Important Changes to StocksCafe for 2018!

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2017 is coming to an end, and I hope this has been a good year for you and your investments.

This year, StocksCafe continued to enjoy great support from users. More than 300 users have contributed, either monetarily, reporting errors, or suggesting improvements.

Unfortunately, as it is costly to license financial data, StocksCafe will very likely end this year in the red again despite the support. Note that I am considering my time to be completely free. I believe we can certainly achieve more as only 10% of the monthly active 3,000 users contributed monetarily. (Current total registered users is >7,000)

Therefore, in order to encourage more people to contribute and also to reward those who have been contributing generously to StocksCafe, in 2018, StocksCafe will introduce the following changes:

Switch to Contribution Mode
Only users who have contributed monetarily to StocksCafe will enjoy full access to all features. More limitations will be imposed on free users, including popular features such as portfolio management tools.

I will try to set these limitations in a way that new users will have a trial period to learn what StocksCafe can offer them before deciding if it is worth contributing to.

Contribute Now
To encourage users to contribute now, the cost of becoming a Friend of StocksCafe for a year for those who donate on or before 31 Dec 2017 will always stay at SGD35 yearly (or SGD3.5 monthly) as long as contributions are continuous. From 1 Jan 2018, I intend to increase it.

If StocksCafe has been useful to you in your investment journey, I hope you would consider contributing to StocksCafe so that it can continue to improve and provide more value to you.

Happy investing!

34 Comments

Leave a Reply to median Cancel reply

  • Suggest that additional market charge extra fee. Extra getting more market in the list should pay more fee. This is fair for those only have portfolio in 1 single country. The expense getting higher because now stock cafe cover more exchange.

  • The extra cost is coming from data for the additional exchanges, so we need to promote StocksCafe to HK and US investors, of which there are a lot more than SG investors.

    I’m sure Redditors from r/investing would be interested in this platform for example, once the US data is more fully integrated (the screener! As an aside, I suggest making the screener more prominent). You could start a thread there, Evan, and get lots more eyeballs.

  • @cyberpigworld, I would say for now the only market that I am paying extra for is US which is little relative to APAC. This is because US data is competitive hence it is significantly cheaper. APAC is sold as a package by my upstream provider. So, it is still fine for now I think ๐Ÿ™‚

    @jiayi, That is a good suggestion. Sure. I will do that once more US integration is closer to completion.

  • @harold, yet to implement that but yes I intend to give free users up to 30 transactions (lifetime). The 30 transactions or so is to let them see what StocksCafe can compute for them if they use it.

  • stockscafe definitely has been extremely useful for me thus far but im curious about this option:
    “For every SGD 200 contributed, you will become Friends of StocksCafe for as long as it exists.”
    is this for real? this literally means i pay SGD 200 once and that’s it…
    doesn’t seem to make much sense to me….

  • @swb90, thank you for considering to support StocksCafe!

    Yes, you literally contribute SGD 200 and thats it. It is because SGD 200 would be 5 years plus of membership. We are both taking a risk. You might not actually want to use StocksCafe after 1-2 years for whatever reason? StocksCafe might close down before 5 years?

    My side of risk is simpler. As the site continue to grow, SGD200 certainly will not be sufficient to keep it running forever.

  • evan – if i choose to subscription now at $35 per year, what will be the renewal fees come next year when it is due? will i get the lock down of $35, or the newly adjusted price?

  • Hi Evan,

    This is my first year using the platform. I have decided to be a paid customer but still not sure whether to take up the annual ($35) or lifetime ($200) membership.

    If I sign up for the annual membership this year, would I still be able to get the lifetime membership for $200 next year if I desire to do so?

  • @ngkangyu, it depends. I will likely increase the lifetime membership price for next year or may do away with that option all together. I would prefer not to make any promises at this point. Hope you understand.

  • Hi Evan, I have two accounts in Stockscafe, one to track my personal portfolios while the other to track my joint portfolio with my wife as well as her investments. This is so she has access to the joint investment any time she wants without being confused with mine. With this change, I am considering to cancel one account and consolidate all the portfolios into one Stockscafe account. Is there a “pain-free” way of exporting the transactions in an account so that it can be imported into the other? Thanks.

  • Hi Evan, I’d suggest you also approach SGX and see if they’ll agree with some tie-ups/sponsorship for your site? Its a win-win situation.

  • @sandwicher, the last time I suggest something like that to them was rejected outright. Although that was maybe more than two years ago.

  • Wa price increased! Didnรขย€ย™t see this update last month ๐Ÿ™

    Anyway just wanted to say keep up the good work! Really liking this service so far. The move to pay to use might be painful for us free users, but ultimately will (hopefully) ensure the longevity of this platform.

  • lifetime membership most worth it but abit steep for me, still student… definitely will support once i start working, earliest june… or when there is big discount haha

  • @nereid, ha.. only small increase ๐Ÿ™‚ Simply to encourage users to join now. I will always keep StocksCafe as cheap as possible. My hope is that many users pay a little then a few users pay a lot because I prefer to have StocksCafe as accessible as possible.

    @median, no problem. Take your time. Big discount is unlikely though ๐Ÿ™‚

  • Hi Evan, I have a similar situation where I want to combine my account with my wifeรขย€ย™s. Will be converting the combined account into a paid account. Hope to hear your advice. Thanks. @evankoh

  • Oops, seems like I’ve missed the boat for $35 too… =\

    But definitely a good platform, so I will support. Let me dig my wallet for funds! =D

  • suggest for monthly subscription to be increased. otherwise it doesn’t make much financial sense for people to support lump sum for annual basis – same price as monthly (other than saving time)

  • Hi Evan,

    Very young investor here hahaha, willing to pay from my savingsfor the subscription as it is very useful.
    Can i check if the $200 for lifetime memberships still applies?

  • Hi Evan, I’ve also paid for a year’s subscription via ibanking yesterday and seems not able to drop u a msg. Can u check? Thks.

Evan Koh

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