can take up to 30 seconds for accounts with many positions. If it’s still empty after a minute, hit the refresh button on the Portfolio header. If that doesn’t fix it, the broker probably has the account in a transitional state — log into the broker directly, then come back.

An order failed to route

Read the error in the confirmation modal — it’s the broker’s rejection text passed straight through. The usual suspects are options approval level, insufficient buying power, and after-hours routing on a strategy the broker doesn’t allow extended-hours.