Finviz Review: The Free US Screener Benchmark
Finviz is a web-based stock screener covering 11,413 US-listed tickers, and its free version has been the default first screener for a generation of traders for a simple reason: it is a real research tool at $0, not a demo. The paid Elite tier exists to remove exactly 2 things, delayed data and preset-only filters, and to add alerts, exports, and intraday charting on top. The fit is any US-focused investor or swing trader, from first screen to serious workflow. The boundary is just as clear: coverage is US markets only, officially and permanently by the company’s own statement, and the free tier’s data delay rules it out for intraday use.
The Free Screener
The free screener is the product most people mean when they say Finviz, and the live filter panel shows why it earned that status. Filters span descriptive, fundamental, and technical families: exchange, index, sector, and roughly 140 industries, country of the listed company across dozens of jurisdictions, market cap bands from nano to mega, dividend yield, short float, analyst recommendation, earnings date, average and relative volume, price, target price versus current price, IPO date, shares outstanding, and float. A theme layer adds screening by categories like artificial intelligence, robotics, or quantum computing, broken into hundreds of sub-themes, which no other free screener structures this way.
Sorting reaches deeper than the filters, across more than 100 fields including PEG, margins, returns on equity and invested capital, performance windows from a week to 10 years, moving-average relatives, RSI, and ETF fund flows. Results display through switchable views: the standard table, valuation and financial column sets, a charts view that renders every result as a chart, a snapshot view, and the famous heat-map view. A signal dropdown provides one-click screens for top gainers, unusual volume, and a full set of chart patterns from channels and wedges to double tops and head-and-shoulders formations.
The free tier’s structural limits are visible in the interface itself. Every filter offers preset ranges only, with custom numeric ranges marked Elite-only across the board, so a free user can screen for price over $10 or $10 to $20 but not for price over $12.37. Results show 20 rows per page, the auto-refresh interval is 3 minutes, and the whole thing runs with ads. Those limits shape the free product into exactly what the workflow in how to use a stock screener needs and nothing more.
The bigger free-tier fact is the data itself. By the company’s own FAQ, free quotes are delayed 15 minutes for Nasdaq and 20 minutes for NYSE and Amex, and the free tier has no intraday charts at all. Free Finviz is a research screener on slightly stale prices, which costs a value or swing screener nothing and makes the free tier unusable for intraday decisions, for the reasons covered in real-time vs delayed data.
What Elite Adds
Elite converts the same screener into a live tool. Quotes, charts, and screener data go real-time, with premarket data from 4:00 AM to 9:30 AM and after-hours data from 4:00 PM to 8:00 PM. Intraday charts, multi-layout charting with saved technical studies, and automatic pattern recognition arrive with it. Custom filter ranges unlock everywhere, along with ETF-specific filters and a statistics view.
The workflow additions matter as much as the data. Elite includes unlimited email alerts and push notifications covering price moves, news, analyst ratings, insider transactions, and SEC filings, plus screener alerts that fire when a new stock enters a saved screen’s results, the exact mechanism that turns a saved screen into an active signal. Alerts on live data move the product across the monitoring line described in screener vs scanner, which the free tier never crosses.
Data access is the third pillar. Elite exports screener results, portfolios, groups, options chains, and news to Excel, with API access and sample code for Google Sheets, Python, and JavaScript. Capacity roughly doubles or better across the board: 200 saved screener presets against 50 free, up to 100 table rows per page against 20, portfolios expand from 50 lists of 50 tickers to 100 lists of 500, and financial statements reach back 8 years instead of 3. ETF pages gain complete holdings breakdowns rather than a top-10 list. The portfolio-versus-export split is worth knowing before building a routine around it: tracked lists inside Finviz are free, while getting data out is paid, a distinction that matters for the workflow in how to build a watchlist.
Pricing
One paid tier, priced simply, with the official FAQ listing the standard plans.
| Plan | Price | Data | Key limits |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0, account optional for saved screens and portfolios | Delayed 15 minutes (Nasdaq), 20 minutes (NYSE, Amex) | Preset filter ranges only, 20 rows per page, 50 presets, no alerts, no export, ads |
| Elite monthly | $39.50 per month | Real-time, plus premarket and after-hours | Full feature set |
| Elite annual | $299.50 per year ($24.96 per month equivalent) | Real-time, plus premarket and after-hours | Full feature set |
The pricing page currently displays a first-year annual price of $199.50 ($16.63 per month equivalent), with the page itself stating that Elite returns to $24.96 per month billed annually or $39.50 billed monthly afterward. Every Elite plan is the same feature set; the only choice is billing interval.
The trial and refund terms are unusually buyer-friendly for this category and documented in the official FAQ. A 7-day Elite trial requires no credit card, does not auto-renew, and simply reverts the account to free limits when it ends, with Elite-only saved data preserved and restored on a later subscription. Paid plans auto-renew but carry a 30-day refund window on written request. Between the card-free trial and the refund period, Finviz is one of the few tools in the category that can be genuinely evaluated at zero risk.
Restrictions That Define the Product
Coverage is the hard boundary, and Finviz states it in plain terms: the platform covers the US markets, NYSE, Nasdaq, and Amex, and the official FAQ says there are no plans to expand into other markets at the moment. An investor screening London, Frankfurt, Tokyo, or any non-US exchange is outside the product entirely, not just underserved. The country filter screens by where a US-listed company is based, which surfaces ADRs and foreign issuers listed in the US, and should not be mistaken for international exchange coverage.
Two data details survive even the paid tier. Futures data remains delayed 20 minutes on Elite, per the FAQ. And fundamentals across the platform recalculate hourly rather than in real time, which is irrelevant for their purpose and worth knowing for anyone expecting tick-level everything after upgrading.
The last restriction is the free tier’s shape rather than a flaw: no alerts, no export, preset ranges, and delayed quotes mean the free product ends exactly where active-trading needs begin. That line is clearly deliberate, and it is drawn honestly, since everything on the free side of it works without nags beyond the ads.
Bottom Line
Finviz remains the benchmark free screener for US stocks: a genuinely deep filter set, instant heat-map and chart views, pattern-based signals, and portfolio tracking, all at $0 and fast enough to live in a daily routine. Elite is a fair upgrade rather than a ransom, adding real-time data, alerts, exports, and custom ranges at $299.50 a year, below most real-time competitors. That combination is why it holds its position in the best stock screeners roundup. The disqualifier is geography: this is a US-market tool by explicit design, and the free tier’s 15-to-20-minute delay means day traders need Elite or a different platform, never free Finviz.
Pros
- Free screener with filters across roughly 140 industries, theme and sub-theme categories, float, short interest, and relative volume, over a universe of 11,413 US-listed tickers
- Heat-map, charts, and snapshot result views plus one-click signal screens including chart patterns like wedges, channels, and double tops
- Elite adds real-time quotes with premarket from 4:00 AM and after-hours to 8:00 PM, unlimited alerts, and Excel, API, Google Sheets, and Python export paths
- A 7-day Elite trial with no credit card that cannot auto-charge, plus a documented 30-day refund window on paid plans
- Elite annual at $299.50 undercuts most real-time screeners while including screener-match notifications on saved screens
Cons
- US markets only, NYSE, Nasdaq, and Amex, with the official FAQ stating no expansion plans
- Free-tier quotes are delayed 15 to 20 minutes and intraday charts are excluded entirely, ruling the free product out for intraday trading
- Custom numeric filter ranges are Elite-only, so free screening is limited to preset brackets on every filter
- Exports and API access are fully paywalled, making free Finviz a closed loop for anyone building analysis outside the site
- Futures data stays 20 minutes delayed even on the paid Elite tier