Sharesight review: The best share portfolio tracker in 2024?

Complete Sharesight review from a long-term investor and Sharesight customer. Find out if this portfolio tracker is right for you, and whether you can trust them with your portfolio

Do you know your true trading history, investment decisions, performance and tax reporting obligations? If not, maybe you should keep reading to find out how you can use the Sharesight portfolio tracker.

Sharesight is a quality portfolio tracker that helps DIY investors keep track of the true performance of their investment portfolio and their investment decisions. Sharesight allows you to track holdings and your total investment portfolio all in one place to give you a complete picture of where your money is at. This is important because pretty much every brokerage tracking platform will not be accurately recording transactions – cost base, dividends, share splits, or even other asset types such as Cryptocurrency.

I have used Sharesight over the past five years and love it – it makes keeping track of the true performance of my portfolio easy, and of course, a huge benefit is it makes tax time a breeze with the click of a button! Sharesight tracks your investment decisions, capital growth, splits and dividends to calculate your investment’s true returns, and then calculates your applicable income and capital gains tax including any benefits or offsets such as franking credits or capital gains tax discounts.

Verdict: Sharesight is the best portfolio tracking tool for DIY investors. FREE 4 months premium for CaptainFI readers (affiliate link)

CaptainFI is not a Financial Advisor and the information below is factual review information, not financial advice. This website is reader-supported, which means we may be paid by advertising on the site, or when you visit links to partner or featured sites. For more information please read my Privacy Policy, Terms of Use, and Financial Disclaimer.

Introduction to Sharesight portfolio tracking

The free Sharesight portfolio tracker tool is comprehensive, intuitive, and has powerful reporting features that are easy to use. Sharesight’s service is reliable and the customer support team does actually get back to you if you have any questions or issues. If you’re looking for an investing tool that can help simplify everything, this might be right for you.

Sharesight monitors all the information you need to stay on top of your investments (and tax) and provides an unbiased view of your trading history and investment performance to help you make smart decisions with confidence – it is used by over 300,000 investors worldwide.

Sharesight can be fully and securely integrated with your share trading platform or stockbroker and can be fully automated meaning you do not need to manually add any information whenever you make an investment. They provide advanced portfolio performance reporting in the form of easy-to-read graphs, as well as comprehensive financial reporting which you can use to file taxes yourself or provide to your accountant, financial advisor or tax specialist.

I have used Sharesight review over the past five years as a DIY investor to track my investment portfolio performance, my trading history, and tax reporting obligations on my journey to Financial Independence, ever since I was a novice share trader. Sharesight actually free for the majority of those on the path to Financial Independence who use an index tracking ETF or LIC strategy (since you will have less than 10 unique stock holdings), and it is hugely time saving.

Sharesight operates on a ‘freemium’ business model, where if you want to upgrade and track more than 10 unique stocks you need to sign up for a premium account. I have recently upgraded to a premium account and find the additional tools worth it.

In this Sharesight review, I will show you exactly what is in my portfolio and how I use Sharesight to track it, as well as how I use the Sharesight tax reports to file my personal tax return.

I have successfully used Sharesight five times to conduct my personal tax return, managing returns from a seven figure investment portfolio – it really is as simple as confirming dividends against your bank statement, clicking ‘print tax report’, and handing it to your accountant!

Managing investments

So many DIY investors ask me something along the lines of… “Hey CaptainFI, how do you manage your portfolio? Do you use Excel or which accounting software did you buy? Or do you just hand a shoe-box full of ASX trade notes to the accountant?“. I’m not even kidding, there are about 10 of these sitting in the inbox right now.

It is useful to review your portfolio between purchases so you can make proper decisions. Portfolio management also becomes important when it is tax time; any dividends, extra shares, or bonus shares you receive from a Dividend reinvestment plan (DRP) or Dividend share substitution plan (DSSP) you are liable to pay income tax for.

I used to keep track of everything in an Excel spreadsheet, but it got really clunky. As much as I used to geek out over Excel tables of budgets, net worth, and investments which I kept meticulous records of, I just don’t care anymore these days.

I let Sharesight do it all for me – the best part, it’s 100% free if you have under 10 holdings. If for some reason you want to hold more than 10 stocks, or if you want to manage multiple portfolios – then you can subscribe to their premium plan which is pretty cheap anyway in my opinion for what you get and the time it saves you. With Sharesight there are no more pesky Excel spreadsheets as it combines information from all of your share trading platforms.

Features of Sharesight Portfolio tracking

I have personally used the Sharesight portfolio tracker to keep track of my investment decisions for years now and have a pretty good grasp on how to use it. It has some pretty awesome features, my favourite hands down would have to be the email confirmation trade importing tool. Sharesight literally saves me from having to do hours and hours of manual spreadsheet data entry, check sum calculations, and pissing around with tax office rules and regulations to make sure I’m not inadvertently committing tax fraud.

It is also a convenient way to check on the performance of my portfolio for my Networth updates. Otherwise, I simply open up Sharesight once or twice a year and blow the dust off the login screen, confirm all the imported data about all of the ETFs I have bought that year is correct (the automatic data imports do it all behind the scenes for me), verify all of the dividends paid into my brokerage account, and then print out my Tax summary which I hand to the accountant. Then I log out and leave it to accumulate dust for the next financial year!

I’ll run through what I think some of the important bits are;

Using Sharesight to track your share portfolio

Sharesight is easy to use. They have detailed user guides and its very intuitive from a web design point of view. The Sharesight community forum is also packed with great suggestions about how to get the most out of your account. Just don’t be logged in all the time hawk-eyeing your stock performance, as this can lead you to make poor emotional decisions about your investments!

In all seriousness though, Sharesight makes it super easy to accurately see the detailed performance of your portfolio and help predict future income. Most brokers won’t take into account things like dividends or share splits, and Sharesight automatically tracks all of these actions for your portfolio meaning you get an up to date and real time answer for exactly how your performance has been.

That’s why Sharesight is the best way to understand what’s happening with the financial markets, historical data, and record data – because it is unbiased and not encouraging you to trade!

Below is a screenshot of my Vanguard VTS US total market ETF, showing the performance of the investment since Aug 2019, with dividends collected along the way.

I think the best way to use it is simply on the portfolio review section where you can generate nifty little graphs (check out below), but if you are more into analytics and spreadsheets, you can download all of the reporting from the ‘reports’ tab.

If you want to see examples of my Sharesight reporting on all investments in my share portfolio in action, you can check out my Networth updates where I show you exactly what I see. As you can see, Sharesight tracks each of my shares and will report performance individually, and then totals them to give the overall portfolio return. This includes Dividends, Capital growth, and shares purchases, and Sharesight even keeps track of things like franking credits and share splits.

Sharesight share Checker

Sharesight has a brilliant tool called the ‘Share Checker’ – which just sits above your portfolio graph in the Sharesight dashboard. The Sharesight share checker lets you visualize the performance of a listed share (or LIC, or ETF) by seeing the performance of (approx) $10,000 worth of that security over time. You can select different time intervals, but I prefer to select the longest time period available.

The share checker spits out a graph showing its performance over time with graphical time stamps of $ to represent dividend payouts. In the summary box below you can see the capital gain, dividends, currency gain and total returns had you held this security over the selected time period. It is invaluable for getting a feel for the market, diversification, and understanding the powerful compounding effect time has on investments.

Importing data to Sharesight

There are increasingly clever ways to import data – for example, the functionality exists using API integration for many online stock brokers to automatically import your live purchase data from your brokerage account without the need to ever manually input the transactions.

If your share trading platform or stock broker doesn’t support API integration, the way I personally do it is by using email trade confirmations to automatically update my account.

All you need to do is follow the user guide on Sharesight and it ends up being about three clicks to generate a unique email trade confirmation account which you then provide your broker with to send your contract notes to every-time you make a trade, it automatically gets replicated onto your Sharesight account.

Trust me, it is worth importing all of your data to Sharesight so you get a complete picture of your investments and historical performance.

Tracking property data with Sharesight

You can track your property investments in your account by adding them as custom investments (property funds). This allows you to enter the original paid price and transaction costs, as well as enter an updated valuation of the house if you ever decide to get it revalued (or you use a service like RP data to get estimations based on nearby property transactions).

It is probably not the best way to calculate property valuations for taxes as it doesn’t consider things like depreciation schedules or negative gearing to work out your cost base or other factors, but it is a neat way to track it for your net worth.

I’ve manually added property data to my account but found it not particularly useful, however, I would love to see Sharesight integrate with a service like RP data for real time tracking of property prices – this would be a game changer.

Tracking cryptocurrency with Sharesight

Sharesight’s portfolio tracker is a good tool for investors who also trade in more than one asset class. With Sharesight, you can track cryptocurrency, stocks, ETFs, and managed funds to get a complete picture of your investments in a single place without needing to combine data from your cryptocurrency exchange or wallet.

Sharesight’s performance tracking suite includes market data for over 100 major cryptocurrencies with intraday updates (5 minute schedule) as well as powerful reports including Performance, Portfolio Diversity Analysis, and Future Income (upcoming), and this is on track to expand as new cryptocurrencies are added.

Examples of coins you can add include;

• Bitcoin (XBT)
• Ethereum (ETH)
• Tether (USDT)
• XRP (XRP)
• Binance Coin (BNB)
• Dogecoin (DOGE)
• Monero (XMR)
• Cardano (ADA)

However, if you have other cryptocurrency coins you can manually add them as custom investments too.

Tracking your superannuation with Sharesight

“Personally, I find Sharesight an extremely effective all-in-one solution for managing my SMSF, tax reporting and non-super investments. The ability to see my portfolio’s true return and the effectiveness of my investment strategy at a glance makes it a powerful tool in managing my super fund.”

Andrew Bird, Chairman of Sharesight

All SMSFs (Self Managed Super Funds) are required to prepare annual financial statements, lodge an annual return, and be audited. Xero is one of the most popular accounting tools, and you can actually synchronise your Sharesight and Xero accounts which creates a seamless solution between investment portfolio management and accounting. This allows you to integrate details of super contributions, share purchases, sales, or dividends with the functionality available in your account at Xero – allowing for easy reconciliation against transactions made.

For those who do not know what synchronization is: this means that any information entered into one system will automatically populate the other system when linked.

Setting up your Sharesight account

It took me less than an hour to set up my account and import all my data, although I needed customer support to help me (I’m good at flying planes, not tax stuff lol). Now that my automatic data importing is set up through both API and email contract notes confirmations across my brokers, I really don’t have to do anything at all.

If you are stuck on how to set up your account, contact customer support and check out the Sharesight community forum which has solutions to most of the frequently asked questions.

Once a year at tax time, I verify all of the dividend payments using the year data share performance (which is handy for predicting income for future years). Then I simply click ‘Print’ on my tax reports (tax reporting documents) and hand them to my accountant. It couldn’t be more simple – it is hugely time saving.

You can set up an individual account and 1 portfolio using the free plan or the starter plan, but with investor or expert paid plans, you can set up 4 and 10 portfolios respectively. This is a great way to manage investment personal information, share performance, portfolios and tax statements for different family members – the Sharesight reporting does it all with excellent reporting.

Sharesight app review

Sharesight had an app however it got pretty old and outdated, and was retired in August 2022. The web client is fully mobile responsive, so it is actually really good to view on mobile devices like phones or iPads. Just use your phone browser to navigate to Sharesight and log on as normal. It has full functionality.

Sharesight pricing

The best part is, if like most DIY investors, you have under ten holdings (like most of the FI community) then it’s completely free. If you hold the Aussie FI portfolio of ultra low cost index tracking ETFs such as Vanguards VTS and VEU, and the Betashares A200, then you’ll have absolutely no worries.

Even If you’re a tinkerer like me (and tinkering has proven to reduce your investment returns so do so at your peril) and you own a few more holdings, you’ve got up to ten holdings to play with before you start having to pay for the service.

How much will you have to pay? Who knows, it’s irrelevant to all of us on the path to Financial Independence! We know keeping costs low is crucial to maintaining our low cost of living and maximising our savings rate and minimising our time to reach FI. With the fantastic tools that are ETFs and LICs, we can have global diversification in thousands of individual companies in just one holding, so there is no need to ever have as many as ten – and you can always use the free plan!

Although many don’t need to pay for premium, if you use this bonus sign up link for CaptainFI readers, it will apply the special 4-month free bonus to your account should you ever need to upgrade. I actually think it is worth becoming a paying customer for the extra services and features (such as being able to view total returns over open and closed positions), but it is not necessary. The paid version is cheaper if you pay upfront, but you can also pay monthly over a year

In April 2022, Sharesight increased their pricing structure. The CEO, Doug Morris made the following statement in a letter to Sharesight users;

It’s been seven years since we last increased our prices but that’s about to change. From 4 April 2022, the prices on all our premium plans will increase.

The Starter plan provides all the features of a free plan, for up to 20 holdings instead of 10. The current yearly price for the Starter plan is at $171, which will increase to $228 from 4 April 2022.

The Investor plan is by far our most popular offering. In addition to  all the great features currently available, there are two new features that I want to tell you about.First, the Investor plan will now allow you to track up-to four portfolios instead of three.Second, you’ll get access to the Contribution Analysis Report, previously available only on the Expert plan. Offering deeper insights into which investments contribute to your performance, it’s a great tool to help you effectively tweak your portfolio.The current yearly price for the Investor plan is at $279, which will increase to $348 from 4 April 2022.

The Expert plan caters to complex investment tracking needs, especially those involving different tax entities. From this week on, we are offering 10 portfolios in this plan instead of 5. The current yearly price for the Expert plan is at $432, which will increase to $588 from 4 April 2022.

Doug Morirs, CEO Sharesight

Is Sharesight Premium worth it?

Whilst Sharesight is completely free for users with under 10 holdings, using a paid account (premium) gives you more functionality and is necessary if you have over 10 share holdings, and allows for calculating capital gains. After just a few weeks of using it, I became increasingly confident in the premium tracking platform and I think it’s great value.

I was initially sold on Sharesight because it was totally free, but the company recently reached out and suggested I try the premium version – they upgraded my account to a premium trial just to give it a go, and of course, I am going to talk about it here.

At first glance, the main functionality is identical to the free version, however, because premium now includes a backdated list of all of my stock trading history and associated performance from when I started tracking it in January 2018, I get a nifty screenshot showing the total return.

9.46% p.a. is not bad, a bit of total performance drag from my previous ‘stock picking’ activities but pretty close to the total 10% figure I like to work on as the average index return. We aren’t getting earth shattering returns, but we know over the long term, index approach strategies are going to provide the highest returns (or rather the highest-risk adjusted returns?) as no one can consistently outperform the market over the long term.

There is no need to get greedy and risk my financial independence by gambling on individual socks.

To get an idea of how this all worked, and the breakdown of how each stock performed I can get a screenshot of all of my previous holdings which is as follows;

If you couldn’t guess, yes I tried some stock picking through the Barefoot Investor Blueprint Subscription but eventually, I got wise, read JL Collins The Simple Path to Wealth and adopted an index investing strategy. When I look at my total returns, and compare it to the index, I should have just stuck with the index!

Finally though, this is the gold-mine. The All Reports section. This is where the value really lies, because Sharesight lets you automatically print off these awesome reporting documents. The most important ones to me are;

• Taxable Income Report
• Capital Gains Tax Report
• Sold Securities Report

This is because these are the main ones I hand to my accountant to get my annual tax return done for me

Out of interest, the other ones I like to look at here are the

• Performance Report
• Diversity Report

The other ones I like to look at here are the

• All Trades Report
• Unrealised CGT Report

These give me an idea about the size, performance, diversity, transactions, and tax liabilities that the portfolio currently has, which help me predict my future income for FIRE purposes.

So Bottom line: Sharesight premium is definitely not required for your average punter DIY investor (especially if you’re using the core index investing strategy like I am with under ten holdings), but I honestly think it is a fantastic product, especially the reporting, and I will be using it in the future. I have found the paid account great. If you have multiple holdings, fancy yourself as a bit of a trader, or if you just need to track multiple portfolios, track family members portfolios, or just want advanced reporting, then its probably a no-brainer to just get the premium version (which after all, is a tax deductible expense!)

If you use this bonus sign up code for CaptainFI readers you can get four months of premium for free when you sign up for a yearly subscription.

The Sharesight team

To be honest, as the end user you probably don’t really care about this. But, since the team are providing such a bloody awesome free tool I think it would be rude not to acknowledge their efforts and generosity

Tony and Scott Ryburn are a very switched on and successful father-son duo. Tony had been a committed and enthusiastic investor in both the Australian and New Zealand share markets for decades, and worked as a director in the finance industry. His Son Scott worked extensively in the project management and Information Technology industry, managing computer networks, working as an IT analyst and managing high end home automation.

Together they dreamt about creating a better way of managing investments. Tony had spent decades as an investor, frustrated with the record keeping tools available at the time. Around 2006 they got serious about working on the project, bringing on board two highly experienced software developers.

Since then it has grown into the tool we use today and is managed by a great team across their development team in Wellington (New Zealand), and a management team in the Sydney (Australia) office.

The Sharesight team are active on the Sharesight community forum where you can post if you have questions or need help.

Sharesight review Conclusion – is Sharesight worth it?

Sharesight is a simple and easy way to track and manage your cash accounts, investment portfolio performance and tax obligations. It is a fantastic innovative product that frequently releases new features. The software can be fully integrated with your share trading platform or stock broker, so you don’t have to manually add any information when making an investment.

If that wasn’t enough, you’ll find advanced portfolio performance reports and tax reporting in the form of graphs as well as comprehensive financials for you to save reports which you can use to file taxes by yourself (or provide them to your accountant). Sharesight has saved me countless hours of pain-in-the-arse busy work at tax time and has let me say goodbye Excel and time consuming individual reports – no more spreadsheets!

After trialing the premium version which came highly recommended by a friend, I actually think it is well worth it – I’m converted. Because I have previously held more than 10 stocks, this actually goes right back to my very first purchases and shows me how my entire portfolio went, as well as gives me some additional tools to play with. Sharesight gives me a complete view of different portfolios and investments spread across other platforms, using live pricing, and makes the calculation of my total portfolio worth.

Previously I have just said for people to sign up and use the free version (which is great) but actually, the premium plan is amazing if you have larger or more complex investment portfolios (or a history that you want to track).

It was great to chat with both Dave and Prashant from Sharesight about the tool, and if you think Sharesight could help you, head over to the Sharesight website for more details about how to join and start benefiting from it, completely for free! If you are curious, they also regularly offer educational webinars and the Sharesight support team is always happy to answer questions.

Verdict: Sharesight is the best portfolio tracking tool for DIY investors. FREE 4 months premium for CaptainFI readers (affiliate link)

Further reading

• Check out the Sharesight Episode of the CaptainFI Podcast for a detailed interview with Prashant, Sharesights CMO

• Read my Net Wealth Updates to see how I have used Sharesight to track my FIRE portfolio over the years.

Frequently Asked Questions about Sharesight

I often get asked about Sharesight so I decided to compile a list of FAQs below to help out

What is Sharesight?

Sharesight is a free comprehensive portfolio tracker tool that displays your investment portfolio. You can generate comprehensive performance reporting, tax reports, and graphs. Sharesight considers capital growth, dividends, Dividend reinvestment, stock splits, and can also be used to track real estate and cryptocurrencies.

Is Sharesight legit?

Yes, Sharesight Pty Ltd is a legitimate Australian company (ABN 36 151 146 726) that is registered with ASIC. They provide easy and accurate portfolio tracking and reporting. I have personally used them for over five years, and have had no issues submitting their tax reporting documents to my accountants for my personal tax return.

Is sharesight secure?

Yes, Sharesight is safe. I have used it for over five years to manage my seven-figure net worth portfolio with no security issues. All data is encrypted, and Sharesight uses enterprise-grade data centres which employ a number of electronic and physical security measures. Sharesight is also subject to regular security audits. Sharesight is also registered with ASIC and subject to their regulations. You can only access your account and personal data with secure password authentication, or via the Google Identity service.

Is Sharesight free?

Yes, if you plan to only hold less than 10 shares in your portfolio then Sharesight is 100% free. You can upgrade to a premium subscription if you decide to hold more than 10 shares in your portfolio. This makes it a perfect, free solution for index fund ETF investors.

What is the Sharesight API?

The Sharesight API is its Application Programming Interface. This is software that allows you applications to share data, and is used in Sharesight to transfer data from your broker into Sharesight to automatically track any changes to your portfolio – such as share purchases, sales, splits or dividend payments. The Sharesight API links to a number of brokers.

What do I do if the Sharesight API doesn’t work?

If the Sharesight API doesn’t work, the first thing to do is submit a ticket for technical support. You can then choose to either opt for email trade confirmation note (contract notes) integrations or manually upload your details via a CSV spreadsheet or if you only have a small number of transactions, do it by hand and enter each trade.

Is there a Sharesight coupon?

Yes. Sharesight offers a 25% discount if you pay annually, and you can get 4 months premium for free using the CaptainFI bonus sign-up code.

How much does Sharesight cost?

Sharesight is free for users with under 10 holdings, and a premium subscription is tiered depending on the service you need. Currently, when paying annually a starter plan is just $19 per month (30 holdings), an investor plan is $29 per month (unlimited holdings and 3 portfolios) and an expert plan is $49 per month (unlimited holdings and 5 portfolios). Sharesight offers a 25% discount if you pay annually, and you can get 4 months premium for free using the CaptainFI bonus sign-up code.

Who runs Sharesight?

Sharesight is currently run by CEO Doug Morris, along with a team of experienced executives including cofounder and executive director Tony Ryburn.

Who owns Sharesight?

Sharesight is a privately owned company that was started in 2006 by father and son team Tony and Scott Ryburn in New Zealand.

Does Sharesight have an app?

Sharesight used to have a mobile application called ‘Sharesight reader’ available for both Android and Apple users. The app did not get as many development updates as the website client, and had limited functionality compared to the web client. There were a number of inconsistencies and complaints with the app, and as the Sharesight web client is fully responsive and a better option to access your account than the app, it was discontinued.

Can I do my tax return with Sharesight?

Sharesight supports the preparation of tax returns using investment data from your individual holdings (assets held), trading history (buy and sell dates), dividend tracking, capital gains, share splits, currency fluctuations and other tools using a combined view across multiple brokerage accounts. You can generate tax reports using your Sharesight portfolio tracker account and ditch the Excel spreadsheet.

Which Share trading platforms does Sharesight Support?

Sharesight supports all major share trading platforms. Check out what Sharesight offers on their free plan, investor plan and premium plan here.

How do I track my portfolio overall return?

If you have under 10 shares then Sharesight will calculate your overall return over tax year or specific time periods with one subscription. If you have over 10 shares and want to view closed positions or other new features then Sharesight provides multiple plans between the free and the highest level subscription.

Is Sharesight easy to use?

For a first time user with a free account Sharesight is simple to use – I picked it up within a few minutes. With a few quick clicks, you can view your own funds, tax time reporting and performance, and dividend tracking to compare to your planned allocation goals. One reason is the community forum where I have found ways to manage my portfolio smarter.

How do I track capital gains at tax time?

Sharesight tax reporting will calculate capital gains and your cost base from historical data and brokerage account records. However, this is only available in premium plans (starter plan, investor plan or expert plan) which also include new features and advanced reporting like income reports and cumulative growth reports.

What is the best free Portfolio tracker?

Sharesight is by a country mile the best free portfolio tracker. Some other alternatives include: Navexa, StockstoTrade, Morningstar portfolio manager, Marketwatch portfolios, Personal Capital, SigFig, Betterment and Yahoo Finance. Rest assured, after you have checked the rest you will likely end up choosing Sharesight.

Where Can I find Sharesight reviews?

For more personal Sharesight reviews, you can head to the CaptainFI Facebook Group: Financial Independence Chat Australia and post asking for reviews – you will find hundreds of Sharesight users who will be more than happy to explain how they use it and their personal experience. Otherwise, just check out Google searches!

Share trading platforms and brokers to choose from

Be sure to check out the following reviews on brokers that offer online trading to buy Australian and international shares. As always, make sure you are fully educated before making a choice on any particular one.

Big 4 banks

• CommSec Share trading [this is who I started out investing with]
• NAB Trade
• ANZ Trade
• Westpac Trade

Fintechs and smaller banks

• Pearler [This is who I currently invest through]
• SelfWealth
• Stake
• Superhero
• OpenTrader
• eToro
• CMC Markets
• IG MarketsGroup
• Superhero

Microinvesting platforms

• SpaceShip – A pooled investor micro-investing app
• Raiz Invest – An awesome tool that lets you ’round-up’ your purchases to the nearest whole amount and invest the difference
• CommSec Pocket – CommBank’s response to micro-investing tools
• Stake – A cool investing tool that lets you shop for more than 3,500 American shares and ETFs with zero brokerage fees
• Pearler Micro – Pearlers Micro investing tool that lets you invest into 8 ETF based funds using Auto invest and roundups.