Is there a free alternative to Portfolio Visualizer?
Portfolio Visualizer details checked September 14, 2026
Not for what Portfolio Visualizer does: its backtests, factor regressions and simulations already run free with no login, and two of them are Pro on PortLens. PortLens is free for a different question. Portfolio Visualizer works on return series: give it an allocation and it back-tests, simulates and regresses it. PortLens works on holdings: give it tickers and share counts and it opens the funds up to show which companies are inside them. Only one of them can tell you that three funds all lean on the same five stocks, and only one of them can tell you how a 60/40 would have done since 1985.
What is Portfolio Visualizer?
It is a quantitative analysis site for portfolios expressed as allocations. Its own tool index groups what it does into portfolio analysis and back-testing, simulation, optimization, asset analytics and factor analysis, and it describes its core analysis as covering the performance, exposures and dividend income of a portfolio made of equities, ETFs and mutual funds. What that index does not contain is a tool that opens a fund up to list the companies inside it, or one that reports how much two funds hold in common — checked on September 14, 2026.
Why does the unit of analysis matter?
A return series already contains the answer to “how did this behave” and cannot contain the answer to “what am I actually holding”. Two portfolios can produce nearly identical return histories while one is spread across four hundred companies and the other is three funds pointed at the same ten. Regressions and back-tests describe the first question well; they are silent on the second, because the constituent data never enters them.
Look-through is the other way round. PortLens multiplies each company's weight inside a fund by that fund's weight in the portfolio and sums the same company across every fund and directly held share, then reports effective holdings, top-ten concentration and a diversification score off the result. It says nothing about what any of it would have returned in 1985. Both readings are real; they are not substitutes, and factor exposure and what a sector breakdown hides covers the returns-side reading in more depth.
What does each one measure?
| Question | PortLens | Portfolio Visualizer |
|---|---|---|
| What is the unit of analysis? | Holdings. Which companies you own, through which funds, and how much they add up to. | Return series. How a stated allocation would have behaved, and what explains its returns. |
| Does it look through funds to their constituents? | Yes, and it is the product's primary focus. | Its own tool index lists no fund look-through or holdings-overlap tool. |
| Fama-French factor regression | Pro only. The free and signed-out scan does not include it. | On the free tier, which its pricing page marks "No Login Required". |
| Monte Carlo simulation | Pro only. | On the free tier. |
| What does the free tier limit? | A scan without an account takes up to 20 typed holdings. | Its footnotes cap the free tier at 15 assets with limited history and no current month-to-date results; paid tiers are $30 and $55 a month billed annually. |
What does PortLens give away free?
The look-through itself, and the figures computed on top of it: effective holdings, top-ten concentration, dominant sector, a diversification score, an overall portfolio score, portfolio beta against the S&P 500 total return, a Treynor ratio, and a weighted expense ratio stating how many holdings it covers and naming the funds it left out for want of a published ratio. Two of the five return-projection models, CAPM and a historical average, are free as well. The ETF overlap checker needs no account either. Every one of those is defined on the methodology page, and a scan without an account takes up to 20 typed holdings.
Where Portfolio Visualizer does more than PortLens
On the axis a reader is most likely to be weighing, Portfolio Visualizer is more generous than PortLens, and it is worth being plain about it. Its pricing page marks the free tier “No Login Required” and lists factor regression, Monte Carlo simulation, portfolio optimization and back-testing inside it. PortLens charges for the first two: Fama-French and Monte Carlo are Pro models, and its free and signed-out scan returns neither. A reader who came here for a free factor regression will find one there and not here.
It is also far deeper on everything built out of returns — efficient frontiers, Black-Litterman, rolling optimization, tactical allocation models, asset correlations, principal component analysis — and it has a documented free tier that does real work before any payment. Its stated free-tier limits are 15 assets, limited history, and no current month-to-date results, with paid tiers at $30 and $55 a month billed annually, read from its own pricing page on September 14, 2026.
How do I look through my own portfolio?
Enter tickers and share counts; PortLens calculates the position weights. It runs free and without an account for up to 20 typed holdings; a longer list takes a free account. A scan shows how much of your money it could open up into companies; a fund counts as opened even when its published list is partial. The fund-cost figure names any fund with no published fee rather than counting it as free. What each figure means and how it is computed is on the methodology page. All investing involves risk, including possible loss of principal, and past performance does not guarantee future results.
Key takeaways
- Portfolio Visualizer is built on return series and PortLens on holdings, and each goes much deeper on its own side. PortLens does read returns — portfolio beta, a Treynor ratio and two free projection models — but it back-tests nothing, and nothing on Portfolio Visualizer's tool index opens a fund up to the companies inside it.
- Factor regression and Monte Carlo are free and login-free on Portfolio Visualizer, and Pro on PortLens, which has no free equivalent of either.
- Fund look-through and holdings overlap do not appear on Portfolio Visualizer's own tool index; that is what PortLens does free.
- Both publish their limits: 15 assets and limited history on one side; on the other, a signed-out scan of up to 20 typed holdings and a look-through coverage figure that is an upper bound on what it saw through, not a measure of completeness.
Other comparisons
This article is for information and education only and is not investment advice. Analytics referenced are computed as described in our methodology; see our disclosures.