Bottom line up front: Finviz is the most widely used stock screener on the market, and for good reason. The free version is genuinely useful. Finviz Elite, at $39.50 per month or $24.96 per month on an annual plan, is one of the best value-for-money tools in retail trading. The screener and data export capabilities alone justify the cost for active traders. The backtesting module is the weakest part of the Elite package and falls noticeably short of dedicated backtesting platforms like Trade Ideas.
See Also: Best Stock Screener
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What Is Finviz?
Finviz stands for “financial visualizations.” The platform was founded by Juraj Duris in June 2007 and has grown to approximately 25.3 million monthly users. It operates a free tier with a meaningful feature set, a registered free account tier that unlocks additional functionality, and a paid Finviz Elite subscription that adds real-time data, pre-market access, advanced charting, backtesting, and full data export.
The platform covers U.S. equities across NYSE, Nasdaq, and Amex, more than 8,000 stocks total, plus ETFs, forex, futures, and crypto. Stock screeners are the core product. Everything else is supplementary, and Finviz knows it.
Features
Finviz packs a lot into one interface without making it feel cluttered. The design has not changed dramatically since launch, which is either a sign of confidence or a limitation depending on what you need. For traders who want speed and data density, it works well. Traders who want polished, customizable charting should look at TradingView.
Fast Search
Type any ticker into the search box and results appear in under a second. The results page surfaces a chart, key fundamental data (P/E, dividend yield, performance figures), and a news feed for that ticker, all without navigating away.
Free users get candle, line, and advanced chart types on daily, weekly, and monthly timeframes with delayed data. Elite users get intraday timeframes starting at 1-minute, real-time prices, interactive charts, and performance comparison charts.
From the chart view, free users can publish a chart. Registered free users can save it to a portfolio. Price alerts require Elite. The quick-reference data panel below the chart, showing P/E, dividends, and performance across multiple timeframes, is genuinely useful even on the free version.
Chart types by plan:
- Candle, Line, Advanced — Free
- Interactive, Performance — Elite only
Timeframes by plan:
- Daily, Weekly, Monthly — Free
- Intraday (1-min and up) — Elite only
News Feed
The news tab aggregates headlines from Bloomberg, CNN, MarketWatch, and a range of financial blogs, sortable chronologically or by source. It is a useful sanity check before entering a position but not a replacement for a dedicated news terminal. Reuters and Benzinga Pro carry more pre-market catalyst flow.
Stock Screener
The screener is the reason Finviz exists. It covers descriptive, fundamental, and technical criteria across more than 60 filters. Filtering by price, float, volume, short interest, moving average relationship, gap, RSI level, and dozens of other parameters is available in the free version. No Elite subscription required to build screens.
What the free version lacks: real-time data on results, price alerts, and the data export button. The free screener shows delayed quotes. That limitation matters for intraday traders and is essentially irrelevant for swing traders or investors working off end-of-day data.
The Elite screener adds in-depth statistics, advanced filter combinations (custom P/E ranges, market cap ranges, etc.), and the CSV export. The export is the most underrated feature on the platform. Configure a custom screener with no filters, select every data field available, and the export produces a spreadsheet covering the entire U.S. equity market in one click. Traders building their own databases or testing algo signals will find that capability alone worth the subscription cost.
Heat Maps
The heat map view color-codes stocks by daily performance (green = up, red = down) with tile size proportional to market cap. Maps are available for the S&P 500, world stocks, sector/industry groupings, and ETFs. The visual is genuinely useful for getting a rapid read on market breadth and sector rotation without scrolling through tables.
Groups
The Groups tab breaks down performance by sector, industry, country, and market cap. Data can be viewed as tables, bar charts, or spectrum grids across multiple timeframes. It is not a feature most traders will use daily, but for tracking sector trends over days or weeks, it provides clear visual context without needing to set up a separate watchlist.
Portfolio
Portfolio tracking is an Elite-only feature. Registered free users can create up to 50 portfolios with up to 50 tickers each, but the functionality is basic. Elite users get additional stats and real-time updates. For serious portfolio tracking, most traders will use dedicated tools. The Finviz portfolio is adequate for watchlist management.
Insider Transactions
The Insider tab shows SEC-reported insider trades in descending date order, filterable by buy or sell transactions, the type of insider, and time period. The data is pulled directly from SEC filings. It is more useful as a confirmation signal than a primary research tool, but having it integrated into the same platform is a practical convenience.
Futures
The Futures section provides a heatmap overview of commodity, bond, precious metal, and currency futures with real-time color coding. Hovering over any tile surfaces an embedded chart.
Price data displays in large format with daily highs and lows. The daily relative performance bar below the tile grid, ordered from best to worst performer, is a fast pre-market context check for equity traders tracking correlating instruments.
Forex
Major currency pairs are displayed in the same tile format as futures. Performance data can be viewed as tables or charts, and the tops/flops column diagram gives a quick directional snapshot. The forex section covers the majors adequately. Traders who need full coverage of minors and exotics will use a dedicated forex platform.
Crypto
Finviz tracks 15 cryptocurrencies. TradingView covers over 200. For traders who need deep crypto coverage, Finviz is not the right tool. For equity traders who want a quick check on BTC and ETH direction as part of a broader market read, the 15-coin coverage is sufficient.
Backtesting
Backtesting is an Elite-only feature. The database covers 16 years of historical daily data with 100 backtestable technical indicators. Long and short strategies can both be tested. Transaction costs, stop loss levels, time-based exits, and SPY benchmark comparisons are all configurable. The interface is clean and takes only a few clicks to set up a test.
The limitation is real: Finviz backtesting works on daily price action only. Intraday backtests are not supported. Complex multi-condition strategies are not supported either. For a daily-timeframe swing trader testing a simple technical setup, it is a useful tool. For anything more sophisticated, Trade Ideas or dedicated backtesting platforms are necessary.
Finviz Elite: Full Review
Finviz Elite adds five meaningful capabilities on top of the free platform: real-time and pre-market data, intraday charting, backtesting, the correlations feature, and full data export. Each is worth evaluating on its own terms.
Real-Time and Pre-Market Data
Elite subscribers get live quote data across all screener results and charts. Pre-market data is available with 1-minute timeframe resolution. Tick charts are not available. For traders who scan pre-market gaps and need to see which stocks are moving before 9:30 AM, the pre-market screener is genuinely useful.
Advanced Charts and Technical Studies
Elite unlocks intraday timeframes from 1-minute to monthly, drawing tools including trend lines and Fibonacci retracements, indicator overlays, and full-screen mode. The interactive chart is the main upgrade over the free version.
One notable gap: there is no zoom functionality on the interactive chart. Since Finviz is entirely web-based and not a standalone application, zooming creates a UX challenge that the platform has not resolved. Traders accustomed to TradingView’s chart interaction will notice the difference. Finviz trades chart flexibility for speed, and that is a deliberate product decision.
The performance comparison chart, which overlays the price development of multiple tickers over a selected period, is a practical tool for comparing relative strength. Running AAPL against SPY to assess whether the stock is outperforming or lagging the index takes seconds to set up.
Backtesting Module
The backtesting interface is clean. A new test takes a few minutes to configure, includes entry and exit conditions from a broad list of indicators and chart patterns, and produces results with a return graph, key statistics, and a monthly return table.
The honest assessment: the backtester is a useful starting point for validating daily-timeframe ideas, and the 16-year historical database is a genuine asset. Intraday strategies cannot be tested here. Multi-leg or complex condition logic is not supported. Traders who backtest seriously will still need Trade Ideas or a dedicated platform for that work. At the price point, the limitation is understandable. Calling it more than a helpful supplementary tool would be a stretch.
Correlations Feature
The correlations tool identifies stocks with statistically related price behavior to a given ticker. Enter a symbol and Finviz returns correlated and inversely correlated stocks above the financials section on the stock page. The practical use case: when a leading stock makes a sharp move, correlated names often follow as the trade rotates. The correlations feature makes that rotation visible without manual research.
Advanced Screener and Data Export
The Elite screener adds deeper statistics, more customizable filter ranges, and, most valuably, the CSV export. The export workflow is straightforward: navigate to Screener, select Custom, choose every data field available, apply filters (or none), and click Export. The resulting file covers the entire U.S. equity market with 71 data columns per stock.
For traders building proprietary databases, testing systematic strategies in Excel, or creating an alternative to the Yahoo Finance API, this export is exceptionally useful at any price, let alone at under $25 per month on an annual plan. Import the CSV to Excel, use Pivot or Power Pivot to filter and sort, and a comprehensive daily snapshot of the full market is ready within minutes.
One note on CSV formatting: if Excel locale settings are not set to English, the import may display incorrectly. Use “Text to Columns” with comma as delimiter to resolve this.
Price Alerts
Price alerts are available exclusively in Elite. Setup requires navigating to Settings via the Info menu and configuring alert conditions from there. The alerts function as expected. Most trading platforms provide a more capable alert system with more trigger conditions and faster notification. The Finviz alert feature is adequate for monitoring a watchlist of key price levels, but it is not a reason to subscribe to Elite on its own.
Customization Options
Elite users can adjust display settings including table density, the number of rows shown per page (up to 100 for tables and 60 for charts), default filters, and theme appearance. Setting minimum average volume to 100,000 and minimum price to $1 by default filters out thinly traded names and penny stocks from all screener results, which saves manual filtering on every scan.
Pricing
| Plan | Price | Real-Time Data | Pre-Market | Backtesting | Data Export | Screener Presets |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free (no account) | $0 | Delayed | No | No | No | No |
| Free (registered) | $0 | Delayed | No | No | No | Up to 50 |
| Finviz Elite (monthly) | $39.50/mo | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Up to 100 |
| Finviz Elite (annual) | $24.96/mo ($299.50/yr) | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Up to 100 |
The annual plan saves $174.50 per year compared to 12 monthly payments. New accounts get a 7-day free trial of Elite. The trial requires a payment method at signup and auto-renews as a paid subscription after 7 days unless cancelled before the trial ends. No promo codes for Finviz Elite have been available since 2008. The annual discount is the only pricing lever.
Bottom Line
Finviz is the right stock screener for the majority of active traders and investors. The free version offers more genuine utility than most paid competitors. Finviz Elite, on the annual plan, works out to less than $25 per month with real-time data, pre-market scanning, full CSV export, and backtesting included. A 7-day free trial is available for new accounts. That combination is difficult to beat at the price point.
Pros
- Free version is genuinely useful, not crippled
- Screener covers 60+ filters with no registration required
- CSV data export covers full U.S. market in one click
- Pre-market scanning with real-time data at ~$25/mo annual
- 16-year historical database for backtesting
- Heat maps, correlations, and group performance views included
- 30-day money-back guarantee
Cons
- Backtesting is daily-only; intraday strategies cannot be tested
- No zoom on interactive charts
- Crypto coverage is limited to 15 coins vs. 200+ on TradingView
- Price alerts are basic compared to dedicated trading platforms
- No tick charts, even on Elite
Who should use it: Equity traders and investors who need fast, data-dense screening, pre-market gap scans, and market-wide data exports. Active swing traders, momentum traders, and value screeners will all find practical daily use for the platform.
Who should look elsewhere: Traders who primarily trade crypto, forex, or need institutional-grade charting. For complex intraday backtesting, Trade Ideas is the better choice. For chart-first analysis with deep customization, TradingView wins on features.
FAQs
What is Finviz?
Finviz is a U.S. stock screener and financial data platform covering NYSE, Nasdaq, and Amex equities (8,000-plus stocks), ETFs, futures, forex, and crypto. The platform provides screening tools, heat maps, news aggregation, charts, and data export. A free version is available with delayed data. Finviz Elite adds real-time data, pre-market access, intraday charts, backtesting, and CSV export.
How much does Finviz Elite cost?
Finviz Elite costs $39.50 per month on a month-to-month basis, or $299.50 per year ($24.96 per month) on the annual plan. The annual plan saves $174.50 compared to 12 monthly payments. A 30-day money-back guarantee applies to Elite subscriptions.
Is there a Finviz free trial?
Finviz Elite includes a 7-day free trial for new accounts. A payment method is required at signup, and the trial auto-renews as a paid subscription after 7 days unless cancelled before the trial period ends. No promo codes or additional discounts have been publicly available since 2008. The annual plan ($299.50/year) is the only way to reduce the monthly cost below $39.50.
Can Finviz scan pre-market?
Yes, but only with an Elite subscription. Finviz Elite provides pre-market data with real-time quotes and 1-minute timeframe resolution. The screener can be set to auto-refresh every 10 seconds during the pre-market session, making it a usable gap scanner before market open.
How does Finviz compare to TradingView?
Finviz is a better screener. TradingView is a better charting platform. Finviz offers more screening filters, faster data scanning, and better heat map and market overview tools. TradingView has superior chart interaction, a larger indicator library, more customization, and coverage of over 200 cryptocurrencies compared to Finviz’s 15. Active traders often use both: Finviz to identify which stocks to look at, TradingView to analyze them in depth.
Is Finviz Elite worth it?
For active equity traders, yes. The combination of real-time screener data, pre-market scanning, 60-filter screening, full market CSV export, and backtesting at $24.96 per month (annual plan) represents strong value. The backtesting module has real limitations for complex strategies, and the charting lacks TradingView’s polish. For the core use case of fast, data-dense stock screening, Finviz Elite is the most cost-effective option on the market.
Can Finviz data be exported to Excel?
Yes, with an Elite subscription. The export button in the screener interface generates a CSV file. Configuring the screener with all data fields and no filters exports the entire U.S. equity universe, approximately 8,000 stocks with up to 71 columns of data, in one click. Free users can manually copy and paste screener results to Excel page by page. Automated scraping violates Finviz’s terms of use.
What are the limitations of Finviz?
The main limitations: backtesting is daily-data only with no intraday support; the interactive chart has no zoom function; crypto coverage is limited to 15 coins; tick charts are not available at any subscription tier; and price alerts are basic compared to dedicated trading platform alerts. The free version uses delayed quotes, which makes it unsuitable for real-time intraday scanning without an Elite subscription.