American Association of Individual Investors Review

American Association of Individual Investors Ratings at a Glance

AAII Quick Summary

You can choose from 6 different membership options. This includes 3 basic memberships with varying membership lengths. The longer-term plans offer a free copy of “A Lifetime Strategy for Investing,” a book written by AAII Founder James Cloonan. Cloonan's book offers a comprehensive guide to fundamental investing concepts and strategies to help you become a smarter, more successful investor.  

• A 1-year membership is $49 with a $29 offer exclusive to direct mail.
• The other 3 membership plans are for the A+ Investor tools, which include real-time analysis of your actual portfolio, expert stock picks and more.

In addition to its membership options, it also offers a variety of standalone tools and resources like a stock screener, research packages and more. If you bundle everything, you can get up to 40% off as an AAII Platinum member.

AAII is an easy platform to use. Regardless of which membership you choose, you can move through the onboarding process quickly. Once you’ve joined, you’ll get full access to each area of the website so you can start exploring all the webinars, checking out the model portfolios and playing with the stock screeners right away. 

If you’re feeling a little lost when you first join, AAII has put together a handy user guide that will show you how to navigate the different areas of your home page dashboard and the other tools that it offers.

To use the A+ investors’ portfolio analyzer, you need to manually input each of your stocks, and the setup process can be tedious if you have a large, diversified portfolio. You’ll also need to manually update it if you buy or sell — not as user-friendly as it could be. Even so, it’s still incredibly useful. 

Once all your stock data is inputted, the platform can automatically analyze your portfolio and give you customized insights into how well-diversified you are and which stocks you might want to consider selling or adding to rebalance your portfolio.

Overall, the educational resources and research tools are laid out in an easy-to-understand way so that new investors can immediately start learning more about stocks and the fundamentals of investing. Even for those who feel like they’re at a loss as to where to start, AAII has information and resources that make it as easy as possible to figure out what you need and where you should start.

The education and research options are what an AAII membership is all about. With the basic membership, you’ll be able to:

• Take part in live webinars and investment seminars.
• Access a virtual classroom packed with courses and in-depth guides on all the fundamentals of investing.
• Review and copy a range of model portfolios, each tailored to a different investing style.
• Receive monthly issues of the AAII Journal, packed with stock market insights and the latest research.
• Enjoy free and discounted home study programs and materials.
• Read through in-depth and regularly updated analysis of broker platforms to help you find the one that best serves your investment strategy.
• Study comprehensive guides to ETFs, mutual funds, bonds and other securities that you might want to add to your portfolio.

When you go beyond the basic membership, the educational opportunities just keep piling up. Even if you’re not ready to invest in one of the more expensive A+ investor plans, you can add on specific tools and features one at a time to create a membership package that’s tailored to your specific learning and research needs.

AAII has a very responsive customer support system that you can reach by phone during office hours or by email anytime. What really sets it apart, however, is the large and active community of members. Members in the U.S. can join one of the dozens of local AAII chapters. 

Depending on your specific chapter, this will give you access to regular meetings with other members where you can discuss and exchange ideas. You’ll also get live seminars and workshops as well as direct access to your chapter leaders whenever you have questions about the platform or about investing in general. 

Find your local AAII chapter as soon as you join. This benefit is available at even the most affordable, basic membership level.

AAII has so many tools and resources, it’s hard to know where to start. The best thing about the wide range of offerings, however, is that it’s easy to scale to your experience level. If you’re brand new to the world of investing (and wouldn’t know your way around a screener if you saw one or don’t have a portfolio yet to analyze), start with a basic membership to gain access to the classes, recorded webinars and local chapter meetings.

As you gain skills and build your portfolio, you can level up your membership, adding specific tools as needed, while enjoying the discounted rates that members get.

For those who want a powerful stock screening tool, AAII offers one of the best — and most affordable — options on the market. Advanced investors will appreciate the ability to comb through stocks according to any combination of 2,000 criteria. Meanwhile, beginners will appreciate the preset screening filters based on criteria used by famous, successful investors like Warren Buffett, Benjamin Graham and more.

AAII Mobile App

AAII doesn’t offer a mobile app for its research, screening and portfolio analysis tools. With that said, its web dashboard is compatible with mobile devices so you can still have all your tools available, no matter where you’re logging in.

The ever-expanding database of webinars, classes and learning material alone make an AAII membership worth it for investors of all levels. However, it’s the affordable advanced research tools like its stock screener, portfolio analyzer and expert research reports that really sets AAII apart from the pack. 

While it doesn’t offer trading directly on the platform, the learning and research capabilities it does offer make it a must-have for any independent investor who’s managing their own portfolio. There’s no substitute for the in-depth analysis and access to an active community of investors to help you refine your investing strategy and optimize your portfolio.