Volume profile, free.
Session volume profile is free on Basis, on live crypto markets, with no account and no trial. It is not a limited preview of a paid feature — there is no paid tier for it to be limited against.
What you get
- Session profiles across the visible history, not just the current day
- Point of control, value area high and value area low on every session
- The standard 70% value area, expanded two rows at a time from the point of control
- Profiles built from real trade-at-price data where the tape is loaded, and from bar volume everywhere else
- Row count you control, so a profile can be coarse for structure or fine for levels
Why this is usually paid for
Volume profile is one of the features platforms most reliably put behind a subscription. It is expensive to compute, it looks professional, and it is the thing people upgrade for — which makes it a natural place to draw the paywall.
Basis draws no such line. The profile is computed in your browser from data the chart already loaded, so there is no per-user cost to meter and no reason to charge for it.
How to use it
- 1
Open the chart on volume profile
The button below opens the terminal with session volume profile already selected. Nothing to configure and nothing to find in a menu.
- 2
Read the point of control first
The POC is the price where the most volume traded in that session. It is the session’s centre of gravity, and price returning to it is the most common intraday behaviour there is.
- 3
Use the value area as the range
The value area holds 70% of the session’s volume. Price inside it is in balance; price leaving it and holding outside is the session accepting a new range rather than rejecting it.
- 4
Look for the thin parts
A price band with very little volume is one the market moved through quickly. Those gaps tend to get travelled quickly again, which makes them poor places to expect support.
Questions
Is the volume profile really free?+
Yes. There is no paid tier on Basis at all, so there is nothing for the profile to be excluded from. You can open a chart, switch to session volume profile and read the point of control and value area without an account, an email address or a card.
Do I need an account?+
No. Opening the terminal puts you on a live chart immediately. An account is free and optional and only adds persistence — saved layouts, drawings, alerts and journal entries that follow you between devices.
Is it built from real trades or estimated from candles?+
Both, chosen per session. Where the trade-at-price tape has been loaded the profile is built from actual trades, which knows the exact price each lot traded at. Where it has not, each bar’s volume is spread across the range that bar traded — the standard construction every charting platform uses, and the reason a profile can be drawn over years of history at all.
How is the value area calculated?+
From the point of control outward, comparing the two rows above the area against the two rows below and taking the heavier pair, until 70% of the session’s volume is enclosed. That is Steidlmayer’s rule and it is what other platforms implement. Expanding one row at a time — the easy shortcut — disagrees with the convention on close to half of random profiles.
Which markets does it work on?+
Spot and perpetual futures across the venues Basis supports. The profile is computed from whatever market you have open, so a perpetual profile and a spot profile of the same asset are separate readings, as they should be.
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