A Comprehensive Review of RotoQL – Is it Worth it?

Saahil Sud (formerly Maxdalury), the top-ranked DFS player on the planet, started RotoQL in 2015 to provide DFS players with the analytics and time-saving tools that have supported his accomplishments. With unlimited data and a sophisticated set of tools, this product is geared towards advanced users.[1]

Wondering if RotoQL or its sister products are right for you? This RotoQL review takes a deep dive into the software and discusses its strengths, weaknesses, and what you need to think about before investing your hard-earned money. 

An Overview of RotoQL

Key specifications:

• Price plan: Tiered membership plans from $0 up to $100/month.
• Game coverage: NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL, and PGA.
• Tools Suite: Insights interface, Research cheat sheet, Games interface, Players interface, Lineup Optimizer, Player Manager, Stack lineups, Stack research, Lineup adjustments, and Appraise player popularity.
• Payment Methods Accepted: Visa, Mastercard, AMEX, and Discover.[2]

RotoQL stands out for multiple reasons: its hefty price tag, its unparalleled quantity of data and sophistication of its tools and the very steep learning curve.

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Who Should be Buying/Using RotoQL?

The tools and breadth of information provided by Saahil Sud’s creation, RotoQL, are designed and priced for the very advanced DFS player. Consequently, only players that possess similar experience and dedication to DFS success would be wise to subscribe to his product.

If you are a high-volume DFS player who can afford to part with $99/month, or $999 for the annual package, then RotoQL is likely a dream come true.

However, novice and intermediate users would not benefit from this product, and I would instead direct you to check out Draft Dashboard. This robust, visually-pleasing, and informative site will undoubtedly meet your needs without causing immense sensory overload!

Features and Benefits of RotoQL

#1 3 Mobile Apps developed by RotoQL

Despite RotoQL’s signature desktop product, they provide a trio of mobile apps that are uniquely suited for specific audiences.

SquadQL

Available for iOS or Android, $8.99/month, or $27.99/year, allows you to synchronize your CBS, ESPN, and Yahoo! season-long fantasy leagues and import your teams and lineups. Upon linkage, SquadQL provides lineup suggestions, player news, research, and quality projections for all your imported teams. [3]

RotoQL Express

RotoQL Express provides three DFS subscription options: free, the Express Plan, and the Express Plus Plan.

The Free plan only provides news updates regarding your selected DFS sport and slate.

The Express Plan costs $12.99/month and offers significantly more than the free plan, although the arrangement only covers one sport.

• Cheatsheet with a brief rundown of the top plays.
• Expert analysis and individual player notes.
• Generate optimal lineups.
• News Updates.

The Express Plus Plan costs $24.99/month while providing everything covered by the Express Plan; however, this plan covers all five sports.[4]

BetQL

BetQL enables you to access powerful analytics for sports betting. View real-time line movement, best bets of the day, meaningful team trends, and pro money advantages.[5]

At present, BetQL is offering some very substantial discounts for its annual plan.

#2 The Research Page

The Research page is one place that I would recommend you begin your slate preparation. The page consists of two interfaces: the Insights Interface, and the Research Cheat Sheet Interface.

The Insights interface

The Insights interface allows you to identify quality or value plays rapidly. The above money adpicture is from an MLB slate, and listed are all the starting pitchers in order of descending scores, located to the far right. Each player receives a score between 0 and 100, with 0 being the worst and 100 being the best.

The highest-rated players are at the top of the list and are sortable by position. This chart above lists essential factors in selecting a starting pitcher, including an indicator if the pitcher is consistent or volatile, average fantasy points over his last ten starts, strikeout proficiency, and the propensity of the hitters whom he will be facing to strikeout.

This second picture lists key stats for selecting hitters for your lineup: wOBA vs. the starting pitcher’s handedness and the starting pitcher’s surrendered wOBA to hitters of the batter’s handedness. [6]

Research cheat sheet 

As the name indicates, the Research Cheat Sheet provides a quick, cursory view of the best plays on the slate, organized by position. The number of fire icons located adjacent to the players’ names indicate the “hotness” of a player. The more flames, the better the player’s recent performance. 

For those who would instead not engage in extensive research, the creation of DFS entries can begin and end with the players on the cheat sheet.

#3 Games interface

Remember when I said the Research page is one place that I recommend you commence preparation for the upcoming slate? I stand by my comment; however, the Games Interface stands tallest when seeking locations to begin your research.

The reason is that you would be well-served to target players in favorable environments. In all sports, you should be targeting players from teams possessing high run totals, high point totals, or involved in games with fast paces. All three conditions imply more plays, potentially more scoring, and almost certainly more fantasy goodness.

In baseball, we know that specific stadiums are launching pads, particularly in hot, humid weather. I love targeting day games in hot, humid environments, especially if my hitters will be facing a poor hurler who is backed up by an atrocious bullpen.

For baseball, The Games Interface provides the over/under, the weather, and Vegas run totals for both teams. I would rather target an average hitter in a great hitting environment than a great hitter in a poor hitting environment, and I recommend you do the same. By doing so, you can get high offensive production for a fraction of the price.

In the above picture depicting the Detroit at Pittsburgh contest, you can easily see that we have anemic run totals for both teams, the wind is blowing in, there is a decent probability of a rainout, and PNC Park is a spacious pitcher’s park. I cannot think of a worse scenario in which to target hitters. 

I cross this game off my list and move on to the next game. By the time I have finished perusing all games, I have reduced a 15-game slate to one in which I will target only five games. 

#4 The Players interface

This screenshot of the Players interface is from an NBA slate. The picture only shows players who occupy the point guard position, but the Players interface provides an in-depth look by position at players’ annual and recent history in a litany of categories: matchup, DvP, Vegas information, real-life statistics, fantasy production, projections for the upcoming contest, and the players’ B2B status.999

#5 The Lineup Optimizer

The lineup optimizer is where all loose ends of your research coalesce, and you produce viable and profitable DFS lineups. The optimizer encapsulates many tools and processes used to create quality entries to be entered into your DFS competitions: player manager, lineup stacks, stack research, final lineup adjustments, and appraising player popularity.[7]

The Player Manager

Upon opening up the Lineup Optimizer, you are presented with a tool referred to as the Player Manager. You must select two players around whom optimized lineups appear. In the picture above, on the right, you can see that I selected Lebron James and Eric Bledsoe.

Above is the generated optimal lineup that incorporates James and Bledsoe. The dark brown semi-oval enables you to like or lock-in other players from the optimal lineup. The large red semi-oval allows you to enter your customized player projections, overriding the predictions generated by the optimizer.

You can alter the optimizer to ensure that the generated lineups meet your desired criteria.

The red oval enables you to select the number of lineups to be generated, as well as the minimum and maximum salary range within which said lineups must fall.

The green oval allows you to select the health status of any players inserted into your lineups. 

The blue oval enables you to select whether only starting players can be inserted in your lineups, as well as the maximum number of players from a given team that can be included within a single lineup.

#6 Stack lineups

Stacking is a vital tool to emerge triumphant in your DFS contests. The principle behind stacking is that individual players within a team often positively correlate with other players. For instance, in football, you would want to stack your QB with a wideout or a pass-catching TE. 

This way, when the QB completes a pass to the wideout, both the QB receives fantasy credit for the passing yardage, and the wideout gets credit for the reception and the receiving yardage

This idea is transferable across all sports.

To create a stack, go to the settings panel of the lineup optimizer, and locate the player stacking setting delineated by the black circle. In this instance, I want to create a QB/WR stack with Eli Manning and one of his top receivers. You will notice a check by the “QB” entry, and the WR drop-down menu set to “1.” 

Upon typing “NYG” into the box, the optimizer will create a stack with Manning and a New York Giant receiver in all lineups.

You can create stacks with a QB and 2 WR, 3 WR, etc.. The possibilities are limitless, and the interface oozes simplicity.

#7 Stack Research

How do I determine the best stacks for a given slate? Well, I am glad that you asked. First, I locate the Player Stacking setting in the optimizer encircled by the black oval. The red oval indicates that I already have a four-player Houston stack in all of my lineups. However, I would like to perform more research to determine if I have selected the most productive stack.

There is a setting in the lineup optimizer, the blue button surrounded by the green oval, that allows you to perform stack research and pull up hundreds or thousands of potential stacks. 

These stacks are sortable by value, production, etc.. This is a fantastic feature that is accessible without leaving the optimizer. Unfortunately, the stack research feature is only available if you have a PRO membership or above.

Upon clicking the Blue Open Stack Research button, I arrive at a location where I can select the size of my stack (black oval), and filter all stacks by numerous characteristics displayed on the left-hand side of the screenshot.

The green arrow indicates that more than 150 three-person stacks are available for the given slate. I want to select the stack that is projected to provide the highest total of fantasy points. Using the column indicated by the red square, I have sorted every possible stack from most productive to least productive.

My research indicates that the top-projected three-person stack for this slate includes three Houston Astros players: Jose Altuve, Josh Reddick, and Marwin Gonzalez. Upon clicking on the “+” icon located immediately adjacent to the stack, I can add this stack to all of my lineups.

#8 Lineup adjustments

If you have ever MME’d 150 entries into a single contest, you know how frustrating it can be when ten minutes before contest lock, a player is scratched. Suppose you have already uploaded your lineups to DraftKings. Locating that scratched player to whom you have 30% exposure, and replacing him one lineup at a time would require an hour! Suddenly, you are sweating bullets!

Relax! If you are a PRO subscriber to RotoQL, this uncomfortable turn of events is not a big deal. You can download those 150 entries from DraftKings and upload them to RotoQL. 

Now, in a mere thirty seconds, you can replace said player with a viable alternative, reupload your 150 lineups to DraftKings, and have time remaining to order a Happy Meal via the McDonalds Drive-thru. What a country!

#9 Appraise player popularity

If you purchase the VIP subscription plan, you will attain access to the Realtime Trending Players, accessible by clicking the dark blue button in the settings panel (left) of the optimizer. The picture on the right side depicts how this information is displayed. 

Realtime Trending Players appraises player popularity in real-time and updates every thirty seconds. RotoQL’s algorithms analyze user-likes and user-favorites to identify both relatively popular and unpopular players. 

This feature can be of great assistance in identifying lower-owned players to incorporate into your GPP entries.

Picking The Right Price Plan: The RotoQL Web Memberships Plans 

You can save 17% on annual subscription plans for the above three programs. The Premium Plan is available for $299/year, The Pro Plan for $599/year, and the VIP Plan for $999/year.[8]

Free

Free users have access to all of RotoQL’s features only for the previous day’s slate, providing an excellent way for you to learn about their tools and learn from previous slates.

Premium

If you are an intermediate or advanced DFS player, they have designed and executed on key features to make you faster and more accurate. [9]

• Up to 400 optimized lineups.
• Unlimited favorite players.
• Upload projections.
• Modify projections.
• Advanced player stats.
• Unlimited saved lineups.
• Export lineup features.

Premium includes most features RotoQL has to offer, including unfettered access to their lineup optimizer, player data, the games page, insights, and much more. 

Pro

In addition to all the features included in Premium, Pro also comes with the Multi-Lineup Manager, Stacks and Groups, and universal maximum and minimum exposures.[10]

VIP

In addition to all the features included in Pro, VIP also comes with Realtime Trending Players. Realtime Trending Players surfaces the players to be aware of in real-time. They accomplish this by aggregating and analyzing user activity across RotoQL’s user base. They have thousands of users that are “liking,” “locking,” and “excluding” players. 

They use algorithms to analyze all of this activity, ultimately surfacing trending players. This feature can be of great assistance whether you are playing cash or GPPs, as it can help identify high-owned or low-owned players.[11]

What are People Saying About RotoQL?

I scoured the internet and found some reviews that seemed somewhat positive about the product. Some reviewers questioned how helpful such a vast array of information would be to the novice player who only enters a few lineups.

The creator of RotoQL, Saahil Sud, may be the greatest living DFS player, and I am of the opinion that a significant proportion of his product’s appeal is due to his association with said product. Nonetheless, all the information in the world is superfluous until you learn the process of creating profitable DFS entries. 

I believe that his intentions are sound and that he genuinely desires to assist the casual DFS player; however, without mastering that rational process, no product can genuinely help the average player.[12]

Alternatives to RotoQL

Let’s see how three similar alternatives compare to RotoQL: Fantasy Pros, Daily Fantasy Nerd, and Draft Dashboard.

1. FantasyPros

While FantasyPros does provide some excellent tools, it is more appropriate for season-long fantasy leagues, as two of its three main functions, Draft Wizard and My Playbook, are only applicable to such contests. 

They do provide limited DFS support, with a lineup optimizer, and the ability to review your past DFS results; however, these features are only available at the most expensive HOF level of membership.

Annual membership for FantasyPros HOF package costs around $95, far lighter on the wallet than RotoQL.

If you participate in NBA, NFL, or MLB season-long competitions, you should give FantasyPros a shot. 

2. Daily Fantasy Nerd

Daily Fantasy Nerd is built with the DFS user in mind. They have three levels of membership, after a 7-day free trial.

All plans enable access to their tools in the four major sports: NFL, MLB, NHL, and NBA. The veteran plan only allows support for ten lineup optimizations and just for one DFS site. Upgrading up to the MVP plan provides a level of service most similar to that offered by RotoQL. 

Daily Fantasy Nerd’s MVP plan is $20/month less expensive than RotoQL and supports four DFS sites: DraftKings, FanDuel, Yahoo, and FantasyDraft. 

If you play on sites other than DraftKings or FanDuel, Daily Fantasy Nerd might be the answer you are looking for, and I encourage you to visit the website.

3. Draft Dashboard

Draft Dashboard is a multi-sport DFS research suite that I recently reviewed. Please check out my review to learn more about this impressive site. 

The cost of the first month’s subscription is $1, with each additional month, billed at $39.95.

The data and tools are substantial, and the visuals are very pleasing. Draft Dashboard provides a significant quantity of information, enabling you to create profitable DFS lineups with minimal time investment.

As a beginner/intermediate DFS tool suite, it is far better suited to newer players than RotoQL.

If you are a relatively new participant in DFS contests and are searching for an aesthetically-pleasing, information-relevant site to guide your new DFS endeavors, there are few products better than Draft Dashboard. I strongly encourage you to give them a try.

Conclusion

Nonetheless, most beginner and intermediate DFS players would almost certainly be overwhelmed by the seemingly endless supply of data. With the sheer quantity and complexity of both the data presented and the tools provided, I would have liked to see more instruction or guidance regarding how to utilize all that RotoQL provides in a more streamlined manner.

This guidance was severely and conspicuously absent, and that was a disappointment.

RotoQL is ideally suited to those entering hundreds of entries nightly, and who have mastered the process of creating profitable DFS lineups.

As for those still learning to fly in the DFS stratosphere, I cannot recommend RotoQL as a sound investment, and I reiterate my recommendation of Draft Dashboard.

Nonetheless, I encourage advanced users to leverage RotoQL’s in-depth data and sophisticated suite of tools to reach the apex of the DFS mountain by clicking on this link and sampling the website. 

For novice and intermediate players, I assign RotoQL a 3.5/5; however, for advanced players, that rating increases to a 4.5/5.

Resources:

[1] “RotoQL | Daily Fantasy Sports Tool for DraftKings and FanDuel.” https://www.rotoql.com/. Accessed 26 Jun. 2020.
[2] “Billing quickstart – RotoQL Help Center.” 25 Feb. 2019, https://support.rotoql.com/hc/en-us/articles/215148008-Billing-quickstart. Accessed 26 Jun. 2020.
[3] “Home – SquadQL SquadQL.” https://squadql.com/. Accessed 26 Jun. 2020.
[4] “‎RotoQL Express on the App Store – Apple.” https://apps.apple.com/us/app/rotoql-express/id1245785501. Accessed 26 Jun. 2020.
[5] “‎BetQL – Sports Betting on the App Store – Apple.” https://apps.apple.com/us/app/betql-sports-betting/id1334825645. Accessed 25 Jun. 2020.
[6] “Tutorial: Insights – RotoQL Help Center.” 12 Sep. 2019, https://support.rotoql.com/hc/en-us/articles/215867657-Tutorial-Insights. Accessed 26 Jun. 2020
[7] “Tutorial: Lineup Optimizer – RotoQL Help Center.” 21 Dec. 2015, https://support.rotoql.com/hc/en-us/articles/215609237-Tutorial-Lineup-Optimizer. Accessed 26 Jun. 2020.
[8] “Differences between Premium, Pro and VIP – RotoQL Help ….” 6 Mar. 2018, https://support.rotoql.com/hc/en-us/articles/115000811408-Differences-between-Premium-Pro-and-VIP. Accessed 26 Jun. 2020.
[9] “Free vs premium – RotoQL Help Center.” 27 Aug. 2018, https://support.rotoql.com/hc/en-us/articles/215143048-Free-vs-premium. Accessed 25 Jun. 2020.
[10] “Differences between Premium, Pro and VIP – RotoQL Help ….” 6 Mar. 2018, https://support.rotoql.com/hc/en-us/articles/115000811408-Differences-between-Premium-Pro-and-VIP. Accessed 25 Jun. 2020.
[11] “Tutorial: Realtime Trending Players (VIP) – RotoQL Help Center.” 24 Mar. 2017, https://support.rotoql.com/hc/en-us/articles/115000771907-Tutorial-Realtime-Trending-Players-VIP-. Accessed 25 Jun. 2020.
[12] “Is Fantasylabs or RotoQL worth paying for? – RotoGrinders.” https://rotogrinders.com/threads/is-fantasylabs-or-rotoql-worth-paying-for-1525658. Accessed 26 Jun. 2020.