Learn options where a mistake costs nothing.
The market charges tuition in cash, and it does not give refunds. Here you learn the mechanics in a structured academy, rehearse them on real past sessions you can rewind, and test an idea against two years of history before it ever meets your money.
No card required · everything simulated · $0 at risk
Modelled option prices · illustrative
What is real, and what is not
The live option chain is real market data on a 15-minute delay, and the index path behind Practice and Research is real 5-minute S&P 500 data. The option prices in a backtest are MODELLED from that path and the session's volatility — they are not historical quotes, and every result says so. This is a place to learn mechanics and kill bad ideas cheaply, not a claim that a strategy will make money.
A curriculum, not a playlist.
Forty-six courses and 164 lessons in English and Spanish, from what a market is to managing portfolio Greeks — each one ending in a knowledge check, each course in an exam you pass at 80%. Plus a 0DTE SPX track for traders who want the short game specifically.
- Interactive widgets, not screenshots: payoff diagrams, decay curves, expected-move cones you can drag
- A 155-term glossary built from the definitions the lessons already teach
- Exams, levels, and a certificate that records what you actually passed
- L0Market foundations4/4
- L4What an option is3/3
- L5The Greeks5/5
- L6Vertical spreads2/3
- TRACK0DTE · Structures0/4
Rewind the afternoon you got wrong.
Open a real past session and take the clock. You are dropped in mid-morning — no looking at how the day ended first — and you can advance it, wind it back, and trade the same moment differently as many times as it takes.
- Real 5-minute index bars; a modelled option chain priced from them
- Every session starts on a fresh $100,000 sleeve
- Whatever is still open at 16:00 settles, whether you are ready or not
Write the rule. Watch it fail cheaply.
Turn "what if I sold a 16-delta condor every morning?" into a specification a machine can execute — structure, delta, width, entry time, exit rule — and see it run across every session we have data for while you are still adjusting it.
- Expectancy, profit factor and maximum drawdown first; win rate is there but never the headline
- Every number net of your own commissions, settlement fees and optional slippage
- Deterministic: the same rules over the same window return the same numbers, for everyone
A 16-delta condor, as-is: right two sessions in three, and losing money. That is the real output, not an invented example.
Two mediocre ideas can beat one good one.
Combine saved strategies into a book and see whether they actually diversify. Each member runs on its own fully funded sleeve — sharing a balance would be leverage wearing a diversification costume.
- Pairwise correlation: near 1 means that is one position, not two
- Combined drawdown should be smaller than the sum of the parts, or there is nothing here
- A P&L calendar for the whole book
- Condor 09:35 ↔ Condor 13:000.18
- Condor 16Δ ↔ Condor 18Δ0.94
- Put spread ↔ Butterfly0.41
0.94 is not a portfolio: it is the same position twice.
A simulator you cannot negotiate with.
Orders cross a modelled bid/ask, pay a commission per leg and per contract, respect defined risk, and settle in cash at the close — exercise and assignment included. Enter your broker's rates once and every number on the platform recomputes under them.
- No naked short legs: every short needs a long to cap it
- Optional slippage, to ask whether a strategy survives worse execution
- Letting a position expire worthless is cheaper than closing it — the model knows
- Credit received
- +$340.00
- Open · 8 contracts
- −$13.76
- Settlement · 1 ITM strike
- −$205.00
- Net
- +$121.24
Everything you can click, you can script.
There is no second-class API here: the website calls the same routes you get. Create a personal token, point a script — or an AI agent — at it, and let it run the research loop while you do something else.
- OpenAPI 3 at /openapi.yaml, generated from the live routes
- /llms.txt — the whole platform in one page an agent can read
- Bearer auth, plain-sentence errors, a credit budget that refills itself
curl -X POST https://vigo.trade/api/v2/research/backtest \
-H "Authorization: Bearer $VIGO_TOKEN" \
-d '{"spec": {"structure": "iron_condor",
"short_delta": 0.16,
"wing_points": 10}}'
# → {"metrics": {"expectancy": -107.84,
# "profit_factor": 0.38,
# "max_drawdown_pct": 53.42},
# "modeled": true}Four steps, and only the last one is expensive.
One question sorts every screen here: can you rewind the clock? While you can, mistakes are free.
Learn it
A lesson, a worked example, and a knowledge check. Concepts before positions.
Rehearse it
Trade a real past session with the clock in your hands. Get it wrong; rewind; get it wrong differently.
Prove it
Turn the idea into a rule and run it across every session we have. Most ideas die here, cheaply.
Then decide
What you take to a real broker is your call. We are not it — and nothing here is advice.
Point an agent at it.
The platform publishes itself where agents look: a machine-readable index and a generated OpenAPI spec.
Read https://vigo.trade/llms.txt to learn the Vigo platform and its API. Then, using my token, backtest this idea: sell a 16-delta SPX iron condor at 09:35 ET with 10-point wings and a 50% take-profit. Compare it against the 10-delta and 25-delta variants and report expectancy, profit factor and maximum drawdown for each — remembering that these option prices are modelled, not historical quotes.
The tools are free. The teaching is not.
Research, Practice, Replay, Analyze and the API are included with any free account. The academy — levels 1 to 9, the options curriculum and certification — is the paid product, with a 3-day trial.
Free, forever
- · Level 0 of the curriculum
- · Research and backtesting
- · Practice, Replay and Analyze
- · The public API
- · The community
Paid plans
- · Levels 1–9 and the options curriculum
- · The 0DTE SPX track
- · Exams and certification
- · 3-day trial, cancel anytime
What people actually ask.
Do I trade with real money?
No. Every account on Vigo is simulated. No order ever reaches a market, no real securities are bought or sold, and nothing here can lose you money.
What does the free plan include?
Level 0 of the curriculum, the simulator, and the community. Levels 1–9, the options curriculum, and certifications need a paid plan — or the free 3-day trial, which unlocks everything.
How do lessons unlock?
In order. Each lesson ends with a knowledge check that opens the next one, and each course ends with a module exam. Pass it at 80% and the following course unlocks.
Where does my simulator capital come from?
Your account opens with $5,000 in virtual capital and grows as you learn: every lesson you complete grants another $500. You earn the responsibility before you get the money.
Are the prices in the simulator real?
The live option chain and equity quotes are real market data, served 15 minutes delayed. Historical replays and backtests are different: there we price options from a model rather than from historical quotes, and every such number is labelled MODELLED where it appears.
Is there a free trial?
Yes — 3 days with full access to every level, the options curriculum, and certifications. Cancel before it ends and you are not charged.
Is everything available in Spanish?
Yes. Lessons, exams, the simulator, and the community are fully bilingual, and you can switch language at any time from the header.
Do I get a certificate?
Yes. Pass at least one course exam on a trial or paid plan and your certificate becomes available from your account.
Is any of this investment advice?
No. Vigo is educational content plus a simulator. We never give personalised recommendations, price targets, or trading signals.
Make the expensive mistakes here.
A free account gets you the whole toolkit and the first level of the academy. No card.