# What to use instead of Portfolio Visualizer

Five calculators behind one login, billed annually at 360 dollars with no monthly option. Three of them have free permanent substitutes and one has none at all.

*https://stockmarketstack.com/alternatives/portfolio-visualizer*

## The subject

| Field | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Product | Portfolio Visualizer |
| Status | live |
| Website | https://www.portfoliovisualizer.com |
| Category | Retirement & FIRE Calculators |

The browser tool most people reach for to backtest an asset allocation — plus Monte Carlo, an optimiser, Fama-French factor regression and tactical allocation models, behind a free tier and two annual plans.

## Replacements

*Ordered by how much of the original’s job each one covers, closest first. Paid placement does not affect this order.*

1. [testfolio](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/testfolio.md) — Answers both complaints at once — the ticker backtest uncapped on the free tier, and factor regression the rest of this list does not have.
2. [Portfolio Charts](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/portfolio-charts.md) — The same allocation backtest, free and uncapped — inflation-adjusted since 1970, and in twelve countries' own currencies rather than dollars only.
3. [bt](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/bt.md) — Portfolio Visualizer's actual job as an MIT Python library — allocation and rebalancing rules over a frame of prices, with no cap on assets or history.
4. [FI Calc](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/ficalc.md) — The withdrawal half, free and without an account — twelve spending strategies replayed against every US market cycle since 1871.
5. [ProjectionLab](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/projectionlab.md) — If the Monte Carlo was really a life plan — milestones, accounts, taxes and cash flows year by year, stress-tested against historical sequences.
6. [FIREproof](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/fireproof.md) — The withdrawal and Monte Carlo work with a tax code attached — and the one tool here you can rent by the month, at 10 dollars.
7. [Boldin](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/boldin.md) — The US tax, Social Security and Medicare modelling Portfolio Visualizer never did, year by year, with a free tier to start on.

## The product

Portfolio Visualizer is five calculators behind one login: an allocation backtester with fund
history going back to 1972, Monte Carlo simulation, an optimiser with an efficient frontier and
Black-Litterman, Fama-French factor regression, and tactical allocation models. Almost nobody
uses all five, and which one you use decides whether anything below is of any interest.

Our card on [Portfolio Visualizer](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/portfolio-visualizer) carries the pricing and coverage,
verified against the vendor's own pricing page on 13 September 2026. The shape of it: free with
no login, Basic at 30 dollars a month and Pro at 55 — **both billed annually only**. There is no
month-to-month option, which is the whole of the problem for a tool a lot of people open twice a
year and then not again until something changes.

Three things worth correcting before going further, because all three come up every time this is
discussed:

- **It did not become paid in 2024.** Archived copies of the pricing page go back to April 2020.
  What happened in 2024 is that SRL Global acquired the site and rebuilt it, which is when a lot
  of people noticed limits that had been there for years.
- **The ten-year cap is not on everything.** It applies to the ticker backtest — the module most
  people arrive for, which is why it is the one they hit. The asset-class allocation backtest is
  not capped that way: a free session still returns the full series from January 1972. If your
  question is what a 60/40 would have done, the free tier answers it in full and nothing below
  is of any use to you.
- **What free actually withholds is saving and export.** The vendor's own footnote grants 50
  stored models to Basic and 150 to Pro, and none below; portfolios cap at 15 assets and the
  current month-to-date is excluded.

So the honest question is not "what replaces Portfolio Visualizer". It is "which of the five was
I using, and does it have a free permanent home". For three of them it does, and for one of them
the answer is that you were never being charged for it in the first place.

## What to use instead

**The allocation backtest.** [Portfolio Charts](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/portfolio-charts) is the closest thing and
it is free — any asset mix, inflation-adjusted, back to 1970, and charted in twelve home
countries' own currencies, which is a thing Portfolio Visualizer does not do at all. The trade is
resolution: Portfolio Visualizer computes from month-end balances and Portfolio Charts works on
annual data, so a question about a particular quarter was already unanswerable and is now more
so.

**The withdrawal plan.** [FI Calc](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/ficalc) replays twelve withdrawal strategies against
every US cycle since 1871, free and with no account; [cFIREsim](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/cfiresim) is the older
tool doing the same job, and running both is a reasonable sanity check rather than a duplicate.
Neither is a second copy of the other's answer, and where they disagree it is usually the
assumptions rather than the arithmetic.

**The whole-life plan.** If what you actually wanted from the Monte Carlo was a life rather than
an allocation, [ProjectionLab](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/projectionlab) models it as milestones and cash flows and
[Boldin](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/boldin) models the US tax, Social Security and Medicare side year by year — both
things Portfolio Visualizer has never done. Both have free tiers and both sell an annual plan.
[FIREproof](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/fireproof) does the withdrawal and Monte Carlo work with the tax code attached
— US, Canada, the UK and Spain — and is the one tool on this page you can rent for a single
month, at 10 dollars, which is the specific thing the subject does not offer.

**Doing it yourself.** [bt](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/bt) is the one that matches the job exactly: an MIT Python
library for backtesting allocation and rebalancing rules, composed from algos over a frame of
prices, with no cap on assets, history or saved models because there is nothing to save it to but
your own disk. [VectorBT](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/vectorbt) if the point is sweeping hundreds of parameter
combinations rather than testing one policy — see [backtesting
frameworks](https://stockmarketstack.com/categories/backtesting-frameworks) for the rest.

**The factor regression.** [Testfolio](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/testfolio) does it free — Fama-French three and five
factor, Carhart, q-factor and AQR, up to six at a time, with t-statistics and adjusted R-squared
reported. This is the module every comparison of Portfolio Visualizer still calls irreplaceable,
including, until recently, this page.

**The optimiser.** Nothing. That is the subject of the next section and it is the reason this
page does not tell everybody to cancel.

## What you give up

**The optimiser.** Efficient frontier, Black-Litterman, rolling optimisation. Nothing in this
catalogue does it, and no combination of things in this catalogue adds up to it — testfolio, which
answers most of the rest of this page, marks Black-Litterman "not currently offered" in its own
comparison. If the optimiser is why you opened Portfolio Visualizer, the annual plan is the cheap
answer and everything above is a distraction.

**Custom factors, and factor work at fund level.** Testfolio's free tier caps factor regression at
six factors and sells custom ones on its paid plans. If your work is fund-level factor attribution
rather than portfolio-level, check the specific screen you use before deciding this page applies
to you.

**One consistent set of numbers across all five.** This is the loss people underestimate.
Portfolio Visualizer's modules share one data set, one inflation series and one set of return
definitions. Split the work across Portfolio Charts at annual resolution since 1970, FI Calc on
cycles since 1871, and a Python library fed from whatever provider you have, and you have three
start dates, three definitions of a real return and three rounding conventions. Two of them
disagreeing about a 60/40 portfolio's worst decade is normal and is not a bug in either.

**A licence to use the output in work you are paid for.** Basic is licensed for personal and
educational use and only Pro covers commercial use, so a consultant or an adviser was never on
the free tier to begin with. Check that question on any substitute before putting its output in
front of somebody who is paying you: of the five above, `bt` is the only one that answers it in a
licence file you can read.

**Fund history to 1972 with backfills.** Extending a fund back past its inception using its asset
class is a feature, not a rounding error, and the free tools mostly do not offer it. What you
feed `bt` is whatever your data provider actually has.

## Migration notes

**Name the module before shopping.** Open the tool and look at which of the five you last used.
Almost everyone answers "the backtester", which is the one with several free substitutes — and the
people who answer "the optimiser" have just saved themselves an afternoon.

**Compare start dates before comparing results.** Portfolio Charts is annual since 1970, FI Calc
and cFIREsim run cycles since 1871, Portfolio Visualizer backtests to 1972 with asset-class
backfills, and a Python backtest starts wherever your data does. A number that looks wrong
against the one you remember is usually a different window, not a different calculation. Rerun
the old analysis on the new tool's window before concluding anything.

**Export the saved models first, if you have any.** Saving is a paid feature, so the stored
models are exactly what lapses when the subscription does. The export formats on the card are
CSV, Excel and PDF; take them before the renewal date rather than after.

**"Free" is not one thing here.** FI Calc, cFIREsim and Portfolio Charts are free with no account
and no upsell. ProjectionLab and Boldin run free tiers that lead to annual plans of 129 and 144
dollars. `bt` is MIT and yours permanently, and costs an afternoon of learning a dataframe
instead — which for a once-or-twice-a-year question is a worse trade than it looks.

## FAQ

### When did Portfolio Visualizer stop being free?

It did not, and the premise is worth unpicking because the date people reach for is wrong. Paid plans are not recent — archived copies of the pricing page go back to April 2020. What happened in 2024 is that SRL Global acquired the site and rebuilt it, which is when most people noticed limits that were already there. We could not date the tightening of the free tier itself from a primary source; the vendor publishes no changelog for pricing.

### What can you still do without paying?

More than the headline suggests. Every module opens without a login, and the ten-year cap people quote applies to the ticker backtest, not to everything — the asset-class allocation backtest still returns the full series from January 1972 on a free session. The vendor's footnote sets the rest of the boundary at 15 assets, limited history and no current month-to-date. What free genuinely does not get is saving and export; the same footnote grants 50 stored models to Basic and 150 to Pro, and none below.

### Does anything here replace factor regression?

Yes, and free. Testfolio runs Fama-French three and five factor, Carhart, q-factor and AQR regressions on its free tier — up to six factors at a time, with t-statistics, p-values and adjusted R-squared reported. Custom factors are the paid part. The module this page cannot replace is the optimiser, not the regression.

### Why does it cost 360 dollars when I use it twice a year?

Because both paid plans are billed annually and no month-to-month option is offered, so there is no way to rent it for the month you need it. That is the specific complaint behind most searches for an alternative, and it is why three of the free tools below are worth knowing about even if you keep the subscription.