Pure Benchmarks · Guide

How to Get a Free Investment Portfolio Review, and What It Should Measure

Short answer

Most free portfolio reviews are offered by firms that want to manage your money, so the review tends to end with a recommendation to move it. A useful review, free or paid, should measure five things: your real return after deposits and withdrawals, the risk level you are actually taking, what you pay in fees, how much sits in cash, and whether the changes made over the past year helped or hurt. You can get most of that without a sales conversation by linking your accounts to a read-only tool.

Search for a free investment portfolio review and most of what comes back is a consultation offer. That is not necessarily bad, but it helps to know what a review is supposed to tell you before someone else frames the answer. A review is an audit of results and costs. It should leave you knowing whether the portfolio is doing its job, not only what someone would do differently with it.

Who offers free portfolio reviews, and the catch

Brokerages, robo-advisors, wealth managers and independent advisors all offer free reviews, and the cost of the review is usually recovered through the advisory fee if you become a client. That creates an incentive to find problems that the reviewer’s own service solves. It does not make the review wrong. It does mean the findings are worth checking against numbers you can see yourself.

What a useful review measures

First, real return: what the portfolio earned after separating new money and withdrawals, over one, three and five years. Second, risk: the share in stocks versus bonds and cash, and whether it matches what you meant to own. Third, total cost: advisory fees plus fund expense ratios. Fourth, cash drag: money sitting uninvested and what it would have earned. Fifth, decisions: whether the trades made in the period beat simply holding what was already there.

Compare against the right yardstick

A review that compares a 60% stock portfolio with the S&P 500 will always make it look behind in a rising market and ahead in a falling one. The fair comparison is with portfolios taking similar risk. Pure Benchmarks, our own product, ranks linked portfolios against real investors in the same risk category for exactly this reason.

Doing it yourself without a sales call

You can gather most of these numbers from brokerage statements, but separating deposits from returns and tracking the portfolio you would have had without each change is tedious by hand. Linking accounts read-only to Pure Benchmarks produces the return, the risk-matched ranking and a Decision Benchmark score for each change on a free account, with no advisor involved and no ability to move money.

Questions to ask any reviewer

Ask what benchmark they used and why it matches your risk level. Ask whether return figures exclude your own contributions. Ask for total annual cost in dollars, not only a percentage. And ask what the portfolio would have returned if nothing had been changed over the period. A reviewer who can answer all four clearly is giving you an audit rather than a pitch.

Your current platform won't show you how your portfolio ranks against real investors in the same risk category. Create your secure Pure Benchmarks account and see exactly where you stand.

See Your Free Benchmark Report

Frequently asked questions

Can I get a free investment portfolio review?

Yes. Many brokerages, robo-advisors and advisors offer one, usually as a step toward managing your money. You can also review the core numbers yourself, or link accounts read-only to a tool such as Pure Benchmarks, our own product, on a free account.

What should a portfolio review include?

Real return after deposits and withdrawals, the risk level actually held, total fees including fund expenses, the amount held in cash, and whether the changes made during the period beat holding the previous portfolio.

How often should I have my portfolio reviewed?

Once a year is a reasonable rhythm for most investors, plus after any large change such as a new advisor, a rollover or a major market drop.

Is a cost-effective portfolio review possible without an advisor?

Yes. The numbers that matter are measurable from your own accounts. A read-only tool can calculate return, risk and the value of past changes without an advisory relationship.

What benchmark should a portfolio review use?

One that matches the risk you take. Comparing a balanced portfolio with an all-stock index misleads in both directions. Comparing with real portfolios at a similar risk level shows whether the result was unusual for that risk.

Keep exploring

See how portfolios at a specific firm rank against real investors everywhere else:

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.