Market profile, free.
Market profile, drawn as time price opportunity letters, is free on Basis with no account and no trial. It sits in the chart type list beside candles, not behind an upgrade.
What you get
- TPO letters built session by session across the visible history
- Point of control and value area computed on time rather than volume
- Session boundaries you choose, so a profile can follow a day, a week or a custom period
- The Steidlmayer value area rule, expanded two rows at a time from the point of control
- Readable alongside the session volume profile, so time and volume can be compared directly
Why this is usually paid for
Market profile came out of the futures pits and remains a specialist reading, which is why the platforms that support it tend to be the expensive professional ones. The calculation is not difficult; the audience is small enough that nobody bothers to give it away.
Basis treats it as one chart type among twenty. It is computed from data the chart has already loaded, so it costs nothing to offer and there is no tier for it to sit behind.
How to use it
- 1
Switch the chart to TPO
The button below opens the terminal with time price opportunity already selected. Each letter marks a period in which price traded at that level, stacked into the familiar bell shape when a session is balanced.
- 2
Read the shape before the levels
A fat, symmetric profile is a balanced session where both sides agreed on value. A thin, elongated one is a trend day where price moved through levels without spending time at any of them. The shape tells you what kind of day it was before any level matters.
- 3
Use single prints as reference
Levels touched in only one period are single prints, and they mark where price moved too fast for value to form. Those areas often get revisited, which makes them useful reference points rather than predictions.
Questions
How is market profile different from volume profile?+
Volume profile measures how much traded at each price. Market profile measures how long price spent at each level, counting periods rather than contracts. A price can have heavy volume in a single burst and little time, and the two profiles will disagree about where value sat.
What does the value area represent?+
It is the range containing about seventy percent of the session, expanded outward from the point of control two rows at a time. It approximates one standard deviation of a normal distribution and is meant as a description of where the session agreed on value, not as a boundary price cannot cross.
Can I change the session length?+
Yes. The number of sessions the profile covers is a setting on the chart, so a profile can describe a single day or aggregate a longer period. Longer sessions produce smoother profiles and hide intraday structure, which is a trade-off you make deliberately rather than one imposed on you.
Does this work on crypto given there is no session close?+
Crypto trades continuously, so the session boundary is a convention rather than a market event. Basis uses a daily boundary by default, which most crypto desks also use, and lets you change it. The profile is still meaningful because it describes where time was spent within whatever window you chose.
Open it and see
The chart opens with this already turned on. Nothing to configure, nothing to sign up for.
Open the chartAlso free
Updated 2026-08-23 · Indicator reference · Documentation · Terminal