Best Congress Stock Trackers Compared (2026)
The main congress stock trackers compared side by side - Capitol Trades, Quiver, Unusual Whales, Autopilot, Dub and AlphaYou. What each covers, what it costs, and which ones only copy trades.
If you've searched "best congress stock tracker" more than once, you already know the actual problem: half the results look identical, and the differences that matter are buried three clicks deep in a pricing page. The single biggest difference is one most roundups skip entirely, which is whether the tool shows you filings or actually buys stock with your money.
Direct answerCapitol Trades is the best free congress-only tracker. Quiver Quantitative and AlphaYou are the strongest picks if you want congress trades read alongside insider Form 4s and 13F filings. Autopilot and Dub are not trackers at all - they are copy-trading apps that place the trades in your own brokerage account.
- Seven tools cover congressional trading seriously, and they split into research tools and copy-trading apps. Coverage and pricing were checked in August 2026; prices change often, so treat the paid column as a starting point and confirm on each site before subscribing.
- This is the fork that matters most, and it decides everything else. Capitol Trades, Quiver, Unusual Whales, Barebone.ai and AlphaYou are research tools: they show you the filing and you decide what to do. Autopilot and Dub are brokerage products that mirror a chosen portfolio into your own account automatically, which means an account minimum, a management relationship, and far less control over individual positions. Autopilot asks for a $500 minimum per portfolio; Dub lets you start at $100. Neither is a bad product, but if you wanted to read filings and were sold an automated account, that is a mismatch worth catching early.
- Every tool on this list draws from the same public filings, so no product can show you a congressional trade before it is disclosed. The STOCK Act gives members up to 45 days to report a transaction, and that ceiling applies equally to a free site and a $60 a month one. Across the 3,278 individual congressional transactions AlphaYou logged with a usable disclosure date since January 2025, excluding bulk portfolio filings that report hundreds of positions at once, the median gap between trade and disclosure was 24 days, and 236 of them, about 7%, landed later than the 45-day window allows. What a tracker can genuinely compete on is how fast it surfaces a filing once it becomes public, and how much context sits next to it. Speed of disclosure is not the same thing as speed of trade, and any tool advertising "real-time congress trades" is describing the former.
The Options Side by Side
Seven tools cover congressional trading seriously, and they split into research tools and copy-trading apps. Coverage and pricing were checked in August 2026; prices change often, so treat the paid column as a starting point and confirm on each site before subscribing.
| Tool | What it covers | Free tier | Paid from | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Capitol Trades | Congress only, around 200 filers | Full access, no signup | Free | Free browsing with deep filters |
| Quiver Quantitative | Congress, insiders, 13F, contracts, lobbying | Limited | About $25 a month, billed yearly | The widest alternative-data spread |
| Unusual Whales | Options flow, dark pool, congress | None | Roughly $48 to $60 a month | Options traders who also want congress data |
| AlphaYou | Congress, insider Form 4, 13F, contracts, influencers | Free forever | $29 a month or $199 a year | One alert feed across every filing type |
| Barebone.ai | Insiders, congress, 13F through AI chat | Free to start | Not published | Mobile-first question and answer |
| Autopilot | Copies congress and investor portfolios | One portfolio | $29 a quarter or $100 a year | Mirroring a portfolio automatically |
| Dub | Copies congress and creator portfolios | None | $9.99 a month or $89.99 a year | Copy trading with a broker built in |
Trackers vs. Copy-Trading Apps
This is the fork that matters most, and it decides everything else. Capitol Trades, Quiver, Unusual Whales, Barebone.ai and AlphaYou are research tools: they show you the filing and you decide what to do. Autopilot and Dub are brokerage products that mirror a chosen portfolio into your own account automatically, which means an account minimum, a management relationship, and far less control over individual positions. Autopilot asks for a $500 minimum per portfolio; Dub lets you start at $100. Neither is a bad product, but if you wanted to read filings and were sold an automated account, that is a mismatch worth catching early.
The 45-Day Lag Nobody Can Engineer Around
Every tool on this list draws from the same public filings, so no product can show you a congressional trade before it is disclosed. The STOCK Act gives members up to 45 days to report a transaction, and that ceiling applies equally to a free site and a $60 a month one. Across the 3,278 individual congressional transactions AlphaYou logged with a usable disclosure date since January 2025, excluding bulk portfolio filings that report hundreds of positions at once, the median gap between trade and disclosure was 24 days, and 236 of them, about 7%, landed later than the 45-day window allows. What a tracker can genuinely compete on is how fast it surfaces a filing once it becomes public, and how much context sits next to it. Speed of disclosure is not the same thing as speed of trade, and any tool advertising "real-time congress trades" is describing the former.
What a Free Tier Actually Gets You
Capitol Trades is the real outlier here: genuinely free, no account required, and built by 2iQ Research on top of an established insider-filing database. If congress trades are all you want, it is hard to justify paying anyone. The paid tools are selling one of two things: breadth, meaning insider and fund filings in the same place, or delivery, meaning an alert that reaches you rather than a dashboard you have to remember to open. Check which of those you are actually buying, because a free tier that delays everything by a day is a preview, not access.
Where AlphaYou Fits
AlphaYou bundles congressional filings with insider Form 4s, 13F fund disclosures, government contract awards and tracked influencer calls in one alert feed, on the logic that these signals read better together than alone. A congress purchase next to an insider buy in the same sector tells a fuller story than either does by itself. The free plan stays free rather than expiring into a trial. Where it is a weaker fit: there is no options flow, and it does not execute anything, so if you want trades placed for you, Autopilot or Dub is the honest answer.
FAQ
What is the best free congress stock tracker?
Capitol Trades, on balance. It is free, needs no account, covers roughly 200 filers and filters by chamber, party, committee and trade size.
Can any tracker show congress trades in real time?
No. The STOCK Act allows up to 45 days to disclose, so every tool is limited by the same filing window. Trackers compete on how quickly they surface a filing after it is public, not on beating the disclosure itself.
Is a congress-only tool or a bundled one better?
Congress-only is cheaper and simpler. Bundled tools cost more but let you read a congressional trade next to insider and 13F activity on the same stock, which is usually where the useful context sits.
Do congress stock trackers place trades for me?
Most do not. Autopilot and Dub do, because they are copy-trading brokerage products rather than research tools.
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