Pure Benchmarks · Head to head

Capitally vs Sharesight

Short answer

Pick Capitally for decision attribution. Sharesight has no capability here that Capitally lacks. They overlap on 3 of the 9 capabilities scored here. Neither one covers peer baseline, which is the gap our own product, Pure Benchmarks, is built around.

Capitally and Sharesight get compared constantly because both sit in the performance attribution category and both start from your real holdings. They are not the same product. Capitally is the closest thing to a buy-and-hold counterfactual outside our own product, benchmarking your live portfolio against a frozen version of itself (Trial only, no free plan). Sharesight is the strongest record of what happened, which is the input attribution needs, rather than attribution itself (Free plan up to 10 holdings, paid plans above that). This page scores both on the same capability list, shows the 1 places they actually diverge, and names what neither of them does. Pure Benchmarks is our own product and appears in the table with its own gaps marked.

What Capitally does that Sharesight does not

1 capability: Decision attribution. Runs up to ten simultaneous benchmarks, one of which can be a buy-and-hold version of your own portfolio, which is the counterfactual most tools never build. Splits every return figure into capital gain, dividend income, currency movement, fees and tax rather than reporting one opaque percentage. That matters for investors who will maintain their own data by hand in exchange for keeping it out of an aggregator entirely.

What Sharesight does that Capitally does not

Nothing, on the capabilities scored here. Every box Sharesight ticks, Capitally ticks too. The difference between them on this page is price and fit rather than capability. A free plan tracks up to 10 holdings with no credit card. Benchmarking is listed on the Starter plan and above.

Where Capitally and Sharesight are the same

Both cover Your real portfolio; Self-serve retail; Any broker. On these, the choice comes down to price and interface rather than capability. Price: Capitally — trial only, no free plan; Sharesight — free plan up to 10 holdings, paid plans above that.

What neither Capitally nor Sharesight does

5 capabilities are missing from both: Allocation vs selection; Peer baseline; Advisor review; Decision journal; Free real output. Pure Benchmarks, our own product, covers 3 of them: Peer baseline; Advisor review; Free real output. It does not cover Allocation vs selection; Decision journal.

Which one to choose

Capitally is built for investors who will maintain their own data by hand in exchange for keeping it out of an aggregator entirely. Sharesight is built for investors who want accurate multi-broker performance, dividend and tax records with a benchmark attached. The capability table above is the fastest way to settle it: find the row you actually care about and read across. Main limitation of Capitally: no broker connection of any kind. Data arrives by CSV or Excel upload, spreadsheet paste or manual entry, with presets per broker, and the vendor states plainly there is no background auto-sync. Main limitation of Sharesight: contribution and benchmark comparison rather than attribution to decisions.

How this comparison works

Which matters more to you: what Capitally does, or what Sharesight does?

Decision journals and attribution tools are both marketed as decision tracking and they are not the same thing. A journal records your reasoning before the trade. Attribution measures the outcome afterwards. This page compares attribution tools and marks the journal capability as its own row.
The second question is who is allowed to buy it. Several of the strongest attribution engines in this category are sold to advisors or to institutions, and the attribution module specifically sits above a retail price point.
The third question is what the result is measured against. Every tool here can measure against an index. Only one measures against other real portfolios as well.
Capabilities and prices were read from each vendor's own published pages on the date shown. Vendors change both.
Pure Benchmarks is our own product. It does not produce a Brinson decomposition and it has no journal, and both gaps are marked in the table rather than described around.
FactSet, Bloomberg PORT, Confluence StatPro and Zephyr also serve this category and are institutional products sold through direct sales; they are outside the scope of a page about tools an individual can actually buy.

The comparison

Capabilities verified against each vendor's published pages on September 17, 2026.

Capability	Capitally	Sharesight	Pure Benchmarks
Decision attribution	Yes	No	Yes
Allocation vs selection	No	Partly	No
Your real portfolio	Yes	Yes	Yes
Self-serve retail	Yes	Yes	Yes
Any broker	Yes	Yes	Yes
Peer baseline	No	No	Yes
Advisor review	Partly	No	Yes
Decision journal	No	No	No
Free real output	No	Partly	Yes
Price	Trial only, no free plan	Free plan up to 10 holdings, paid plans above that	Free account

✓ yes · ~ partly · ✗ no

What each capability means

Attributes results to the individual changes you made, not only to holdings or sectors

Classic attribution answers which holding or sector drove the return. Decision attribution answers a narrower and more uncomfortable question: did your trading decisions beat doing nothing? It is a buy-and-hold counterfactual — the tool freezes the portfolio as it stood before the change, runs that do-nothing portfolio forward alongside the real one, and reports the dollar difference. Those are different calculations and most tools only do the first.

Produces the classic allocation, selection and interaction decomposition

The institutional standard, usually called Brinson attribution. It separates the return you earned by weighting a group differently from the benchmark from the return you earned by picking better holdings inside that group.

Runs on your own linked accounts rather than a model or a manually built portfolio

Attribution on a hypothetical portfolio is an exercise. Attribution on the account you actually own, with the trades you actually placed, is a review.

An individual can sign up and use it without an advisor licence or an institutional contract

Much of this category is sold to advisors and asset managers. If attribution sits behind an advisor tier or a sales call, it is not available to the person whose money it is.

Works across brokerages instead of being tied to one

A tool locked to a single broker can only attribute the part of your money that sits there, which for most people is not the whole picture.

Compares the outcome against other real investors, not only against an index

An index is one baseline. What comparable investors did with the same market over the same days is a second one, and it is the one that tells you whether the decision was unusual or ordinary.

Can be used to review decisions somebody else made on your behalf

If an advisor or a managed account is making the changes, attribution is the only way to see whether those changes earned their fee.

Records your reasoning before the decision, as a journal

Journalling captures intent in advance; attribution measures outcome afterwards. They are routinely confused because both are called decision tracking, and almost no tool does both well.

Free tier produces real attribution output rather than a trial countdown

Several tools here have a free plan where attribution specifically is the thing the free plan does not include.

Every tool in detail

Capitally

The closest thing to a buy-and-hold counterfactual outside our own product, benchmarking your live portfolio against a frozen version of itself.

Best for: Investors who will maintain their own data by hand in exchange for keeping it out of an aggregator entirely.

Pricing: A 14-day trial with no credit card, then paid Sailor, Navigator and Captain tiers. Sailor caps at 1 project and 50 assets; Navigator lifts the asset cap; Captain adds stock options and private equity.

Strengths

Runs up to ten simultaneous benchmarks, one of which can be a buy-and-hold version of your own portfolio, which is the counterfactual most tools never build
Splits every return figure into capital gain, dividend income, currency movement, fees and tax rather than reporting one opaque percentage
Supports time-weighted, money-weighted and IRR side by side, so contributions do not masquerade as performance
Never connects through Plaid, Yodlee or any aggregator; data stays out of a third party entirely

Limitations

No broker connection of any kind. Data arrives by CSV or Excel upload, spreadsheet paste or manual entry, with presets per broker, and the vendor states plainly there is no background auto-sync
The comparison target is an index, fund or your own frozen portfolio, never other real investors
No permanent free tier; the 14-day trial is the only unpaid access
Entry tier caps at 50 assets and a single project

Sharesight

The strongest record of what happened, which is the input attribution needs, rather than attribution itself.

Best for: Investors who want accurate multi-broker performance, dividend and tax records with a benchmark attached.

Pricing: A free plan tracks up to 10 holdings with no credit card. Benchmarking is listed on the Starter plan and above.

Strengths

Separates capital gains, dividends and currency movement, which is the decomposition most retail tools skip
Benchmarks against any of more than 750,000 supported stocks, ETFs and funds
Excellent multi-broker and multi-currency record keeping

Limitations

Contribution and benchmark comparison rather than attribution to decisions
Benchmarking sits on the paid plans
No comparison against other investors

Pure Benchmarks

A buy-and-hold counterfactual for every change you made: each decision is scored against the do-nothing portfolio you would still hold if you had left it alone.

Best for: Individual investors reviewing their own decisions, or an advisor's, without an advisor-tier subscription.

Pricing: A free account produces the decision report on a linked portfolio. Attribution is not held back for a paid tier.

Strengths

Freezes the portfolio as it stood immediately before each change and runs that buy-and-hold version forward alongside the real one, so every trading decision carries its own dollar figure against doing nothing
Adds a second baseline beyond the index: verified connected portfolios in the same standardized risk category
Applies identically to changes an advisor or workplace plan made on your behalf
Read-only by design and unable to move money in any linked account

Limitations

Does not produce the classic Brinson allocation, selection and interaction decomposition; the unit of analysis is the decision rather than the sector weight
No decision journal. It measures what a change did, not what you expected it to do
Requires a read-only brokerage connection; there is no manual-entry-only portfolio
Does not track real estate, private holdings or self-custody crypto wallets

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Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between Capitally and Sharesight?

Capitally is the closest thing to a buy-and-hold counterfactual outside our own product, benchmarking your live portfolio against a frozen version of itself. Sharesight is the strongest record of what happened, which is the input attribution needs, rather than attribution itself. On the capability list scored here they overlap on 3 and differ on 1, with Capitally alone covering Decision attribution.

Is Capitally or Sharesight better value?

Capitally: trial only, no free plan. A 14-day trial with no credit card, then paid Sailor, Navigator and Captain tiers. Sailor caps at 1 project and 50 assets; Navigator lifts the asset cap; Captain adds stock options and private equity. Sharesight: free plan up to 10 holdings, paid plans above that. A free plan tracks up to 10 holdings with no credit card. Benchmarking is listed on the Starter plan and above. Value depends on which of the differing capabilities you will actually use, not on the headline price.

Can Capitally or Sharesight compare my portfolio to other real investors?

Neither does. Both compare you against an index or a model allocation rather than against other real portfolios. That comparison is what Pure Benchmarks, our own product, is built to provide, by sorting connected portfolios into nine standardized risk categories and ranking inside them.

How were Capitally and Sharesight compared?

Both were scored against the same performance attribution capability list, checked against each vendor's own published pages. Anything a vendor does not publish is marked as unlisted rather than estimated. Pure Benchmarks is included as our own product with its gaps shown in the same table.

Keep exploring

See how a specific firm's advisor decisions compare to other firms:

New here? Read the portfolio benchmarking FAQ or the Pure Benchmarks blog.

This page is an information baseline for comparison only. It is not investment advice and not a recommendation to buy, sell, replace, or transfer any specific asset, account, or firm. Past performance does not guarantee future results. All figures shown are illustrative.