Tipranks vs Motley Fool

If you want to secure your present and your future, you want to make smart investment decisions but as you may probably be aware, that is easier said than done. If you are considering the same, then you may have heard of Motley Fool and TipRanks. That is quite understandable because as you are about to find out, these two are among the best stock advisory services out there for a reason.

That said; the services are not similar in terms of the help they offer. Motley Fool is more of a stock-picking service while TipRanks is designed to make it easier for you to access market experts. Of course, both services are useful, but if you had to pick one, which one would it be?

We are going to help you with that so you may want to read on.

What Are The Differences?

Now that you know what we are looking at, why don't we get into the features that differentiate the platforms? 

Stock Picking

Let us begin with stock picking because it is one of the main reasons why you would want to use either platform anyway. Now, we will admit that both deliver outstanding results with this, only that they do it differently and target different kinds of investors. 

TipRanks uses research for stocks and formulates a Smart Score that then rates the score of the stock. As an investor, you can use this Smart Score as a base before digging deeper into their research. That said, the platform will not provide you with an investment hypothesis behind the stocks and it will not recommend any either.

On the other hand, Motley Fool has a Stock Advisor program, which is a subscription service that provides members with stock picks backed by far-reaching research. Each month, members get two new stocks and access to all stock picks ever made by the platform.

The difference here then is that TipRanks does not provide you with any research backing for their stock picks while the Motley Fool does the complete opposite by picking stocks for you and backing it up with research.

Research and Examination

Anyone who prefers to do their own research and yield stock ideas will find that TipRanks has a lot to offer since it allows you to form your portfolio so that you can receive alerts that will help you monitor changes with your investments.

As if that is not enough, the platform comes with a stock comparison tool as well as a stock screener that allows you to find and compare investment ideas.

On the other hand, The Motley Fool has an in-house team of analysts whose main job is to research the market and release their findings through articles. This makes it a bit difficult to search and classify the information on there mainly because the articles do not use the same format for laying out the information.

That also means that you have nowhere to turn if none of the analysts writes an article that you are interested in. That said, the articles are usually comprehensive and can therefore be extremely useful for coming up with investment ideas. This is because they come with clear hold, sell, or buy recommendations.

Investment Limit

Next, we want to look at another major difference between the two platforms and it has to do with their target investment timelines.

What you need to know here, is that the Motley Fool clearly endorses investments with at least three years of a target holding period. Most stocks on the platform's Stock Advisor portfolio have been in place for over seven years. Almost all of the newsletters on the platforms have a long timeline and you will be hard-pressed to come across a technical analysis discussion on the platform. 

As far as TipRanks, you will be pleased to learn that it covers a broader variety of investment timelines. Therefore, if you are a short-term or day trader, you can make the most of the platform's market updates and daily stock ratings.

Traders operating on a weekly and monthly basis are not left out either as the platform has a 'Trending Stocks' list that offers ideas for stocks that have the potential and receiving financial analyst upgrades. The one-year price target data and Smart Score offered by the platform also prove to be useful for investors who have longer time limits.

The Pricing

When it comes to TipRanks' pricing, you will be pleased to learn that you can use some of its features like the portfolio manager, stock screener, and price target charts with a free account. Nevertheless, you will not get access to smart scores and most of the top stock lists with the free account making the platform's resourcefulness limited.

If you want a premium membership that allows you to unlock most of the platform's features, you have to part with $359 annually. The only things you will not be able to do is create multiple portfolios and get recommendations from corporate insiders. For $599 yearly, however, you can unlock them.

Now, Motley's Fool research articles will not cost you anything, but you need to pay a subscription fee if you want access to the platform's stock picking newsletters. One of the things we realized about the membership rates for this platform are quite affordable.

The platform's stock advisor newsletter goes for $199 annually and new members pay $99 for the first year. There is also a Rule Breakers newsletter that costs $299 annually and some ultra-premium ones that go for up to $2,999 per year. 

Suitability

So, who are the two platforms suitable for? Let us get into that.

TipRanks is suitable for investors who don't mind self-directed research and have the time to conduct it as well as those who have the skills required to make use of advanced research tools and value analyst opinions. They should also be able to justify the monthly subscription fee for the platform.

Motley Fool on the other hand is suitable for long-term investors who prefer simplicity and a hands-off approach to investing. Investors who want to create a robust portfolio and those who want stocks that will outperform the market will also find it useful not to mention those who are searching for a reasonably priced stock picking service.

Which of the platforms is better?

There is no right or wrong answer to that question because whichever you pick between the Motley Fool and TipRanks largely depends on what you want. As we have previously mentioned,  TipRanks is best for both long-term and short-term investors who do not mind doing their own research.

This is because the data provided by the platform is only meant to be used as a starting point for deeper analysis and TipRanks analysis tools make updating and organizing your research a breeze.

Conversely, if you just want to know when to invest and what stocks to invest in, the Motley Fool platform would be your best bet as it comes with newsletters that do just that. You may want to note though that the newsletters do not provide research on various stocks as TipRanks does.  

To make up for that, the newsletters recommend the stocks to buy and why they are worth buying. These newsletters have investment timelines of a few years or longer making them ideal for long-term investors.

Simply put, TipRanks is best for investors who can research multiple stocks on their own while Motley Food is suitable for investors who want to access stock picks with a record of accomplishment for outperforming the market.