Frequently asked questions about Pure Benchmarks | The next evolution of investment tracking apps.

Pure Benchmarks Q&A

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What Is Pure Benchmarks

: Pure Benchmarks is the first platform built exclusively for retail investors that takes the data the investment industry has always had and gives it back to the people who generated it. By anonymously uniting real investors and securely aggregating their real portfolio data, Pure Benchmarks delivers objective, verified benchmarks and rankings that show you which firms manage money the best in your exact asset risk class. No opinions. No projections. Just the truth you always deserved but never had access to.
: For the first time you can simply look and know. Know how your portfolio is performing against your true peers. Know how your firm ranks against others in your risk class. Know whether your money is truly being managed well or just being managed. Pure Benchmarks gives you the objective data that turns uncertainty and doubt into clarity and confidence.
: When you link your portfolio, Pure Benchmarks immediately analyzes your actual holdings and determines your asset risk class based on your real composition — such as 100% stock, 60% stock / 40% bonds, and so on. From there your portfolio is placed into one of nine standardized categories we call the Retail Nine and benchmarked against your true peers — investors with the same real world risk profile.

Here is what makes that so different from anything that exists today. The industry says "in theory this mix should return 6%." Pure Benchmarks says "the actual investors in the 60/40 category did return 5.8%." Not a model. Not a projection. Not a backtest. The real take home performance of real people after all the friction of real life has been paid.

Unlike the industry's bad habit of benchmarking most retail investor portfolios against the S&P 500, which fails to account for your specific sector weightings and market cap, Pure Benchmarks benchmarks you on a true apples to apples comparison. Because that is the only comparison that actually means anything.
: Pure Benchmarks is not a portfolio tracking app. And that distinction matters. Most portfolio tracking apps do nothing more than what you already get from your broker's own website — your balances, your positions, your performance in isolation. They were originally built so that investors who used multiple firms could see all their portfolios in one place without logging into several different sites. Convenient. But not powerful.

Pure Benchmarks is something entirely different. We are a benchmarking and rankings platform that delivers data you cannot get anywhere else. We don't just show you what you have. We show you how you are performing against your true peers, how your firm ranks against others in your exact risk class, and the objective truth about how money is actually being managed across the platform. We answer your biggest question: "Am I getting the best management and advice I can get?"

Our mission is to become the industry standard benchmark trusted and used by retail investors everywhere. Not because we tell you what to do. But because we finally give you the objective truth to make informed decisions for yourself.
: No. Pure Benchmarks does not work with, partner with, or answer to any financial advisors or firms. We exist exclusively for retail investors. Our data is objective precisely because we have no relationship with the industry we are measuring.

Privacy & Security

: No. Pure Benchmarks is a completely read-only platform. We connect to your brokerage through secure read-only data aggregators like Plaid. That means we can only receive your portfolio data — nothing else. No trades can be made. No money can be moved or transferred. Ever. Pure Benchmarks operates with bank level security and your money stays exactly where it is, completely untouched.
: Completely. Pure Benchmarks never uses your name, your brokerage account number, or any personally identifying information on the platform. When you link your portfolio, Pure Benchmarks assigns it a unique anonymous number. That is all anyone ever sees. No one knows whose portfolio they are looking at. Just real, anonymous data doing what it was always meant to do — empowering the investors who generated it.
: Other users can see your anonymous portfolio's individual holdings, number of shares, position values, total portfolio composition, sector weightings, and market cap. They cannot see your name, your brokerage account number, or anything that identifies you personally. Your portfolio is just a number — completely anonymous, completely protected.
: No. Pure Benchmarks does not sell your data to anyone — not to financial firms, not to advertisers, not to anyone. Our business model is a subscription. Our incentive is to serve you, not to monetize your information. Your data is used for one purpose only: to power the benchmarks and rankings that benefit every investor on the platform anonymously.
: Pure Benchmarks is a benchmarking and data platform, not a financial advisor or investment manager. We do not provide financial advice, manage money, or execute trades. Because of this Pure Benchmarks is not required to register as an investment advisor. We comply fully with applicable data privacy laws including CCPA and align with emerging open banking standards such as CFPB Section 1033 regarding your right to access and share your own financial data.
: Pure Benchmarks is built around the principle that your data belongs to you. All portfolio data is anonymized the moment it enters our system. We comply with applicable data privacy regulations and follow federal open banking standards regarding consumer financial data rights. Your connection to your brokerage is governed by Plaid's own privacy and security standards, which are among the most rigorous in the industry. You can revoke access at any time from your settings page.
: Yes, annually. Federal open banking standards require that you reauthorize your data connections once every 12 months to confirm your consent. This is not a full relink of your account — it is a simple one-click confirmation that you still want Pure Benchmarks to access your portfolio data. Your connection, your data, and your history are all preserved. We will remind you before your reauthorization is due so nothing is interrupted.
: When you delete your account, your personal information and portfolio connections are removed from the platform. The anonymized, aggregated benchmark data that your portfolio contributed to — which has no connection to your identity — may continue to inform platform benchmarks as part of the collective dataset. No individually identifiable data is retained after account deletion.

Account Linking & Connectivity

: Not yet. Pure Benchmarks connects to firms and brokerages through Plaid, one of the most trusted financial data aggregators in the world. If Plaid connects to your firm, we can too. We maintain and update a verified list of every firm we currently support. Search for your firm to see if we connect to it today.

There is a real battle happening right now over who controls your financial data. Banks and brokerages make money from your data. Pure Benchmarks stands on the other side of that battle. We believe your data belongs to you and we will always do everything in our power to expand connectivity and give you the access you deserve.
: Some brokerages and institutions do not currently support Plaid connectivity. Fidelity, eToro, and the Thrift Savings Plan are examples of institutions that do not connect through Plaid at this time. For TSP accounts, Pure Benchmarks supports manual entry for the standard TSP fund options.

We track connection availability across all major institutions and update our supported list as Plaid expands its integrations. If your firm is not currently supported you can register your email and we will notify you the moment it becomes available — one notification, no spam.
: Plaid connections can occasionally disconnect due to brokerage security updates, password changes, or multi-factor authentication requirements. When this happens Pure Benchmarks will notify you and prompt you to relink your account. Your historical data and performance history are preserved. Relinking restores your connection and picks up from where your data left off.
: Yes. You can link as many accounts as you have across as many supported brokerages as you like. Each account is tracked and benchmarked independently within its appropriate category. If you have a Robinhood account and a Vanguard account they each get their own ranking and benchmark within their respective risk categories.
: No. Pure Benchmarks detects accounts that are already linked and prevents duplicates. If you attempt to link an account that is already active on your profile you will be notified that the account is already connected.
: The moment you link your portfolio, Pure Benchmarks backdates your performance tracking 15 days. So from day one you already have two weeks of real objective data working for you.
: Because objectivity is everything we stand for. Pure Benchmarks is built on empirical data — real, verified, and trusted. To maintain that standard we can only work with data we can directly access and confirm. Previous trade history, stock splits, and other historical market events that impact portfolio performance are not accessible to us in a way that meets that standard.

So rather than guess, estimate, or model what your portfolio may have done — which is exactly what the rest of the industry does — we start where the truth begins. The moment your data is in our hands it is clean, verified, and objective from that point forward. That is the only data Pure Benchmarks will ever deliver.

Performance & Methodology

: Pure Benchmarks uses a methodology called Modified Dietz — an industry standard time-weighted approach that measures the performance of your invested capital only. This means your return reflects what your actual holdings did in the market — not the impact of cash you deposited or withdrew. A $5,000 deposit into your account is not a performance gain. A market move is. Pure Benchmarks separates those two things so your return is a true measure of how your investments performed, nothing more and nothing less.
: Most brokerages calculate performance using a simple method that blends cash flows and market returns together. That approach inflates or deflates your return depending on when you deposited or withdrew money — and it makes it nearly impossible to compare your performance against other investors fairly.

Pure Benchmarks uses a time-weighted methodology specifically designed to eliminate that distortion. The goal is an objective, apples to apples comparison across every portfolio on the platform regardless of size, timing, or custodian. That is why the numbers may differ — and why ours are more meaningful.
: Because the S&P 500 is the wrong benchmark for most retail investors and using it is one of the financial industry's most persistent failures. The S&P 500 is a collection of 500 large cap U.S. companies selected by committee. If your portfolio holds bonds, international stocks, small cap or mid cap positions, or any mix other than pure large cap U.S. equity — comparing it to the S&P 500 is mathematically meaningless.

DALBAR's Quantitative Analysis of Investor Behavior has documented for decades that retail investors chronically underperform the market — in large part because they are measured against a benchmark that does not reflect what they actually hold. Pure Benchmarks measures you against portfolios with the same real world composition as yours. That is the only comparison that actually tells you anything true.
: Pure Benchmarks updates your portfolio once daily using end-of-day closing prices from the market. Updates are reflected on the platform after the daily processing job completes, typically in the early morning hours. You will always see a timestamp showing exactly when your data was last updated so you know precisely what you are looking at.
: Markets close at 4:00 PM Eastern. After close, pricing data is processed and your portfolio is updated overnight. If you are viewing the platform before that overnight process completes, you will see yesterday's closing data. This is by design — Pure Benchmarks only shows you verified, complete end-of-day data, never partial or intraday estimates.
: Yes. Dividends and capital gain distributions are reflected in your portfolio's performance through their effect on your holdings value and any reinvested shares. Pure Benchmarks also notifies you when a dividend or capital gain is received so you always know when income events occur in your portfolio.
: The MAX period shows your portfolio's return from the very first day it was tracked on Pure Benchmarks to today. Because portfolios are linked on different dates, each portfolio's MAX period begins from its own individual link date. This means two portfolios in the same category may have MAX returns measured over different time periods. Pure Benchmarks discloses this transparently — MAX return is measured from each portfolio's individual link date and may span different time periods.

Categories & Rankings

: Pure Benchmarks analyzes the actual holdings in your portfolio and calculates a weighted risk score based on the real composition of what you own. Every holding — stocks, bonds, ETFs, mutual funds — is assigned a risk score based on its true asset allocation. Your portfolio's overall risk score is the weighted average of all your holdings combined.

That score places you into one of nine standardized categories called the Retail Nine, ranging from Category 1 (conservative income portfolios) to Category 9 (100% equity growth portfolios). This happens automatically every time your portfolio is updated.
: Yes. If your portfolio composition changes — through buying, selling, or market drift — your risk score may shift enough to move you into a different category. When that happens Pure Benchmarks updates your category automatically and notifies you so you always know where you stand.
: Your ranking is always calculated within your current category. If you move from Category 8 to Category 9, your ranking resets within the new category and you are benchmarked against your new peers going forward. Your historical performance data stays intact.
: Through your Nest. Every portfolio on Pure Benchmarks is placed into a Nest based on the firm that holds it. If your portfolio is with Edward Jones you are in the Edward Jones Nest. If it is with Robinhood you are in the Robinhood Nest. Your Nest turns what has always been a black box into a public scoreboard. For the first time you can see exactly how your firm performs for clients like you — and how it stacks up against every other firm on the platform.
: Both. Your category gives you the deep apples to apples comparison within your exact risk class. The Global Rank opens up the entire platform — every portfolio and every firm represented on Pure Benchmarks, ranked and visible. You can see the best performing portfolios all the way down to the least and exactly which firm manages each one. From one day to one week to the full history of how long each portfolio has been on Pure Benchmarks.
: Yes. That is exactly what we are built to do. Pure Benchmarks treats every brokerage like a sports team. If the Fidelity 80/20 category consistently outperforms the Robinhood 80/20 category, that is not an opinion or a marketing claim. That is objective proof of which firm's environment actually produces better wealth outcomes for real clients.

The rankings and benchmarks you see on Pure Benchmarks are derived directly from the real portfolios of a firm's own clients. Not a model. Not a curated sample. The actual raw performance of real people whose money is being managed by that firm right now.
: Pure Benchmarks requires a minimum of 250 portfolios per category before a benchmark carries full statistical confidence. At 250 portfolios the benchmark delivers 93.8% accuracy at a 95% confidence level — the standard required to stand up to professional scrutiny. This is one of the reasons the Pioneer program exists. The first 250 portfolios in each category are not just users — they are the foundation that makes the benchmark real.

Risk Tolerance Assessment

: Your risk tolerance category is determined by an eight-question assessment designed around the most predictive factors identified in peer-reviewed financial planning research. The assessment measures two things that most tools miss: how you actually respond to financial losses emotionally, and what you have actually done during real market downturns if you have investment experience.

Each question is weighted based on its documented predictive power. Questions about your emotional and behavioral response to losses carry the most weight because research consistently shows these are the strongest predictors of how investors actually behave when markets decline — not the answers that sound most rational in a calm moment.

The assessment takes approximately two minutes to complete.
: More questions improve statistical reliability but do not always improve accuracy. The most widely cited academic research on risk tolerance measurement — published in the Journal of Financial Planning — found that among all question types, loss aversion and self-assessment questions explain the most variation in actual investor portfolio behavior. Economic theory questions add no predictive value once those two categories are already captured.

Our eight questions are built around the question types the research identifies as most predictive. A longer questionnaire that includes weaker question types does not produce a more accurate result — it produces a more time-consuming one.
: Three meaningful differences.

First, we weight questions based on their documented predictive power. Behavioral loss response questions — how you react when your portfolio drops — carry higher weight than objective capacity questions. Most commercial questionnaires treat all questions as equally important. The research shows they are not.

Second, we calibrate loss scenario questions to your actual portfolio value. When we ask how you would respond to a 25% drop, we show you what that means in dollars based on your real linked portfolio — not a hypothetical $100,000 that may have no relationship to your situation.

Third, for users who have been invested during past market downturns, we cross-reference your stated answers against what your portfolio data actually shows you did during those periods. No other retail platform can do this because no other retail platform has your verified linked brokerage data. We do.
: Your category reflects what you are actually comfortable with — not just what your portfolio currently holds. Categories 1 through 3 are Income — lower equity exposure, lower volatility. Categories 4 through 6 are Balanced — moderate equity exposure and moderate volatility. Categories 7 through 9 are Growth — higher equity exposure and higher volatility.

Pure Benchmarks compares your tolerance category to your portfolio's composition category and shows you whether they are aligned, moderately diverged, or significantly diverged. That gap — between what you said you are comfortable with and what your portfolio actually holds — is one of the most important insights a financial advisor surfaces in a client meeting. We surface it directly.
: Yes. We recommend retaking it if your life circumstances change significantly — a job change, approaching retirement, a major financial event, or simply if more than a year has passed since your last assessment. Research shows risk tolerance is relatively stable over short periods but can shift meaningfully with age and life stage changes.
: No. Pure Benchmarks provides objective data and benchmarking. We show you what your tolerance category is and how it compares to what your portfolio currently holds. What you do with that information is entirely your decision. Pure Benchmarks does not provide financial advice.

Workplace Retirement Accounts

: Workplace retirement plans have technical limitations that prevent accurate daily benchmarking. They use collective investment trusts without standard tickers, report data inconsistently through aggregators like Plaid, and don't provide the synchronized daily pricing our platform requires. We're focused on retail brokerage accounts and IRAs where we can deliver reliable, accurate performance tracking.

Notifications

The Pioneer Program

: The Pioneer Program is Pure Benchmarks' founding membership. The first 250 portfolios linked in each of the nine risk categories receive free lifetime Pro access to Pure Benchmarks — permanently, with no expiration. These are the investors who build the foundation that makes the benchmarks statistically meaningful. Without them there is no platform. In return they get the best price Pure Benchmarks will ever offer: free, forever.
: 250 is not an arbitrary number. At 250 portfolios per category Pure Benchmarks delivers 93.8% benchmark accuracy at a 95% confidence level. Below that threshold the benchmark does not yet carry the statistical weight needed to be fully trusted and defensible. 250 is the minimum for the data to be real. That is why it is the Pioneer number.
: Once the 250 free slots in a category are filled, Pioneer pricing continues in additional tiers — first at $5 per month for life, then at $10 per month for life — before standard pricing of $15 per month takes effect. All three tiers are considered Pioneer membership. We do not publish the number of slots available at each price tier, but once a tier closes it closes permanently. The earlier you join, the better the price you lock in for life.
: Yes — one way. If you are currently paying $10 or $15 per month and your employer is on our supported workplace list, linking your workplace retirement portfolio using your employer's unique code converts your account to $5 per month for life. This is the only post-signup pricing conversion available. Accounts already at $5 per month or free are not affected — pricing never moves upward, only downward.
: Pioneer status and pricing are tied to your founding membership. If you cancel your account your Pioneer slot and locked pricing are released and cannot be reclaimed. We recommend reviewing your options before cancelling if you are a Pioneer member.

Pricing & Account Management

: Pure Benchmarks is available through a simple monthly subscription. Pioneer members receive free lifetime Pro access. Visit our pricing page for current plan details and availability.
: Yes. You can cancel your account at any time directly from your settings page. No hoops. No phone calls. No hassle. Cancellations take effect at the end of your current billing cycle — there are no partial refunds for unused time.
: No. Pure Benchmarks has no messaging, comments, or user interaction of any kind. This is intentional. The moment subjective opinions enter the picture, the truth gets clouded. Pure Benchmarks protects you from that by keeping everything grounded in one thing only — real, objective data.
: No. Pure Benchmarks does not give financial advice and we never will. We are not here to tell you what to do. We are here to give you what you have never had — objective, transparent, real world data so that you can make informed decisions with your advisor, or for yourself.

Hetty (Coming soon)

: Hetty is Pure Benchmarks' built-in AI assistant. She lives entirely within the platform and has access only to Pure Benchmarks data and the verified market data we already use. She has no access to the internet, no access to external news or commentary, and cannot provide financial advice.

What she can do is answer your questions about your portfolio using objective, verified data — peer comparisons, performance attribution, category analysis, and more. Think of her as having a highly informed analyst on call who has read every portfolio on the platform and can answer your questions with data, not opinion.
: You can ask Hetty things like: How does my portfolio compare to others in my category? Which of my holdings are commonly held by the top performing portfolios in my risk class? What is my sector weighting compared to the category average? How many portfolios similar to mine are outperforming me this month?

Hetty answers from verified platform data only. If she does not have enough data to answer your question she will tell you so directly rather than guess.
: No. Hetty operates entirely within Pure Benchmarks' anonymized data environment. She cannot identify you personally, cannot access other users' individual portfolio data, and cannot share anything outside the platform. All peer comparisons Hetty provides are aggregated — she will tell you what the top performing portfolios in your category have in common, but she will never surface another individual user's portfolio details.
: No. Hetty is an analytical tool, not a financial advisor. She surfaces objective data and observations. She does not recommend trades, allocations, or strategies. What you do with the information she provides is entirely your decision — ideally in conversation with a qualified financial advisor if that is appropriate for your situation.
: No. Pure Benchmarks uses the Anthropic API to power Hetty. Under Anthropic's commercial API terms, your data is never used for model training — this is a firm policy with no opt-in or opt-out. API data is deleted from Anthropic's systems within 7 days. Your portfolio data never touches any AI training pipeline.

The truth about your portfolio is no longer out of reach

For the first time, see exactly how your portfolio performs against your true peers — investors with the same real world risk profile as yours. See how your firm ranks against every other firm on the platform. Know whether your money is being managed well or just being managed.

No opinions. No projections. Just the objective data you always deserved.