CQG IC is CQG’s flagship professional trading platform — installed on your Windows desktop, fed by CQG’s institutional-grade market data, and built around the most advanced tools in the CQG family. Full CQG Spreader, deep options analytics, 100+ technical studies, TFlow and Market Profile charts, and direct market access to over 45 global exchanges. This is the platform CQG built for traders who need everything.
CQG Integrated Client (CQG IC) is CQG’s flagship trading platform. It has been around for over three decades and is the platform most professional futures and options traders graduate to when they outgrow lighter tools. CQG built IC for the customers who run the markets — FCMs, hedge funds, commercial hedgers, and individual professional traders — not as a stripped-down retail tool.
Unlike CQG Desktop (web-based) and CQG One (cloud-based), CQG IC is a full Windows desktop application. You install it locally, which gives you the lowest possible latency, faster charting and analytics under heavy load, and the ability to run heavy workspaces with multiple monitors, dozens of charts, and complex spread trading without the browser slowdowns you get on web-based tools.
Every advanced feature in the CQG universe lives in IC first — CQG Spreader, full options analytics with Greeks and volatility surfaces, the Portfolio Monitor, custom indicator and strategy builders, TFlow® aggression charts, and Market Profile® charts. If you have seen a CQG feature anywhere, it almost certainly originated in IC.
In February 2026, CQG announced it would be acquired by Broadridge Financial Solutions, with the transaction expected to close by the end of June 2026. CQG’s leadership has stated the acquisition is intended to expand CQG’s capabilities, not consolidate them. The IC product line, its data infrastructure, and its trader-facing features remain unchanged for the foreseeable future.
We have been a CQG broker since the early days of electronic futures trading. CQG IC is one of four CQG platforms we offer alongside CQG Desktop, CQG QTrader, and CQG One. We can match you to the right platform based on what you actually trade rather than what looks fanciest in a demo.
IC is the right call if any of the following describe you. You spread futures markets and want CQG Spreader’s sub-millisecond second-leg execution. You trade options on futures and need full Greeks, volatility analysis, and multi-leg strategy support. You build your own custom indicators or trading systems and want the deepest scripting environment in the CQG family. You manage large positions across many accounts and need the Portfolio Monitor. You run a family office and want a single platform that scales.
If your needs are simpler — you trade a handful of ES or NQ contracts a day and just want a chart and a DOM — we will likely steer you toward CQG One or CQG Desktop instead. IC is a serious tool with a serious monthly fee, and it is wasted on a basic workflow.
The three platforms share the same CQG data and execution infrastructure but target different traders. Here is how IC differs:
If you are not sure which tier you need, ask us. We have moved traders both ways — up to IC when their needs grew, and down to CQG One when they realized IC was overkill. There is no penalty either direction.
Eight features you get with IC that CQG One and CQG Desktop don't have, or only partially have.
Over a hundred built-in studies plus statistical functions, with the option to author your own. The deepest technical analysis library in any retail or institutional-grade futures platform.
Create, trade, and manage multi-legged, intermarket, and intramarket spreads across accounts and asset classes. CQG Spreader Core sits co-located at the exchanges and executes second legs in under a millisecond.
Full Greeks, volatility surfaces, theoretical pricing, and UDS multi-leg option strategies. The options module CQG built for the professionals who actually trade vol.
Combines an expandable DOM view of the exchange order book with chart studies and conditions across different chart types and time intervals — all in one window.
CQG’s exclusive chart type that visualizes electronic market aggression — volume hitting the bid versus lifting the offer. Available only in CQG products and only at the depth IC provides.
CQG worked directly with J. Peter Steidlmayer to ensure their Market Profile implementation matches his original specification. The professional standard for auction-market analysis.
Build your own studies and indicators, design automated trading systems with the ATS study, and run them server-side. Spreadsheet Trader lets you script entire trading desks via familiar spreadsheet formulas.
Direct Market Access to over 45 global exchanges through CQG’s Hosted Exchange Gateways. High-speed market data from over 75 sources worldwide, including the new Cboe Europe Derivatives (CEDX) for European equity options.
Charting is where IC pulls ahead of every other futures platform. Beyond the standard bar/candle/line types, IC includes Constant Volume Bars, Range Bars, Renko, Point and Figure, Kagi, Three Line Break, TPO Profile, Market Profile, and TFlow charts. Each chart type supports the full studies library, allowing you to stack indicators with the same depth on any visualization.
The custom indicator environment lets professional traders write their own studies, conditions, and formulas in CQG’s scripting language. These custom studies render exactly like built-in studies and can drive automated alerts, conditions for the ATS, and trade triggers. Several major CTAs have indicator libraries built specifically inside IC.
Shaun Downey, CQG’s longtime technical analyst for Asia and Europe, contributed 28 proprietary studies based on three decades of trading experience — swing theory, trailing stops, and trend correction concepts that ship with IC. None of these are available in CQG One or Desktop.
IC routes through CQG’s Hosted Exchange Gateways — co-located servers at the major exchanges that minimize geographic latency. Smart order types include trailing stops, OCO orders, server-side bracket templates, time-based release orders, iceberg orders, and aggregation across multiple venues for symbols listed on more than one exchange.
Market data is sourced from over 75 global providers, including the recently added NetDania institutional FX feed (430+ currency pairs sourced from tier-1 banks). Historical data depth in IC is significantly deeper than what CQG One and Desktop expose — useful for backtesting custom systems and for commodity-heavy traders who need extended history on CL, GC, ZN, and similar instruments.
For algorithmic and automated trading, CQG offers integrated AutoTrader functionality plus the CQG Trading API and CQG Data API for external applications. The Charting API lets third parties publish indicators that render inside IC alongside the built-in studies.
CQG Spreader is the feature most professional spread traders cite as the reason to run IC. The Spreader Core sits in CQG’s co-located servers at the exchanges, so when your first leg fills, the second leg executes in under a millisecond — faster than any client-side spreading approach can match.
Spreader handles multi-legged spreads, intermarket spreads, intramarket spreads, and trading ratios across asset classes. For fixed-income traders, the Trading Ratios parameter now supports yield-based instruments that move inversely to price-based products — define a spread like SPREAD(Z10Y-Yield(TYA),,,1B:1B) and IC handles the inverted-direction math.
If you run any kind of calendar, butterfly, condor, or curve spread strategy, the Spreader is worth the platform cost on its own.
CQG IC is a professional-tier platform with a monthly subscription fee. Exchange market data fees are billed separately by the exchange. Additional modules — CQG Trading, CQG Spreader, Advanced Options, API access — have their own fees that scale with what you actually use.
Specific pricing depends on your trading volume, the modules you enable, and the exchanges you subscribe to. Discount Trading clients receive direct pricing on the CQG IC subscription and modules — not marked-up reseller rates. Talk to us about your trading and we will quote you the exact monthly cost for the configuration you actually need.
Commission on trades routed through Discount Trading is $0.49 or less per contract commission on standard futures and $0.20 or less per contract commission on micro index futuresiExchange, clearing, and regulatory fees apply..
We have run CQG IC, QTrader, Desktop, and One since their respective launches. Real working knowledge of every quirk — not a brochure-deep understanding.
You get CQG’s actual platform and module fees from us — not reseller markups. Same goes for commissions and exchange data.
When IC misbehaves on a live trade, you reach a person who knows IC — not a generic call center that hands you off to CQG.
Coming from TT, X_Trader, or another professional platform? We help with workspace setup, order template migration, and account configuration during the switch.
We walk you through CQG's free-trial signup so the demo loads with the right modules and exchange data for what you actually plan to trade. Avoids the back-and-forth of figuring it out cold.
Over a quarter-century in the futures brokerage business. We have worked with institutional desks, commercial hedgers, and individual professionals across every CQG product.
CQG IC is CQG’s flagship Windows desktop trading platform for professional futures and options traders. It is the most fully-featured product in the CQG family, with full Spreader, deep options analytics, custom indicators, 100+ studies, and direct market access to over 45 global exchanges.
CQG Desktop is web-based and aimed at retail traders. CQG One is cloud-based (with an optional Windows install) and sits in the middle of the product line. CQG IC is the flagship: locally installed on Windows, with the deepest analytics, the full Spreader, and the deepest options toolkit. If you spread futures, trade options seriously, or build custom indicators, IC is what you want.
CQG IC has a monthly platform subscription fee, with additional fees for optional modules like the Spreader and Advanced Options. Exchange market data fees are billed separately. Specific pricing depends on the modules you enable. Discount Trading offers direct CQG pricing — contact us for a configured quote based on your trading.
CQG IC is a Windows-only desktop application. Mac users have two options: run it under a Windows VM (Parallels, VMware Fusion) or use CQG One in a browser, which is cross-platform and shares the same data and execution infrastructure.
Over 45 global exchanges via CQG’s Hosted Exchange Gateways — CME Group (CME, CBOT, NYMEX, COMEX), ICE Futures U.S., ICE Europe, Eurex, Cboe, LME, SGX, JPX, ASX, and many more. Market data is sourced from over 75 providers. CQG is also live with Cboe Europe Derivatives (CEDX) for European equity options.
Broadridge announced an agreement to acquire CQG in February 2026, with the deal expected to close by end of June 2026. CQG leadership has stated the goal is to expand capabilities within a larger technology ecosystem, not to discontinue products. As of now, CQG IC continues to operate as it always has, with no announced changes to the product, pricing structure, or support.
Yes. CQG offers a free trial of IC with live streaming quotes. Fill out our form on this page and we'll point you to CQG's free-trial signup where you create the demo directly with CQG. Most traders spend a few days to a couple weeks with the demo before deciding to go live.
Fill out the form below and a Discount Trading representative will reach out to get your CQG IC demo configured with live streaming quotes.
