Sevices Offered and Account Features

The Motley Fool is quite a bit different from many stock tips services. Nowadays, stock tip services tend to roll up a bunch of banking and investing features into one mobile app. You can save, budget, trade, and learn all in place with these apps, and many people appreciate the efficiency and convenience of that integration and automation. But The Motley Fool isn't an app. It doesn't offer savings or spending accounts or make trades for you. What it does, instead, is provide you with the in-depth analysis you need to make informed investment decisions and make carefully-researched stock recommendations. So if you're looking for expert stock tips and a great financial education, The Motley Fool is a great service for you. The company has an impressive track record of recommending winning stocks and investment strategies. It delivers these recommendations through a wide range of online and emailed publications, ebooks, podcasts, and more. In fact, The Motley Fool is its own little media empire. Whether you know just a little or a whole lot about investing, you'll find plenty to learn by spending time with its publications.

Screenshot from thefool.com 12/7/2020

Fees

If you've been researching stock tips and other personal finance apps—many of which you can subscribe to for just dollars a month or even for free—you may be in for a little sticker shock when you compare the costs of The Motley Fool's various subscriptions to those of its competitors. Plans start at $149 per year and range into the thousands of dollars for the most comprehensive, bundled, or industry-specific options. The company's lowest price plan, Rule Your Retirement, focuses on retirement planning and offers subscribers model retirement portfolios, mutual fund and Exchange-Traded-Fund (ETF) recommendations, Social Security tips and strategies, and in-depth coverage of retirement-related topics. For a more general view, you might choose the company's $199 Stock Advisor subscription and receive two personalized stock picks per month, The Fool's current ten Best Buy picks, recommendations for foundational stocks to add to your portfolio, and a wide range of educational and investor community resources. At the other end of the spectrum, you can select industry-specific subscriptions like Mogul, The Fool's service bundle for investors who want to conquer the real estate market ($4,999) or One, The Fool's most complete set of services. For $13,999, you get it all and then some.

Customer Experience

The Motley Fool offers anyone interested in learning about investing a tremendous amount of information on its website, free of charge. Articles on the company's home page are updated daily with market reports and opinions. The breadth of archived articles is vast as well. You can also sign up for free newsletters on topics of interest to you, listen to Motley Fool podcasts, and more without spending a dime. Of course, they reserve their best analysis and tips for paying customers, but you still get an awful lot of value just for dropping by.

We  also like the Motley Fool's content style. Their writers are plain-spoken and offer explanations of complex topics that are remarkably free of tech jargon. We give the company points for clearly laying out its full subscription offering, plan features, and pricing.

Reputation and Accreditation

Stock tip publications and services are not regulated or accredited by the SEC or similar institutions. That's an important thing to keep in mind when choosing a stock tips service and it makes it all the more imperative that investors do some research into the reputation of each company or app they are considering. 

The Motley Fool receives 3 stars from consumers reviewing the service on Trustpilot. That means they received plenty of both good and bad reviews. Frankly, people who lose money in the market when using a service such as this are more apt to complain than winners are to praise the service. But what really impressed us were the thoughtful, personalized responses the company wrote to both positive and negative reviews. No robo-responses or terse referrals to a customer service line for this company. Even in its responses, the company endeavored to educate customers on investment strategies and options, as well as on its services. We noted a similar pattern of response on the Better Business Bureau's website, where The Motley Fool receives a B rating. We give the company high marks for its efforts to resolve complaints. Incidentally, most complaints had to do with automatic subscription renewals and refund requests post-renewal. We advise anyone signing up for The Motley Fool services to read all of the fine print and be very clear on the company's cancellation, auto-renewal, and refund policies. It's a pricey service and the company's policies are quite strict.