# WhaleWisdom

Institutional 13F holdings back to 2001, queryable from a signed REST API.

*https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/whalewisdom · Insider, 13F & Congressional Trade Trackers*

## Facts

### At a glance

| Field | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Vendor | WhaleWisdom |
| Category | Insider, 13F & Congressional Trade Trackers |
| Job | institutional |
| Website | https://whalewisdom.com |
| Pricing model | subscription |
| Free tier | true |
| Open source | false |
| Licence | none |
| Self-hosted | false |
| Tested hands-on | false |
| Last updated | 2026-09-14 |

### Pricing

| Tier | USD | Period |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Free | 0 USD | year |
| Standard | 300 USD | year |
| Pro | 500 USD | year |
| Enterprise | on request | year |

### Coverage

| Field | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Asset classes | stocks, etf, options, bonds, mutual_funds |
| Markets | us, global |
| Works outside the US | true |
| Data latency | eod |
| Platforms | web |
| AI features | recommendations |

### Interfaces

| Field | Value |
| --- | --- |
| API | true |
| Webhooks | false |
| Scripting | none |
| Python | false |
| Spreadsheet add-in | true |
| MCP server | false |
| Export | csv, json, xlsx |

### Capabilities

Yes: screening, backtesting, alerts

No: charting, scanning, automation, live_trading, paper_trading, portfolio_tracking, broker_import, tax_reporting, news, options_analysis

*Verified: pricing 2026-09-14; capabilities 2026-09-14; coverage 2026-09-14.*

## What it is

WhaleWisdom is a database of what institutions told the SEC they owned. Its spine is Form 13F —
the quarterly holdings report every manager with more than $100 million in Section 13(f)
securities must file — parsed back to the quarter ending 31 March 2001 and joined to the filings
around it: Schedule 13D/G, Form 4 insider transactions, N-PORT mutual fund and ETF constituents
since 2019, and searches over Form ADV, Form D, Form 144 and N-CEN.

On top sit the query surfaces — a 13F stock screener, a fund performance search, an overlap
matrix, a heat map, an options search over disclosed call and put positions, and a backtester that
runs a fund or a group of funds as a portfolio. There is no survivorship bias: delisted securities
and defunct funds are still in there.

## Pricing

What the paid tiers sell is history and allowance, not features. Free gets the trailing two years
of 13F; Standard opens 2001 onward for 50 funds and 50 stocks every 90 days; Pro raises that to
200 and 200; only Enterprise is uncapped and adds nightly FTP files.

Annual billing is the discount, not the default: the pricing page opens on a quarterly toggle, so
Standard reads $90 and Pro $150, which is $360 and $600 a year against the $300 and $500 annual
rates. There are no trial accounts at all — the vendor says so and points you at the free tier.

## Data & coverage

The core is US, because 13F is US. Two features reach past it — a Global Holdings dashboard sold
from Standard up, and an international short-position reporting tool — but both sit behind a
login, so this card does not state which countries they cover.

Prices appear only as context. Backtests run on total-return prices, which include dividends and
will not match a closing print, and "Estimated Avg Price Paid" is the vendor's own word for a
guess built from the average price over a quarter.

## Integrations

The API is an HTTP GET against a single `/shell/command` endpoint, with the command and its
arguments passed as a JSON `args` parameter — `holdings`, `holders`, the two comparison commands,
`export` and the lookups. Output is HTML by default, with `.json` and `.csv` variants. Requests
are signed with an HMAC-SHA1 digest over the args and timestamp, or authenticated by session
cookie in a browser. The cap is 20 requests a minute, and an interactive shell builds the calls.

There is no official Python client — the docs offer a Python 3 sample, not a library — and nothing
named `whalewisdom` on PyPI. No webhooks, no MCP server. The Excel add-in and the emailed CSV
export are the routes out for non-programmers.

## Limitations

- 13F is filed up to 45 days after quarter end and most managers wait. A position you read in
  mid-February was held on 31 December and may have been sold in January.
- It is a long-only, US-only picture, and the gaps are legal rather than editorial. Short
  positions must not be reported and must not be netted against longs; written options are
  excluded; shares traded on non-US exchanges are excluded. A fund that is flat a name can look
  long it. Small positions vanish too — a manager may omit a holding of fewer than 10,000 shares
  that is also worth less than $200,000.
- 13F is filed at the company level, so for a manager running several funds you cannot tell which
  fund holds the position.
- Parsing is automatic and fast, and the vendor admits the trade-off, telling you to check the
  original filing when a number looks wrong.
- The free window is quoted three ways on the vendor's own pages — two years on pricing, the last
  eight quarters excluding the current one in the API docs, nine quarters in the FAQ.
- The product does not stop at the filings. WhaleIndex publishes ranked stock lists rebalanced
  after each filing deadline, WhaleScore ranks funds as candidates to follow, and the marketing is
  explicitly about replicating hedge fund portfolios. That is a list to act on rather than a
  dataset, under a disclaimer saying none of it is advice. The API is the half that hands you the
  filings and leaves the conclusion alone.
- Scripting the site outside the API is prohibited and can get the account suspended.

## Alternatives

[Quiver Quantitative](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/quiver-quantitative) carries 13F as one dataset among many disclosure
feeds and sells a cheaper key, but with nothing like this history depth.
[GuruFocus](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/gurufocus) wraps the same guru filings in thirty years of fundamentals and its
own valuation models. [Capitol Trades](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/capitol-trades) covers congressional disclosures
rather than institutional ones, free. [Unusual Whales](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/unusual-whales) adds the options
tape. The rest of the category is at [insider, 13F and congressional trade trackers](https://stockmarketstack.com/categories/insider-13f-trackers).

## FAQ

### Is there a free WhaleWisdom API key?

Yes, but it is thin. Any registered account can call the API; the vendor's docs say non-subscribers reach the last eight quarters, excluding the current one. Everything before that needs a paid plan. There are no trial accounts.

### Is API access a separate product or an add-on?

Neither. It is bundled into every tier and metered by how much history you may pull — 50 funds and 50 stocks per 90 days on Standard, 200 and 200 on Pro, unlimited on Enterprise. There is no API-only price.

### How far back does the data go?

13F filings to the quarter ending 31 March 2001, N-PORT mutual fund and ETF constituents to 2019, and Form 4 insider and Schedule 13D/G filings that the vendor describes as over 15 years deep.

### How quickly do new filings appear?

The vendor says it polls the SEC every few minutes and publishes automatically, so a filing can be live within minutes of the SEC releasing it. That speed is also why the vendor warns that its parser sometimes gets a filing wrong and tells you to check the original.

### Can I scrape the site instead of paying for the API?

No. The disclaimer prohibits non-API automation such as scripting the website and says it may result in permanent suspension of the account.

## Also worth comparing

- [HedgeFollow](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/hedgefollow.md) — 13F, Form 4 and congressional filings from 10,000 funds, with the depth behind a paywall.
- [Stockcircle](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/stockcircle.md) — Sixty superinvestors, congressional trades and insiders in one place, for $99 a year.
- [13F.info](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/13f-info.md) — Every 13F since 2014, free and account-free, from a Rails app you can run yourself.
- [ChartExchange](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/chartexchange.md) — The official short interest, IBKR's borrow fee and SEC fails, sold feature by feature.
- [Dataroma](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/dataroma.md) — 83 value investors' 13F portfolios, twenty years of history, free and without an account.
- [Fintel](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/fintel.md) — Ownership, insider and short-interest filings across thirty markets, none of it free.