Seeking Alpha vs Benzinga 2024: Get Full Comparison

While most online platforms require independent investors to pay for a subscription plan before offering any genuinely useful stock research tools, that’s not always the case. Sometimes, a platform will offer a wide range of features that can be used with nearly any investing style for free.

Of course, the most essential features—such as fundamental analysis or exclusive stock market news—are hidden behind a paywall, but that doesn’t mean that long-term investors won’t be able to utilize the free features to some extent.

Let’s take a look at each platform to see what they can offer individual investors without a premium membership.

Benzinga Offers Slightly More for Free than Seeking Alpha

• Benzinga (free) supports charts, custom watchlists, and Nasdaq basic
• Seeking Alpha limits access on everything, and useful articles are paywalled
• Benzinga offers a newsfeed without filters

Seeking Alpha

Since they’re one of the most well-known stock research platforms, Seeking Alpha knows that most experienced traders will see the value of a Seeking Alpha Premium (or Pro) subscription plan. As such, they’ve hidden their wide range of features behind the paywall.

Active traders can access a few Seeking Alpha features for free on the basic plan, including:

• Limited access to stock quotes, charts, and information (including Wall Street Ratings)
• Limited access to news & analysis pieces
• Email alerts & updates
• Free investing newsletters

While these features don’t offer enough to help you make entirely informed investment decisions, they should at least be enough to point you in the right direction.

Benzinga

Benzinga currently offers three different levels of its subscription services, but you can gain access to the basic plan for free. The company is primarily a financial news platform, although it does provide active traders with plenty of data about the financial markets.

The free plan—which only requires you to create an account on the website—gives you instant access to:

• Basic charts
• Custom watchlists
• Nasdaq Basic (15-minute delayed quotes)
• BZ Wire Newsfeed (without filters)
• Movers (current session only), and the
• Details tool

Both services offer multiple subscription plans for experienced investors to take advantage of. While we are providing a brief overview of the features in this section, we strongly recommend taking the time to look over the specifics of each subscription offered.

While some experienced traders may need to subscribe to the “top-tier” plan to maximize their returns, others may find that a lower-tier plan will be sufficient.

Benzinga Offers More Features on its Top-tier Plan

• Benzinga offers training and mentorship, directly from industry experts
• Many users will be fine with the features included in Seeking Alpha Premium
• Benzinga Essential unlocks additional features with an ongoing subscription

Seeking Alpha

Seeking Alpha has two different premium plans: “Premium” and “Pro.” For most independent investors, the Premium plan will meet their investing needs.

The premium plan provides data—such as average return rates and long-term growth history—on a variety of assets including mutual funds, high-growth stocks, penny stocks, bonds, REITs, and ETFs.

It also gives you access to all the premium, analyst-written articles on Seeking Alpha, Author Ratings, Author Performance, the stock screener, stock Quant ratings, and stock Dividend ratings.

Seeking Alpha Pro includes all of the benefits from the premium plan, with the addition of these Seeking Alpha Pro exclusive features:

• Seeking Alpha Pro articles/content
• Seeking Alpha Pro exclusive newsletters
• Short ideas portal
• Ideas screener (with filter)
• VIP customer service

Benzinga

Benzinga currently offers three different paid subscription plans for professional investors: “Basic”, “Essential”, and “Options Mentorship”.

• The Basic plan gives access to Nasdaq Basic (with the same 15-min delay as the free plan) and the full newsfeed, although it doesn’t include advanced filtering. This plan also includes chat, complete access to Movers, the ability to read premium Benzinga articles, and enables real-time alerts for your watchlist.
• The Essential plan removes the 15-min delay from Nasdaq Basic. It also gives access to advanced newsfeed filters, a real-time scanner (which can be helpful for the day trader trying to track penny stocks or high-growth stocks), Audio Squawk, signals, and the calendar. A continued subscription to this plan will unlock the Options Trading Newsletter and the Enhanced Options Trading Newsletter (after 3 and 6 months respectively).
• The Options Mentorship plan includes all of the features mentioned in other plans. However, you’ll also be entitled to “Unusual Options Activity”, the Options Inner Circle Chat Room, “Regular Market Overview to Match Nic’s Winning Trading Strategy”, and a mentorship from Nic Chahine.

With the features of each stock screening service in mind, let’s take a look at the costs associated with their premium plan options.

Seeking Alpha is the More Affordable Option

• The most expensive Seeking Alpha plan costs $2400/year
• The Benzinga Options Mentorship costs nearly $350/month
• Most investors won’t get the full value from the Options Mentorship

Seeking Alpha

For $214/year, you can subscribe to the “Premium” plan and  for $2,400/year, you can subscribe to the “Pro” plan.

Learn More About Seeking Alpha

Benzinga

For $27, you’ll receive a “Basic” membership. This is the cheapest premium plan but doesn’t offer as many features as the other plans.

For $177/month, you’ll receive an “Essential” membership. This premium plan is the most popular, which makes sense as it offers a wide variety of features that are essential to day trading.

For $347/month, you’ll have access to the “Options Mentorship.” This plan isn’t likely going to be worth it for most investors. However, if you feel that you’ve reached your personal limitations but would still like to improve your investing skills, then the knowledge you could gain may justify the high monthly expense.

Learn More About Benzinga

Factor 5: External Customer Reviews & Ratings

External Seeking Alpha Reviews & Ratings

External Benzinga Pro Reviews & Ratings

Site	Rating
Google play	4.6 from 1,340 votes
Apple Store	4.6 from 302 reviews
WallSreetZen	4.5
Liberated Stock Trader	4.7
Trustpilot

Seeking Alpha vs Benzinga: Which Service Should You Select?

Which stock screening service is better for you ultimately comes down to your preferred investing style.

If you’re a day trader who relies on real-time data to make split-second trades, then Benzinga is the best option for you. While the “Basic” premium plan won’t offer much value to you, the “Essential” plan should more than meet your daily day trading needs.

On the other hand, if making long-term, calculated investments based on intensive research is more your style, then we’d recommend Seeking Alpha. The premium plan gives you access to a plethora of fundamental analysis tools, and the Pro plan offers more insight into profitable investment opportunities.

You can sign up for Benzinga by clicking here. If you’re interested in Seeking Alpha instead, click here for a 7-day free trial (and take advantage of a $30-off exclusive offer!).