Tactfolio is a free visual builder and backtester for rules-based investing strategies. Instead of writing code, you build a strategy as a tree of plain blocks (if this, then that), test it against decades of real daily prices, and then let it run on paper or in your own Alpaca brokerage account. Your money stays in your own brokerage account: Tactfolio never holds it and never takes a cut of your trades.
What it does
You start from one of 63 classic strategies drawn from books and research papers, a strategy another member shared, or your own idea in plain blocks. Every backtest runs on real daily prices next to simply holding the market, showing growth, the worst drop, bad years, and what the strategy holds today. Trades are priced at the day’s close with a small cost on every trade, and no rule can see a later day’s prices. When you are happy with a strategy, Plus runs it every market day: follow up to 25 strategies on paper with a daily email of what each one holds and trades, or let one place its trades in your own Alpaca account.
Tactfolio is built to be checked, not just trusted. Its Research Lab publishes the sources, assumptions and numbers behind every strategy, with 107 sources cited and linked, and every published strategy marks the day its rules were fixed so its live record stays separate from its backtest.
Key features
- Visual no-code builder: strategies as readable blocks (If, Rank, Weight) with instant backtest reruns
- Backtests on real daily prices adjusted for splits and dividends, with drawdown, holdings and benchmark comparison
- 63 classic strategies from books and papers, each linked to its published source, plus community strategies ranked by the Tactfolio Score
- AI assistant access over MCP: connect Claude, ChatGPT, Codex, Cursor or another assistant, describe an idea in a sentence, and it builds the strategy, runs the backtest and saves it privately
- Paper trading with a daily email of each strategy’s trades, and live trading in your own Alpaca account using your own API keys
- Revision history for every strategy, so each save can be traced
- Free research library: ETF fees, returns and drawdowns, ETF comparisons and alternatives, 43 investing guides and 14 trading calculators
- Four starter patterns (trend following, buying dips, momentum rotation, fixed mix), each with ten years of history next to buy-and-hold QQQ
Who it is for
Self-directed investors who like rules-based, tactical strategies but do not want to write code, and quants who want a fast way to test an idea against real prices before committing money. It also suits readers of the classic tactical investing literature who want to run published strategies themselves rather than pay for signals. Note the limits: strategies are long only, on US-listed stocks and ETFs, on daily prices, with no crypto, options, forex or CFDs, and a backtest can show how a strategy held up in the past, not what comes next.
Pricing
Free: $0 forever, no card required, with 5 strategy builds a day and 10 AI assistant backtests a day. Plus: $12 a month, or $108 a year ($9 a month), adds unlimited builds and backtests, 25 paper strategies, 1 live strategy in Alpaca, 1,000 private strategies and 2,000 AI backtests a day. Pro: $29 a month, or $261 a year ($21.75 a month), adds unlimited paper and live strategies and 25,000 AI backtests a day on a priority lane. Plus and Pro start with a 14-day free trial. Prices may change; check tactfolio.com/pricing for the current details.
Image: official Tactfolio product screenshot, tactfolio.com. Information based on the official tactfolio.com website, checked November 7, 2026.
