Backtesting software for financial advisors: portfolio analysis software for advisors, and what the marketing rule requires
An advisor buying a backtesting tool has a second problem a retail trader does not have. The moment a backtest reaches a client or a prospect it becomes hypothetical performance under the SEC marketing rule, and the rule has conditions. This page prices the tools and explains the test they have to survive.
- 1 THESIS
- 2 EVIDENCE
- 3 BACKTEST
- 4 RISK
- 5 VERDICT
02 EVIDENCE · FUNDAMENTALS
04 RISK · IN PLAIN ENGLISH
Sample scenarios, not a live backtest of what you typed. Past performance does not guarantee future results. Educational analysis only, not financial advice.
In short
Backtesting software for financial advisors has to clear a bar that retail backtesting tools never think about. Under the SEC marketing rule, Rule 206(4)-1 under the Investment Advisers Act, hypothetical performance is defined at paragraph (e)(8) as performance results that were not actually achieved by any portfolio of the investment adviser, and the definition names backtested performance directly: performance that is backtested by the application of a strategy to data from prior time periods when the strategy was not actually used during those time periods. That is exactly what every backtest is. Paragraph (d)(6) then says an adviser may not include hypothetical performance in an advertisement unless three conditions are met: the adviser adopts and implements policies and procedures reasonably designed to ensure the hypothetical performance is relevant to the likely financial situation and investment objectives of the intended audience; the adviser provides sufficient information for that audience to understand the criteria used and the assumptions made in calculating it; and the adviser provides sufficient information for that audience to understand the risks and limitations of using it in making investment decisions. The rule became effective May 4, 2021 with a compliance date of November 4, 2022, and it is enforced. On September 11, 2023 the SEC announced charges against nine registered investment advisers for putting hypothetical performance on their public websites without the required policies and procedures, with penalties reported at $850,000 in total. That fact pattern matters when you shop: a mass-audience website is the hardest place to satisfy the relevance condition, which is why many firms simply keep hypothetical performance out of public marketing entirely and use it only in tailored one to one materials. So the buying question for an advisory firm is not only which tool runs a backtest. It is which tool hands you the criteria, the assumptions, the risks and the limitations in a form you can put in front of a client and keep in a file. We checked nine advisor-facing platforms on August 24, 2026 and only two of them, Nitrogen and Portfolio Visualizer, publish a price at all. AgentTrading approaches the second half of the problem directly: you state one rule in a sentence, it backtests it on 20+ years of split and dividend adjusted daily data with 0.1% charged per trade by default, and it shows every assumption it used rather than printing a number on its own. It also prints UNDERPERFORMED when the rule loses to buy and hold. Plans on our pricing page start at $19 a month. None of this is legal advice, and nothing here substitutes for your compliance function. Past performance does not guarantee future results.
Past performance does not guarantee future results. For educational and informational purposes only. Not financial advice. Consult a licensed advisor.
SIDE BY SIDE - PRICING CHECKED AUGUST 2026
Nine advisor-facing platforms: what each one publishes, and what it will not do
Every line below was read off the vendor's own page on August 24, 2026, with the HTTP response recorded. Where a vendor publishes no price we say so rather than repeat a figure from a review site. The limitation column is the one that decides your shortlist, because in this tier the differences are about what job the tool does not do.
| Tool | Best for | Price (August 2026) | The honest limitation |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kwanti | Advisory firms that want model portfolio analytics and proposal comparisons | Not verifiable | The pricing page returned HTTP 429 behind a bot check on August 22 and again on August 24, 2026, so we will not quote a number for it. |
| Nitrogen (formerly Riskalyze) | Firms that lead with risk alignment and want proposals tied to a risk score | $149 to $495 per month, annual terms | Priced by module, and the page does not state whether rates are per advisor or per firm. |
| Portfolio Visualizer | Allocation and factor backtesting on a small budget, by a long way the best value here | Free tier, then $30 or $55 per month | Tests allocations and factor models, not a discretionary entry and exit rule on a single name. |
| Koyfin Advisor Core and Advisor Pro | Fundamentals, charting and branded client reporting for a small advisory firm | $209 or $299 per month, annual | No backtesting engine at any tier. The hypothetical performance feature is not a rule backtest. |
| Morningstar Advisor Workstation | Firms already standardized on Morningstar data and research | Not published | No price on the product page, and no self-serve path to start. |
| YCharts | Advisors who want fast charting and client-ready visuals from institutional-grade data | Not published | Pricing page publishes no figure. Strong on visualization, not a strategy backtester. |
| Addepar | Multi-family offices and RIAs with complex and alternative asset reporting | Not published | Enterprise sales only. Aimed at reporting complexity, not strategy testing. |
| Orion | Firms wanting portfolio accounting, rebalancing and reporting in one stack | Not published | No public pricing page at all: orion.com/pricing returned HTTP 404 on August 24, 2026. |
| AgentTrading | Testing one stated rule and getting the assumptions written down with it | From $19 | No custodian integration, no client reporting, no trade execution. |
Prices are the vendors' public list prices, checked August 2026, and vendors change them. Verify current pricing and capabilities with each vendor before you buy.
Kwanti
Advisory firms that want model portfolio analytics and proposal comparisons
Kwanti is one of the names that comes up most often when advisors talk about comparing a proposed portfolio against a current one over historical periods, and that capability is genuinely close to what this page is about. We cannot price it honestly. Both times we requested kwanti.com/pricing with an ordinary desktop browser agent, the response was HTTP 429 and a Vercel Security Checkpoint interstitial rather than a pricing page. That is a bot protection measure, not a hidden price, and the figures you will find quoted in roundups are not sourced to a page anyone can open on demand. Ask Kwanti directly and get the number in writing. If you use it for client-facing comparisons, note that historical model comparisons are hypothetical performance under paragraph (e)(8) just as a rule backtest is.
Nitrogen (formerly Riskalyze)
Firms that lead with risk alignment and want proposals tied to a risk score
Nitrogen is the clearest publisher in this tier. Read on August 24, 2026, its pricing page lists Research Center at $149 a month, Risk Center at $199, the Income, Tax and Legacy Centers at $99 each, Insurance Center at $79, an Elite bundle at $395 and a Complete bundle at $495, all on annual terms, with broker-dealer and enterprise pricing on request. That is real transparency and worth crediting in a category that mostly refuses. Two caveats for this page specifically. The published centers describe risk alignment, research, proposals and planning, and we did not verify a rule-based strategy backtester at any tier from the pricing page, so confirm capability with the vendor rather than assuming it. The page also does not say whether these are per-seat or per-firm rates, which changes the real cost materially for a firm with six advisors.
Portfolio Visualizer
Allocation and factor backtesting on a small budget, by a long way the best value here
The one tool in this table that does real historical testing and publishes what it costs. Read on September 4, 2026, portfoliovisualizer.com/pricing shows paid plans at $30 and $55 a month billed annually, and the free tier handles up to 15 assets including backtesting and Monte Carlo, though it saves nothing and exports nothing. For an advisory firm the tier that matters is Pro at $55, because the pricing card licenses Free and Basic for Personal and Educational Use and only Pro for Personal and Commercial Use. For an advisor testing asset allocations, rebalancing bands, factor tilts or a withdrawal plan, this is the honest recommendation and it is inexpensive. What it does not do is test a rule in the trading sense: an entry condition and an exit condition applied to a ticker across twenty years. If your question is which allocation, use this. If your question is whether a rule ever worked, it is a different tool.
Koyfin Advisor Core and Advisor Pro
Fundamentals, charting and branded client reporting for a small advisory firm
Koyfin publishes its advisor pricing plainly: Advisor Core at $209 a month billed annually or $239 monthly, Advisor Pro at $299 or $349, with Pro adding multiple custodians, 200 branded reports a month, PDF broker statement upload and integrations with Black Diamond, Addepar and Orion. There is also an unpriced discount for firms under $100m in AUM. The reason it sits in this table with a hard limitation is that Koyfin has no backtesting at any tier. Premium includes a hypothetical performance view that re-runs a modified version of an allocation you already hold, and that gets called backtesting fairly often in reviews. It is not the same thing as applying an entry and exit rule across twenty years of daily history. Worth knowing before you buy it for that purpose.
Morningstar Advisor Workstation
Firms already standardized on Morningstar data and research
Advisor Workstation is the advisor-facing front end for Morningstar research, screening, portfolio analysis and client reporting, and it is deeply embedded in a lot of firms because the underlying data already is. On August 24, 2026 the product page returned HTTP 202 to an automated request and carried no dollar figure. Pricing goes through a sales conversation and typically depends on firm size, modules and whether you also license Morningstar Direct. That is a legitimate enterprise motion, but it means you cannot budget it from the website, and it puts Advisor Workstation in the same bucket as most of this tier: you will not know your number until someone scopes you.
YCharts
Advisors who want fast charting and client-ready visuals from institutional-grade data
YCharts is popular with advisors specifically because its output looks good in front of a client: clean charts, fundamental comparisons, scenario visuals and reports that drop into a meeting without redesign. Read on August 24, 2026, ycharts.com/pricing returned HTTP 202 and no dollar amount, so it belongs with the unpriced group. On capability, treat it as a data and visualization layer rather than a testing layer. It will help you show what happened; it is not built to answer whether a rule you are considering would have worked, and any historical illustration you export from it and show a client is still hypothetical performance if the strategy was not actually run.
Addepar
Multi-family offices and RIAs with complex and alternative asset reporting
Addepar is the reporting and aggregation layer for firms whose client portfolios include private funds, direct holdings, real estate and other assets that ordinary performance reporting handles badly. It is a genuinely different job from anything else in this table. On August 24, 2026 its pricing page returned HTTP 200 and contained no dollar figure anywhere. Implementation is a project rather than a signup, and cost scales with assets and complexity. If your problem is that quarterly reporting across messy asset types takes a week, this is the category to look at. If your problem is whether a strategy has ever worked, it is not.
Orion
Firms wanting portfolio accounting, rebalancing and reporting in one stack
Orion is one of the larger advisor technology stacks, covering portfolio accounting, trading and rebalancing, reporting, and increasingly planning and compliance tooling through acquisitions. It is a platform decision rather than a tool purchase. Price discovery is the weakest in this table: we did not find a pricing page that resists a price, we found no pricing page at all, with orion.com/pricing returning HTTP 404. Cost is quoted per firm through sales and generally scales with assets under administration. Rebalancing logic is not backtesting, so if you want to test a rule before adopting it, that remains a separate purchase.
AgentTrading
Testing one stated rule and getting the assumptions written down with it
Our own row, with the parts that count against us first. Plans on our pricing page start at $19 a month. It does not connect to a custodian, does not produce branded client reports, does not rebalance and does not execute anything. What it does is the narrow job the rest of this table leaves out. You state one rule in a sentence, it backtests that rule on 20+ years of split and dividend adjusted daily data with 0.1% charged per trade by default, and it reports the result together with the data window, the cost assumption, the benchmark and the limitations of the test, including UNDERPERFORMED when the rule loses to buy and hold. That pairing of result with method is the shape paragraph (d)(6) asks for. Educational analysis only, not advice, and not a substitute for your compliance review.
Past performance does not guarantee future results. For educational and informational purposes only. Not financial advice. Consult a licensed advisor.
WHAT YOU GET - BACKTESTING FOR ADVISORS
Backtesting for advisors, run on the bench
Assumptions written down, not implied
Every backtest states the data window, the cost per trade, the entry and exit rule and the benchmark it was measured against. That is the raw material paragraph (d)(6) asks you to hand the audience, rather than a return figure with no method behind it.
Honest verdicts, including the bad ones
The bench stamps UNDERPERFORMED when a rule loses to buy and hold. A tool that only surfaces flattering results is the opposite of what you want in a file that a regulator may one day read.
One rule, one page, in plain English
A backtest an advisor can actually explain in a client meeting beats a screen of statistics nobody in the room can interpret. The output reads as sentences, with the numbers attached to the assumptions that produced them.
Built for the second conversation
Advisors rarely need a backtest to decide something alone. They need it to explain why a rule was or was not adopted. The output is shaped for that conversation, and for the record you keep afterwards.
HOW IT WORKS - 4 STEPS
From a sentence to a stamped verdict
State the rule in a sentence
Describe the strategy the way you would say it out loud: buy the dividend blue chips when the trend holds, step aside when it breaks.
Confirm what will be tested
The bench restates the rule as an explicit entry and exit condition, names the data window and shows the cost assumption before anything runs. Nothing is inferred silently.
Run it on 20+ years
The rule is applied to split and dividend adjusted daily data with 0.1% charged per trade by default, and measured against buy and hold rather than against nothing.
Take the verdict and the caveats together
You get the result, the drawdown, and the limitations of the test in the same place, which is the pairing the marketing rule expects if any of it is ever shown to a client.
Past performance does not guarantee future results. For educational and informational purposes only. Not financial advice. Consult a licensed advisor.
On the same bench
This page is the advisor view of the bench. The general engine is documented on the trading strategy tester, allocation work lives on portfolio backtesting, and the wider category with institutional vendors priced is on investment research software. The persona page for stock research tools for financial advisors covers the day to day workflow, and the advisor tier of the market is compared in depth in the best investment research software for financial advisors. Two eligibility questions come before the price comparison: whether your firm counts as a non-professional subscriber, and, if you are pricing the tool most advisers reach for first, which Portfolio Visualizer tier is licensed for commercial use.
QUESTIONS - ASKED AND ANSWERED
Backtesting for advisors: the common questions
What is the best backtesting software for financial advisors?
It depends which of two jobs you have. For testing asset allocations, factor tilts and rebalancing rules, Portfolio Visualizer is the best value in this tier: real historical testing, a free tier up to 15 assets, and paid plans at $30 and $55 a month read on August 24, 2026. For testing a discretionary entry and exit rule on a specific holding, most advisor platforms do not do it at all, which is the gap AgentTrading is built for. For risk alignment and proposals rather than testing, Nitrogen publishes its pricing and is the most transparent vendor here.
Can financial advisors show backtested performance to clients?
Yes, but only under conditions. Backtested performance is hypothetical performance under Rule 206(4)-1, and paragraph (d)(6) requires the adviser to have policies and procedures reasonably designed to ensure it is relevant to the intended audience, and to provide enough information for that audience to understand the criteria and assumptions behind it and the risks and limitations of relying on it. In practice that is far easier to satisfy in a tailored one to one presentation than in general marketing. Confirm the specifics with your compliance function.
Is backtested performance considered hypothetical performance under the SEC marketing rule?
Yes, explicitly. Paragraph (e)(8) of Rule 206(4)-1 defines hypothetical performance as performance results that were not actually achieved by any portfolio of the investment adviser, and it names backtested performance in terms: performance that is backtested by the application of a strategy to data from prior time periods when the strategy was not actually used during those time periods. Model portfolio performance and targeted or projected returns fall in the same definition.
Can an RIA put backtested performance on its website?
That is the exact fact pattern the SEC has already charged. On September 11, 2023 the Commission announced actions against nine registered investment advisers for advertising hypothetical performance on public websites without the policies and procedures the rule requires, with penalties reported at $850,000 combined. The difficulty is the relevance condition: a public website reaches a mass audience, so it is hard to show the material was tailored to the likely financial situation and objectives of that audience. Many firms keep it off the public site for that reason.
What does the SEC marketing rule require before you can advertise hypothetical performance?
Three things, set out in paragraph (d)(6). First, adopt and implement policies and procedures reasonably designed to ensure the hypothetical performance is relevant to the likely financial situation and investment objectives of the intended audience. Second, provide sufficient information for that audience to understand the criteria used and the assumptions made in calculating it. Third, provide sufficient information for them to understand the risks and limitations of using it in making investment decisions. This is a summary, not legal advice.
When did the SEC marketing rule take effect?
Rule 206(4)-1 as amended became effective on May 4, 2021, with a compliance date of November 4, 2022, after which advisers could no longer rely on the previous advertising and cash solicitation rules. SEC staff have continued to issue guidance since, including an updated set of frequently asked questions on March 19, 2025 that revised earlier positions on extracted performance and portfolio characteristics. Check the current staff FAQs rather than relying on a summary written in 2022.
How much does portfolio analysis software for advisors cost?
It splits sharply between vendors that publish and vendors that do not. Checked August 24, 2026: Nitrogen publishes $149 to $495 a month on annual terms depending on modules, Koyfin publishes Advisor Core at $209 and Advisor Pro at $299 billed annually, and Portfolio Visualizer publishes $30 and $55. Morningstar Advisor Workstation, YCharts, Addepar and Orion published no figure at all, and Kwanti sat behind a bot check both times we tried. Budget for a sales call on the unpriced half.
Does Koyfin have backtesting for advisors?
No. Koyfin has no backtesting engine on any tier, including Advisor Core and Advisor Pro. Its Premium hypothetical performance feature re-runs a modified version of an allocation you already hold, which is a useful thing but not a strategy backtest. If you buy Koyfin, buy it for fundamentals, charting, screening and branded client reporting. Testing an entry and exit rule across twenty years of daily history needs a different tool.
Do I need compliance approval to use backtesting software?
Using it internally to inform your own research is ordinarily a different question from putting the output in front of a client. The rule attaches to advertisements, so the trigger is generally distribution rather than the analysis itself. Your firm may still have internal policies covering the tools you use and the records you keep, and the recordkeeping rule requires advisers to keep copies of advertisements they disseminate. Ask your CCO before the first client sees anything. Separately, check whether your firm is even eligible for the tier you are pricing, because several vendors restrict cheap plans to <a href="/non-professional-subscriber">non-professional subscribers</a> rather than to anyone willing to pay.
What records should we keep when we show a backtest?
At minimum, keep the advertisement itself, since the amended books and records rule requires advisers to make and keep copies of advertisements they disseminate directly or indirectly. Practically, keep the inputs too: the rule that was tested, the data window, the cost assumption, the benchmark, and the risk and limitation language that went with it. Two of the nine firms charged in September 2023 also had recordkeeping failures for website pages, so an archived copy of what was published matters as much as the analysis.
Past performance does not guarantee future results. For educational and informational purposes only. Not financial advice. Consult a licensed advisor.
Your next idea deserves a verdict, not a hunch.
Bring a thesis or a ticker. AgentTrading restates the rule, shows the evidence, runs 20+ years of history, and stamps an honest verdict. You decide.
Past performance does not guarantee future results. For educational and informational purposes only. Not financial advice. Consult a licensed advisor.