dino.marketsvsKalshi
dino.markets vs Kalshi
Kalshi is the venue. It's a CFTC-regulated exchange where you hold funds and place real orders. dino.markets sits on top of it and Polymarket, matching both into one feed with the arbitrage between them.
Where Kalshi wins
It's the actual exchange. You place real orders there.
- Direct order execution. Kalshi is a CFTC-regulated exchange: you fund an account, place orders, and Kalshi settles them. We're read-only. You still trade on Kalshi's own book, not ours.
- One venue, one authoritative price. No cross-venue matching to reason about. The order book is the CFTC-regulated source of truth, full stop.
- $0.02/contract flat fee, no API fee. Kalshi's REST and WebSocket API cost nothing to query. You pay $0.02 per contract when an order executes, maker and taker alike.
- Full order-book surface. Resting limit orders, cancels, amendments. The actual venue, not a read-only mirror of it.
Where dino.markets wins
Kalshi only shows you Kalshi. We show you Kalshi vs Polymarket.
- Cross-venue matching. The same game lists on Kalshi and Polymarket under different tickers and team handles. We match them continuously with an explicit confidence band. Kalshi's API only ever shows you Kalshi's own book.
- Live arbitrage, computed. Gross ask-to-ask edge between the two venues, per-outcome book depth, settlement-risk disclosure. Kalshi's API can't produce any of it; it never sees Polymarket's book.
- One Bearer key, not RSA-PSS signing. Kalshi requires generating an RSA-PSS signature over the timestamp, method, and path on every request. We're a single Bearer API key. No signing, no key-pair management.
- MCP on every plan. Native Model Context Protocol server, included on Free. Kalshi has no MCP offering; wiring an agent into Kalshi directly means writing a REST client around its RSA signing scheme yourself.
Head-to-head, line by line
Kalshi is the venue we match against, not a rival data API. This compares what each surface is actually for.
| Feature | dino.markets | Kalshi |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | ||
| Type of product | Cross-venue data API + MCP | CFTC-regulated exchange |
| Can you place trades | Direct order execution | |
| Regulatory status | Not a broker/exchange | CFTC-regulated (US) |
| Market coverage | ||
| Venues covered | Kalshi + Polymarket, matched | Kalshi only |
| Cross-venue arbitrage detection | ||
| Matcher confidence scoring | N/A | |
| Data access | ||
| REST API | ||
| WebSocket streaming | Basic/Pro | Included, all accounts |
| Auth model | Bearer API key | RSA-PSS request signing |
| Rate limits | Flat per-plan | Volume-tiered (Expert…Prestige) |
| Costs | ||
| API access cost | $0 (Free tier) | $0, API itself is free |
| Per-trade cost | N/A (we don't execute trades) | $0.02/contract, maker + taker |
| Developer experience | ||
| MCP server | All plans | |
| Unified schema across venues | N/A (single venue) | |
Source: kalshi.com/fee-schedule + docs.kalshi.com/getting_started/rate_limits + docs.kalshi.com (RSA-PSS auth) + dino.markets pricing. Verified 2026-07-09.
Who should pick which
If you only trade on Kalshi, go straight to Kalshi. If you want to see Kalshi against Polymarket, or catch the gap between them, that's what we're for.
Pick Kalshi directly if…
You're placing real orders on one CFTC-regulated venue.
You want to execute trades yourself, need Kalshi's full order-book surface, and don't need visibility into how Polymarket is pricing the same game.
→ kalshi.com · $0.02/contract, maker + taker.
Pick dino.markets if…
You want to see Kalshi against Polymarket, not just Kalshi alone.
You're building a bot, dashboard, or agent that needs to reason about both venues at once: the matched feed, confidence-scored cross-venue arb, and a real-time WebSocket push, over one API and MCP server.
→ Free tier, MCP included · $60/mo for the real-time stream.
FAQ
Is dino.markets a replacement for Kalshi?+−
No. Kalshi is the exchange. You still hold your account and capital there and place orders yourself. We're a data layer that matches Kalshi's markets against Polymarket's and computes the arbitrage between them. We don't hold your funds or place your orders.
Does dino.markets use Kalshi's API?+−
Yes. We integrate Kalshi's REST and WebSocket API (RSA-PSS request signing) directly, alongside Polymarket's CLOB API, and normalize both into one matched schema.
Why not just use Kalshi's own WebSocket feed?+−
You can, and it's included on every Kalshi account. It only shows you Kalshi's own order book, though. It has no visibility into Polymarket, so it can't tell you when the two venues disagree on the same game. That cross-venue view is what we add.
Does Kalshi charge for API access?+−
No. Kalshi's REST and WebSocket API are free to query; you only pay the standard $0.02-per-contract trading fee when an order actually executes, on both the maker and taker side. Verified against Kalshi's published fee schedule, 2026-07-09.
What's Kalshi's rate limit?+−
Kalshi reviews trading volume daily and assigns a tier (Expert through Prestige) that sets your rate limit; exceeding it returns a 429. dino.markets uses a flat per-plan limit instead: 60 req/min Free, 300 req/min Basic, 1200 req/min Pro. No volume-tier qualification needed.