Can AI replace Portfolio Coach?
A private dashboard for holdings, family members, projections, and CSV imports is a credible weekend build. Reliable live pricing for UK funds, a ledger-correct Vanguard importer, household data boundaries, maintained tax rules, and AI advice grounded in every account turn the complete product into a multi-day project.
01What it costs
Checked Aug 13, 2026 · source: portfoliocoach.co.uk.
| Plan | Monthly | Billed yearly | What you get |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free portfolio tracking | Free | Free | Portfolio tracking/planning do not consume credit; £2 AI credit included (about $2.71 at the ECB 2026-08-12 reference rate); no card required |
| AI credit top-ups | — | — | Prepaid top-ups start at £5 (about $6.76); AI usage is charged at the selected model provider's cost +20% |
Hidden costs: AI usage is variable and charged at the selected model provider's cost plus 20%; minimum top-up is £5 (about $6.76).
02Could AI build it for you?
The core job: Import or enter family holdings, value them, inspect allocation and projections, then ask an AI for a portfolio review grounded in that data.
What a working version needs:
- Node 22
- OpenAI-compatible API key for AI reviews
- optional market-data API key
- local SQLite database
Submitted by the maker · the complete hosted product is beyond a one-shot local tracker.
03What you'd give up
- reliable live pricing and UK fund symbol mapping
- ledger-backed Vanguard history import
- secure cloud accounts, family sharing, and support access
- maintained UK tax and estate-planning assumptions
- hosted AI reviews with current web context
The core tracker is free to start. Paid AI credits cover the convenient part: a hosted coach already connected to the household's live holdings, while the product maintains pricing, imports, security boundaries, and UK planning logic.
05The build prompt
Paste this into an AI coding tool (such as Claude, ChatGPT, Lovable or Replit) to build your own version.
Build me a local-first UK family portfolio tracker like Portfolio Coach. Requirements: - Next.js 16 App Router + TypeScript, Tailwind, better-sqlite3, and Recharts; run locally with `npm run dev` and bind to localhost only. - Model household members, accounts, and UK wrappers: ISA, SIPP, GIA, pension, cash, bonds, and property with mortgages. - Holdings need ticker, units, cost basis, currency, manual price, and optional market price. Always show the quote source and last-updated time. - Add a CSV importer with saved column mappings and dedupe on a stable row hash. Include a mapping for a documented Vanguard transaction CSV example. - Dashboard: household net worth, value by person, allocation, wrapper split, concentration warnings, gain/loss, and stale-price warnings. - Add editable monthly contributions and a projection chart with retirement age, growth, inflation, withdrawals, and planned gifts as explicit assumptions. - Add a UK planning page for ISA/SIPP/GIA balances and an indicative inheritance- tax snapshot. Keep thresholds in one dated config file and label this as informational, not financial or tax advice. - Add an AI review that sends only the calculated portfolio summary to an OpenAI-compatible API. Put secrets in `.env.local`; work without AI too. - Store everything in one local SQLite file and add an encrypted JSON export plus a dated backup command. Include a realistic seeded demo household. - No accounts, telemetry, broker logins, automatic bank sync, or cloud sharing. Out of scope: regulated advice and production-grade real-time fund pricing. - README with setup, CSV format, backup/restore, data limitations, and the exact assumptions used by projections and tax estimates.
06Open-source starting points
- Ghostfolio: Open-source wealth management software with portfolio analytics
- Portfolio Performance: Open-source desktop portfolio tracker with detailed performance analysis
App prices, verdicts, alternatives and build prompts are adapted from Can I Vibecode It? (MIT License, © 2026 Rob Hallam). Each price shows the date it was checked and its source. Prices change; confirm on the vendor's site before you decide.
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