A balance that went up isn't the same as a good return. A stock tracker isn't the same as a portfolio tracker. Most apps are built for the easy 20% of your portfolio — and ignore the private, real, and alternative assets where the real wealth is built.
Most apps show you the ending number. That's not performance — it's arithmetic. Real performance answers the question: did my money work harder than it could have elsewhere?
What other apps show
Portfolio overview
£142,400
Total value
Balance over time
What Portledger shows
Performance — inception to date
IRR
11.4%
True annualised return on cash deployed
TWR
14.2%
Time-weighted, removes contribution timing
vs S&P 500
+2.8%
You beat the index by this margin
vs FTSE All-Wld
+1.1%
After accounting for your UK tilt
What is IRR?
Internal Rate of Return weights each cashflow by when it happened. If you invested £10k in January and £50k in November, IRR correctly accounts for the fact that the November money only had one month to work. A simple % change can't do this.
What is TWR?
Time-Weighted Return eliminates the distortion caused by the timing and size of contributions. It answers: 'If I had invested £1 at inception, what would it be worth now?' — isolating your portfolio decisions from when you happened to add money.
Why it matters
Your balance increasing by £12,400 sounds great. But if the market went up 18% and your portfolio only returned 8.7% IRR — you underperformed by almost £10k of opportunity. Without these metrics, you simply don't know.
Stocks are well-served by existing apps. But for most serious investors, a significant portion of their net worth is in property, private companies, PE funds, collectibles — assets that are complex, illiquid, and completely ignored by generic trackers.
Generic trackers — Real Estate
Portledger — Real Estate
Generic trackers — Private Equity & Angel
Portledger — Private Equity & Angel
Generic trackers — Collectibles
Portledger — Collectibles
How Portledger stacks up against the typical stock-first portfolio tracker.
Feature
Typical tracker
e.g. stock-focused apps
Portledger
every asset, true performance
Performance metrics
Portfolio balance / P&L
Total value and £ change shown
Total value, £ change, % change, and breakdown by asset class
Internal Rate of Return (IRR)
Not available — cash-weighted return is complex
IRR calculated for the whole portfolio, each account, and each security
Time-Weighted Return (TWR)
Not available
TWR per period: YTD, 1Y, 3Y, 5Y, inception — isolates skill from timing
Benchmark comparison
Some show a stock index chart alongside your balance
IRR and TWR compared to FTSE All-World, S&P 500, and a balanced benchmark
Per-security performance
Simple unrealised gain/loss per holding
IRR and TWR per security, including holding period and contribution-adjusted return
Contribution-adjusted return
Returns include the impact of contributions, inflating the figure
IRR and TWR both eliminate the distortion from when and how much you invested
Asset class coverage
Stocks & ETFs
Core feature — live prices, buy/sell, dividends
Live prices, buy/sell, dividends, rights issues, splits — all cost-basis methods
Crypto & digital assets
Major coins supported; DeFi and wallets often missing
Ethereum wallet sync, CoinGecko prices, staking income, token classification
Real estate
Generic 'other asset' field at best — no property-specific logic
Mortgage schedule, LTV, rental income, operating costs, cap rate, IRR, what-if analysis
Private equity & VC
Not supported — no capital call tracking, no MOIC
Full PE lifecycle: capital calls, distributions, MOIC, DPI, TVPI, J-curve, timeline
Angel / seed investments
Treated as a fixed 'other asset'
Round-by-round tracking with equity %, dilution modelling, SEIS/EIS tagging
Convertible notes & SAFEs
Not supported
Daily interest accrual, cap + discount tracking, conversion flow to equity
Collectibles (art, watches, wine)
Not supported or very basic
Dedicated class with provenance, condition, revaluations, and CGT on disposal
Cash & savings accounts
Some support, rarely multi-currency
Multi-currency, ISA cash component, FX tracked across all accounts
Investment club memberships
Not supported
Connect your HWSW club: share of portfolio, adjusted cost basis, pass-through gains
Tax & compliance
UK HMRC capital gains
Basic gain/loss shown; Section 104 pooling often incorrect
Full HMRC rules: Section 104 pool, same-day, 30-day (bed & breakfasting), AEA applied
US Schedule D / Form 8949
Some support FIFO; short/long-term split may be manual
FIFO / HIFO / Specific ID; ST vs LT auto-split; Form 8949 detail; wash-sale flagging
SEIS & EIS relief tracking
Not supported
Relief amount, claim status, and CGT exemption clock per qualifying investment
Unrealised tax estimate
Rarely available
Forward-looking estimate: what would you owe if you sold everything today?
AI & automation
AI document parsing
Some support CSV import; PDFs rarely parsed accurately
Upload any PDF or CSV from any broker — AI reads and maps every transaction
Conversational portfolio Q&A
Not available
Porter, Harriet, and Chase — three specialised AI agents with your live portfolio context
Tax-loss harvesting alerts
Not available
Proactive alerts before tax year end with loss-offset opportunities and estimated savings
Daily portfolio digest
Basic price alert push notifications
Morning digest: portfolio value, biggest movers, upcoming events, jurisdiction-aware deadlines
Data & setup
Statement import
CSV only for most; PDF parsing hit-and-miss
PDF, CSV, and email import — AI handles ambiguous or poorly formatted statements
Multi-currency support
USD-centric; UK investors often see incorrect conversions
Full FX support, GBP/USD/EUR base currency, conversion rates stored per transaction
Data export
Some export to CSV; CGT reports rarely available
Export to CSV, SA108 PDF, Schedule D detail — full data portability
If stocks are your only asset class, a dedicated stock tracker might be sufficient for day-to-day tracking. But Portledger still gives you IRR, TWR, and proper HMRC cost-basis rules that most stock apps get wrong. And the moment you buy a property, start angel investing, or hold crypto — your current app will fall apart.
It's only complicated if you have to calculate it yourself. Portledger does it automatically. You just see the number. Once you've seen your real IRR, you won't want to go back to the misleading 'total value change' that most apps show.
Spreadsheets break when you add a new asset class, change cost-basis method, or try to apply HMRC share-matching rules. They have no automatic price updates, no AI to parse your statements, and no audit trail. Portledger gives you all of that without the maintenance overhead.
Your data is always exportable as CSV. There's no lock-in. But most users find the comparison goes one way: once you've seen your real IRR across all your assets, a stock balance chart stops being enough.
Set up in five minutes. All seven asset classes. True IRR and TWR. AI that reads your statements and answers your portfolio questions.
Free plan includes all 7 asset classes, portfolio heatmap, IRR & TWR, and watchlist. No credit card required.