The Motley Fool vs. Seeking Alpha 2023: Which Service Is Better?

The Motley Fool and Seeking Alpha are two of the most popular stock screening services on the market. They both make it easier for you to find and vet potential investment opportunities, though each is designed for a different kind of investor.

In this The Motley Fool vs. Seeking Alpha match-up, we’ll compare the features, pros, and cons of each service. That way, you can find the right stock screener to maximize your portfolio.

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The Motley Fool vs. Seeking Alpha: Overview

There are few bigger names in the world of investment research tools than The Motley Fool and Seeking Alpha. Let’s kick off our comparison with an overview of each company.

About Seeking Alpha

Seeking Alpha is an investment research platform that was founded in 2004. It brands itself as the “world’s largest investing community” and it boasts more than 20 million monthly users.

The company’s core features include its stock and ETF research dashboard where you can access information about thousands of securities. Seeking Alpha also offers a powerful stock screener as well as thousands of opinion articles from independent analysts. Read our full Seeking Alpha review to learn more.

About Motley Fool

Motley Fool is an investment advisory company that was founded in 1993 by Tom and David Gardener. The company has since grown into one of the most popular market research services available.

With Motley Fool, you can sign up for a paid subscription that gives you access to investment recommendations from professional market analysts. Most of these subscriptions include monthly stock buy suggestions to help you select investments with a high potential for future growth. Read our full Motley Fool review to learn more.

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The Motley Fool vs. Seeking Alpha: How Do They Work

The Motley Fool and Seeking Alpha are subscription-based market research services. Here’s a quick look at how both companies operate so you know what to expect if you sign up.

Seeking Alpha

Anyone looking to use Seeking Alpha for their market research first needs to sign up for an account. To sign up, you need to navigate to the Seeking Alpha website and create an account. You’ll be prompted to select a subscription plan and enter your payment details. 

Once your subscription is active, you can access your account dashboard. On your dashboard, you can connect your brokerage accounts, subscribe to newsletters, follow authors, and research potential investments.

The Motley Fool

The Motley Fool also operates as a subscription-based service. To use the company’s services, you first need to sign up and pay for your account on the company’s website.

As soon as you purchase your subscription, you can start to use your account dashboard. On your dashboard, you can find information about the company’s suggested stocks and access its online forums. 

However, The Motley Fool sends out its monthly stock picks by email on the first and third Thursday of each month, so you won’t be able to view new stock recommendations right away.

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The Motley Fool vs. Seeking Alpha: Main Features

Subscriptions to both TheMotley Fool and Seeking Alpha come jam-packed with features. These are some of the features you can look forward to if you sign up for an account.

Seeking Alpha

When you sign up for a Seeking Alpha account, you can choose between three different subscription plans, including:

• Basic – The firm’s free option, Seeking Alpha Basic includes access to blog articles, email newsletters, and five years of corporate financial statements. With a free plan, you can also link your brokerage accounts and get personalized stock news updates.
• Premium – With Seeking Alpha Premium, you get everything included in the Basic plan, plus fewer advertisements, stock screeners, full access to company financials, and enhanced stock metrics.
• Pro – The company’s highest subscription tier, Seeking Alpha Pro includes everything in the Premium plan as well as access to the PRO investing ideas screener, exclusive newsletters, a VIP concierge service, and an advertisement-free dashboard.

Each Seeking Alpha subscription plan includes access to different features. Some of the company’s most popular features include:

• Investment ideas – The purpose of Seeking Alpha is to help you find investing ideas. To do so, the firm offers many tools, such as its newsletters, analyst blogs, top-rated stocks lists, stock ideas, and stock screeners. Most investing ideas features, except the email newsletters and blogs, require a Premium or Pro subscription.
• Market research – To help you with your market research, Seeking Alpha offers unique stock ranking metrics, such as its proprietary Quant Rating and Factor Grades. The company also provides company financials, dividends, and earnings forecasts, and a stock comparison tool. Most of these features are only available for Pro and Premium subscribers.
• Portfolio management – All subscribers can use Seeking Alpha’s portfolio management tool. With this tool, you can link your supported brokerage account and get personalized notifications about your assets.
• Marketplace – If you’re looking for additional investing guidance, you can use the Seeking Alpha Marketplace. The Marketplace provides you with a directory of investment services from independent analysts and experts. Most of these services include exclusive chat rooms, newsletters, and webinars, though they charge an additional fee on top of your subscription costs.
• Videos & podcasts – Everyone that subscribes to Seeking Alpha can watch and listen to the firm’s educational videos and podcasts. Each of these videos and podcasts provides unique insight on complex investing topics or breaking news.

Motley Fool

When you sign up for a Motley Fool account, you can choose from several subscription plans. Some of the company’s highest-rated plans include:

• Stock Advisor – The Motley Fool’s most popular subscription, Stock Advisor is a stock picking service for long-term investors.
• Rule Breakers – With Rule Breakers, you get access to stock picks that have high growth potential. Read our full Motley Fool Rule Breakers review to learn more.
• Everlasting Stocks – Everlasting Stocks gives you access to stock picks that are hand-selected by founder Tom Gardner. Read our full Motley Fool Everlasting Stocks review to learn more.
• Rule Your Retirement – Designed for long-term investors, Rule Your Retirement provides model portfolios and mutual fund recommendations for retirement investing.
• Motley Fool Options – Options is another service offered by Motley Fool targeted to options traders to pick the best options strategies.
• Millionacres – Millionacres is Motley Fool’s real estate investing service. It offers a slew of different features that cater to a range of real estate investors.

Although each of The Motley Fool’s subscriptions is designed for a different type of investing, they all have similar features. Some of the features you’ll find with most of the company’s subscriptions include:

• Monthly stock picks – Each month, The Motley Fool provides two new stock picks for investors to consider based on their potential for long-term growth.
• Best stock buys now – Most Motley Fool subscriptions offer a list of their best stock buys now. This list includes between five and 10 stocks that the company believes are a particularly good value.
• Starter stocks – For new investors, the company provides a list of starter stocks that you can use to give your portfolio a solid foundation for future growth.
• Access to previous stock picks – Regardless of when you sign up, you’ll always get access to all of Motley Fool’s previous stock picks in your account dashboard.
• Investment resources – Each Motley Fool subscription comes with investing resources such as educational articles, videos, and access to the firm’s online forums.

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The Motley Fool vs. Seeking Alpha: Customer Support

Although we hope your experience with The Motley Fool or Seeking Alpha goes swimmingly, you may need to contact customer support from time to time. This is what you can expect from each company.

Seeking Alpha

Should you need help with your Seeking Alpha account, you can find answers to most common questions in the company’s online help pages. Alternatively, you can report issues with the website on the company’s feedback forum. Email and phone-based support are only available for subscription-related questions.

The Motley Fool

The Motley Fool’s customer support is primarily provided through its online help pages. The firm has an email-based customer service team, too, but there’s no option for phone-based support.

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The Motley Fool vs. Seeking Alpha: Pricing

Seeking Alpha and The Motley Fool are subscription-based services. Let’s take a quick look at the subscription packages offered by each company.

Seeking Alpha

With Seeking Alpha, you have a choice between one of three subscription plans:

• Basic – Free
• Premium – $29.99 monthly or $239 annually
• Pro – $69.99 monthly or $499 annually

Note that for both Seeking Alpha Premium and Pro, you can get a sizable discount if you opt to pay for your subscription annually rather than monthly.

The Motley Fool

All of The Motley Fool’s services beyond its publicly available blog and news articles require a paid subscription. The company’s most popular subscriptions include:

• Stock Advisor – $199 annually
• Rule Breakers – $299 annually
• Everlasting Stocks – $299 annually
• Rule Your Retirement – $149 annually

Alternatively, you can get the Epic Bundle, which includes Stock Advisor, Rule Breakers, and Everlasting Stocks for $499 each year. Keep in mind that The Motley Fool charges all of its fees on an annual basis and there’s no option to pay monthly.

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The Motley Fool vs. Seeking Alpha: Promotions

Both Motley Fool and Seeking Alpha offer promotional deals for new subscribers. Here’s what you need to know about these promotions.

Seeking Alpha

Seeking Alpha offers all new subscribers a 7-day free trial & 50% off of Seeking Alpha Premium. Note that you must enter your payment information when you begin your free trial, but your card won’t be charged until the trial period is over.

The Motley Fool

Motley Fool doesn’t currently offer a free trial. However, you can get $110 off your first year of Stock Advisor as a new subscriber and the company has a 30-day money-back guarantee.

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The Motley Fool vs. Seeking Alpha: Platform and App

A stock screener service is only useful if its platform and apps are easy to use. Let’s take a quick look at what you can expect with Seeking Alpha and Motley Fool.

Seeking Alpha

Seeking Alpha offers a web-based platform, a desktop app, and mobile apps for both iOS and Android.

The firm’s web-based platform is generally easy to navigate, though some users find that there’s a bit of a learning curve for the Seeking Alpha stock screener. Meanwhile, Seeking Alpha’s mobile apps are both highly rated. Most people find that these apps make it easy to find the stock news and updates that you need on the go.

The Motley Fool

The Motley Fool is only available on the web and the company doesn’t have any mobile apps. 

The Motley Fool website is streamlined and easy to navigate. However, while the company’s website provides extensive expert analysis about its recommended stocks, it doesn’t offer great charting or screening tools.

Additionally, much of the company’s website is dedicated to advertising its services. Some investors may not mind the consistent upselling, but others might find that it detracts from their research experience.

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The Motley Fool vs. Seeking Alpha: Reviews

It’s always worth checking out what other people have to say before you sign up for a stock screening service. Here’s an overview of how others rate Seeking Alpha and The Motley Fool.

Seeking Alpha

Seeking Alpha mostly receives positive reviews from users. On TrustPilot, the firm has a rating of 4.5/5 out of more than 75 reviews.

Many of the company’s positive reviews mention that users appreciate Seeking Alpha’s wide variety of authors and opinions. Others also note the quickness of the firm’s customer service team.

There are a few negative comments about Seeking Alpha’s subscriptions. But some mentioned that the number of emails you get from the platform can be a bit overwhelming if you subscribe to too many newsletters.

The Motley Fool

The Motley Fool receives primarily positive reviews from subscribers. On TrustPilot, about 75% of reviewers rate The Motley Fool as excellent to average. With BBB, The Motley Fool has a B rating and it has a solid track record of responding to customer complaints.

It’s tricky to understand the overall user experience with The Motley Fool because so much of someone’s reviews will be swayed by the returns that they get on the company’s suggested stocks.

Long-term subscribers generally give the company a really good rating. However, some new users have commented that the firm’s recent stock picks aren’t performing as well as expected.

That said, The Motley Fool is clear in its marketing that its services are designed for long-term investors. Always keep in mind that, while the firm has a good record of returns on its stock picks, past performance is no guarantee of future success.

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The Motley Fool vs. Seeking Alpha: What We Like (Pros)

Both The Motley Fool and Seeking Alpha offer a lot to love for investors. These are some of the things we love about each company and its subscription service.

Seeking Alpha

• One of the largest online investing communities in the world
• Includes access to thousands of investing articles and news stories
• Excellent stock screener tool for market research
• Convenient platform for accessing in-depth stock and ETF information
• Lets you link your brokerage accounts for easier portfolio management
• Offers proprietary stock and ETF analysis metrics and access to company financials
• Great newsletters, videos, podcasts, and other educational materials

The Motley Fool

• Easy to use for first-time investors
• Provides analyst recommendations for the best stocks to buy now
• Multiple subscription plans available for different types of investors
• Offers an extensive collection of educational resources
• All subscriptions include access to online discussion boards
• Access to past stock picks when you sign up for a subscription

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The Motley Fool vs. Seeking Alpha: What We Don’t Like (Cons)

Seeking Alpha and The Motley Fool might be two of the most popular stock screeners around, but every service has its drawbacks. Here are some of the aspects of each company that don’t quite impress.

Seeking Alpha

• Too complex for new investors
• Some services require an additional subscription fee
• Free Basic subscription is highly limited
• PRO subscription plan is expensive

The Motley Fool

• No option to pay monthly for a subscription
• Doesn’t have good charting or technical analysis tools
• Known to advertise a lot on its platform
• No free subscription available
• Designed for long-term investing, not short-term trading

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The Who Is Seeking Alpha For?

Seeking Alpha is ideal for intermediate to experienced traders that want to do their market research themselves. The firm’s stock scanner and research tools are leaders in the industry, and its collection of informational and opinion articles is second to none.

Nevertheless, Seeking Alpha’s stock screeners can be overwhelming for first-time investors. Seeking Alpha’s free subscription is also very limited if a stock screener is primarily what you’re after. But if you’re willing to pay a premium for quality research tools, Seeking Alpha is a solid choice.

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Who Is The Motley Fool For?

The Motley Fool is best for new investors who take a hands-off approach to their portfolios. Since the firm recommends specific stocks to buy and sell, it’s also a nice choice for first-time investors that want some extra guidance with their portfolio.

However, The Motley Fool’s lack of charting and technical analysis tools means that it’s not a great choice for people who want to do research. That said, if you want quick and easy investment guidance to grow your portfolio, The Motley Fool is worth considering.

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FAQs About The Motley Fool vs. Seeking Alpha

Here are our answers to some of your most commonly asked questions about Seeking Alpha and The Motley Fool.

Which Premium Subscription Offers the Best Value?

Depending on which subscription plan you sign up for, The Motley Fool and Seeking Alpha are fairly evenly priced. But whether or not you find value in them depends on your trading style. If you like to do market research, Seeking Alpha is the better value. For new investors or others that prefer a more hands-off approach, The Motley Fool is a solid value for the money.

Do These Services Offer a Free Trial?

You can get a free 14-day trial when you sign up for Seeking Alpha, but The Motley Fool doesn’t currently offer a free trial for its services. However, The Motley Fool has a 30-day membership-fee back guarantee if you aren’t happy with your subscription choice.

Are These Services Good for Beginners?

Seeking Alpha and The Motley Fool are both designed to help people of all skill levels find investment opportunities. But The Motley Fool is arguably better for beginners because it provides you with clear guidance on what the company thinks are the best stocks to buy. With Seeking Alpha, investors need to do more research on their end to find new trading opportunities.

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Final Thoughts

If you’re looking for a quality stock screener and market research tool, you’ll be hard-pressed to find a better option than The Motley Fool or Seeking Alpha. Both companies offer top-of-the-line services for investors, but neither is the best for all traders.

For traders that like to do in-depth research, Seeking Alpha is likely the superior choice. Alternatively, The Motley Fool is a superb option for new investors or anyone that doesn’t have a lot of time to do research.

Regardless of which service you choose, the important thing is that you have the tools you need to find the best investments for your portfolio. We hope this article helped you decide whether The Motley Fool or Seeking Alpha is the right choice for your investing needs.