VOL. XCIV, NO. 247
INVESTING TOOLS STATISTICS & PRICING BENCHMARKS
November 2, 2026
Data as of October 31, 2026 · 366 tools · 120 categories
The State of Investing Tools
What stock research actually costs: pricing benchmarks, free tiers, billing commitments, and what really moves the price.
Every figure on this page is computed from the Find My Moat directory of 366 curated stock research and investing tools; nothing is estimated. The directory is a curated selection, not every tool on the market, and the numbers recompute whenever its records change.
$22.75/mo
Median entry price
160 of 366 tools price comparably
$24.95/mo
All-in-one platform
15 platforms cover all four core jobs
81%
Free tier
298 of 366 tools
91%
No card needed
272 of 298 free tiers; 24 unconfirmed
18%
AI features
67 of 366 tools; 32 offer AI chat
54%
Annual-only billing
87 of 160 entry prices sold only as annual plans
Key Findings
- The median paid tool starts at $22.75/mo, and 81% of the 160 comparable entry prices are under $50.
- 81% of the 366 tools offer a permanent free tier, though 56% of those 298 free tiers require an account first.
- 54% of the 160 entry prices are annual-only plans advertised as a monthly rate, and that share is a floor: 13 more state no billing period at all.
- AI does not carry a consistent premium: 18% of the 366 tools ship it, and medians sit at $24.96 vs $22.00, but the averages run the other way.
- Only 160 of 366 tools carry a comparable base subscription; the rest are free-only, transaction-priced, one-time, or contact-led.
- Tools with API access start at a $29.00/mo median, against $19.95/mo for tools without one, the largest price premium in the dataset.
- All-in-one platforms covering every core research job start at $24.95/mo, below the $89.37/mo sum of four category medians.
“Half of the 160 priced tools we track start between $10.56 and $42.94 a month.”
What Paid Investing Tools Cost
Entry price is the cheapest paid base subscription for each tool, normalized to US dollars per month. Add-ons and trial-only plans are excluded. 160 of 366 tools qualify; the other 206 price differently: permanent free access only (83), transaction-priced brokerage (40), subscription without a numeric base price (37), contact-only or contact-led (35), one-time purchase (7), no qualifying paid subscription (4).
is the median across 160 tools with verified pricing. Half fall between $10.56 and $42.94, and the average is $41.05.
A full research stack
Covering the four core research jobs with one median-priced paid tool each comes to $89.37/mo, roughly $1072 per year. Treat that as a ceiling, not a budget. 21 tools already carry all four category tags, 19 of them with a permanent free tier, and the 15 with comparable pricing start at $24.95/mo. All 15 undercut the stack sum. Category tags describe breadth, not depth, so a bundle and a specialist stack are not interchangeable.
A monthly rate is not a monthly commitment
Every figure above is normalized to a monthly rate, which is how vendors advertise annual plans. 87 of the 160 entry prices are only available on an annual plan, so the cheapest advertised price costs a year upfront. That 54% is a floor: another 13 records do not state a billing period at all.
Truly monthly
57 of 160 (36%)
Pay month to month at the advertised rate.
Annual commitment
87 of 160 (54%)
A year upfront to reach the advertised rate.
Unstated or other
16 of 160 (10%)
No billing period stated, or an unusual cadence.
Grouping folds the 13 unstated records in with other cadences, so the annual share is a floor, not a ceiling.
Price Ranges by Category
The 25th and 75th percentile columns bracket the middle half of entry prices in each category; the bar on the right plots that band with a tick at the median. Only categories with at least 15 priced tools are shown. Each category name opens its directory page, where you can filter by price and free access.
What Tracks Price, and What Doesn’t
Price signals ranked by how far they move the median entry price across the same 160 priced tools, strongest first. Bars run right when tools with the trait start dearer and left when they start cheaper, on one shared scale. Categories overlap and tags describe products rather than plans, so these are descriptive associations, not causal effects.
2 of these 3 splits point the same way on medians, on averages, and below $100. Splits like these describe who a product is built for rather than what a feature costs to ship.
API access. Maps to quants, developers, and workflows that already pay for data infrastructure. Among plans under $100 it still starts at $25.00/mo against $19.73/mo.
Free tier. Points the other way: it marks a product priced for retail budgets all the way up the ladder.
AI features. Do not read this as a premium. Below $100 the medians are $24.92 against $20.38, but the averages run the other way, $37.09 against $42.37, on 40 priced AI tools.
Feature breadth. A rank correlation of 0.01 with entry price is almost no link at all: counting categories measures breadth, not the depth of the data behind them.
Access, AI & Platforms
How the 366 tools are offered: what you can use without paying, how far the AI wave has spread, and where the tools run.
How tools let you start
Of all 366 tools
Of the 298 free tiers
Most of these tools are open before you pay anything: 81% keep a permanent free tier, and 91% of those free tiers are verified to need no card. Free is rarely frictionless, though: 56% of free tiers require an account, and every one lists at least one documented limit. Trials mostly sit on top of a free tier: 60 of the 75 tools with a free trial also keep one.
AI is a feature, not a price tier. 18% of the 366 tools ship AI research features and 9% include a chat assistant. Medians sit at $24.96 against $22.00, and $24.92 against $20.38 below $100, but the averages run the other way: $37.09 vs $42.37. Gaps that change direction are not a premium.
Almost everything lives in the browser. 97% of tools run on the web, while 39% ship mobile, 34% ship an API, 10% ship desktop.
Use the benchmark
Methodology
DatasetFind My Moat maintains a catalogue of 366 investing tools: screeners, research platforms, portfolio trackers, data APIs, news services, and more. Entries are compiled through AI-assisted discovery and then reviewed, edited, and organized by hand, and every price is recorded against a cited vendor source: a pricing page, support document, or app store listing. All 160 entry prices were last checked against their vendor source between August 23 and October 30, 2026. Tools are added and updated continuously; the latest record change is dated October 31, 2026. Discontinued tools are archived and excluded from all figures.
PricingFigures use the cheapest paid base subscription plan per tool, normalized to US dollars per month, with annual plans converted to monthly equivalents. Add-on plans, one-time purchases, and trial-only plans are excluded, as are tools with contact-only pricing. 160 of 366 tools meet these criteria, so the pricing figures describe that subset rather than the whole catalogue. Billing period is read from the plans that set each entry price: annual-only counts prices available exclusively on a yearly plan, and the 13 records with no stated period make that share a lower bound. Category figures are only reported for categories with at least 15 priced tools. The research stack figure sums the median entry price of the screener, financials, portfolio, and news categories; it is a ceiling for comparison, not a recommendation or a required budget.
DefinitionsA free tier means permanent free access, however limited; tools whose only free access is a time-limited trial are not counted. The no-card figure counts tools verified not to require a card, with 24 free tiers still unconfirmed. AI adoption counts tools with at least one AI research or AI chat capability in their category tags, and API access comes from the platform field. Price splits compare median entry prices between tools with and without a tag, alongside averages and a median recomputed below $100 to show whether a gap survives outliers; a gap holds only when all three point the same way. Feature breadth uses the Spearman rank correlation between category count and entry price. All-in-one covers tools tagged with all four research-stack categories. Free trial length uses the longest advertised trial per tool.
Updates & citationFigures recompute when the dataset changes; the data shown is as of October 31, 2026. You may reuse these statistics under our data license with a credit link to this page. For questions, corrections, or the underlying data, use the feedback button in the bottom right corner or start from the full tools directory.
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Investing tool pricing data by <a href="https://www.findmymoat.com/stats/investing-tools">Find My Moat</a> (as of October 2026)Curation & Accuracy
This directory blends AI‑assisted discovery with human curation. Entries are reviewed, edited, and organized with the goal of expanding coverage and sharpening quality over time. Your feedback helps steer improvements (because no single human can capture everything all at once).
Details change. Pricing, features, and availability may be incomplete or out of date. Treat listings as a starting point and verify on the provider’s site before making decisions. If you spot an error or a gap, send a quick note and I’ll adjust.