Morningstar Direct 2026: Benefits, Features & Pricing

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On this page

Overview
Pricing and Plans
Features
Integrations
User Reviews

Overview

Morningstar Direct

4.1

(154)

Pricing

Pricing available upon request

About Morningstar Direct

Find the Right Investments with Morningstar Direct—Your Trusted Partner for Smarter Decisions

As an investment professional, you need more than just data—you need clarity, confidence, and tools that work the way you do. Morningstar Direct is designed for asset and wealth managers who want personalized insights, powerful analytics, and seamless workflows to drive better investment decisions.

Whether you're researching opportunities, building investment products, managing portfolios, or crafting compelling reports, Direct brings together everything that makes Morningstar special—independent research, industry-leading data, and intuitive design—so you can turn insights into action with ease.

With Morningstar Direct, you get:

Unmatched Data & Research – Access over 800,000 investment offerings, proprietary ratings, and institutional-grade research.

Flexible Analytics – Build custom peer groups, benchmarks, and scorecards to fine-tune your strategies.

Time-Saving Automation – Generate professional reports and presentations effortlessly.

Global Coverage & Expert Support – Stay ahead with deep market insights and a team of investment research experts at your side.

Ho...

Morningstar Direct Screenshots

Morningstar Direct Pricing and Plans

Starting price: Pricing available upon request

Free Trial

Free Version

Pricing available upon request

No plan information available

Morningstar Direct Features

Popular features found in Investment Management
Accounting
Benchmarking
Bonds/Stocks
Client Management
Compliance Tracking
Financial Management
Fund Management
Investment Research
Modeling & Simulation
Portfolio Rebalancing
Risk Management
More features of Morningstar Direct
API
Data Import/Export
Financial Analysis
For Investment Advisors
For Investors & Traders
Investments Tracking
Performance Metrics
Portfolio Management
Reporting/Analytics
Visual Analytics

Morningstar Direct Integrations

Excel Add-ins

Integration rated 4.0 from 27 reviews

Microsoft Excel

Integration rated 4.3 from 12 reviews

Morningstar Direct User Reviews

Overall Rating

4.1

Ratings Breakdown

36%

47%

14%

Secondary Ratings

Ease of Use

3.8

Value for money

3.9

Customer support

4.2

Functionality

4.3

Matthew D.

Verified reviewer

Financial Services

5001-10000 employees

Used daily for more than 2 years

Reviewed August 2025

The Value of Having Morningstar Direct

My overall experience with the platform has been great. I use direct everyday and find it easier to use each time. The customer support is the biggest postive I have as someone is always there to take my call or email and look into the case. For my data management needs, it fits perfectly and is a great value for what our firm pays

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

I like the ease of the platform and customer support when I need help. I have yet to encounter a problem that was not solved. The ability to scheule reports to run has been a huge time saver in my role.

Cons:

I wouldn't call this a "con", but I frequently check and make portfolio manager updates along with some other data management updates. I think it would be valuable if I was able to self enter some data that was PM or person related.

David B.

Verified reviewer

Financial Services

51-200 employees

Used daily for more than 2 years

Reviewed August 2025

Superior product with room to grow

Pretty solid overall and highly recommended with caveats. Pretty pricy anymore but there is a lot to the product and the more functions you use, the better value it becomes. I have difficulty with product updates, that's on my company's tech dept.

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

I've never had any help in learning the program - totally self supported. Through that lens I've been able to get nearly all the data I require. Its fairly intuitive, easy to navigate and there are lots of tools for analysis. I know it is also available "online" through the browser which is good but the organization and layout is vastly different. Much harder to use to filter for funds, compare, etc. I use the desktop version. I like that data is updated frequently and generally pretty reliable. The analyst reports are great to read for mutual fund research. This is extremely valuable.

Cons:

WHen it comes to deeper analysis like running simulations, monte carlo, etc, you need help and this is where it lacks. There isn't a lot of help in putting together reports and more importantly, what meaning can you derive from the reports generated. Is that a good result? Bad result? Is the data correct? Am I doing this correctly? Having some pre-recorded webinar type lectures would be helpful and of course live help too. Also I've gotten many "Not Responding" errors within the program and NO ONE from Morningstar has ever helped. Just the standard "Locate the Morningstar folder in the Local folder. Delete the Morningstar folder completely" let me know if it worked. No, it doesn't but no one cares. Presentation studio is not easy to set up templates in. It seems Mstar goes through phases of creating cool new templates and then it sits on the back burner. We need good reports to communicate.

Reasons for choosing Morningstar Direct

Mstar direct is a known commodity for me and while the others have some strenghts over Mstar, the robust data is too important.

ben c.

Verified reviewer

Investment Management

2-10 employees

Used daily for less than 2 years

Reviewed October 2025

Mixed Review Bag

Overall, I think Morningstar Direct is a powerful tool with unmatched data access and strong capabilities for fund comparison and research, making it essential for my firm’s operations. However, its performance lags, especially during peak hours, and the clunky Presentation Studio can be a hassle. Slow support and underdeveloped features further frustrate me at times. While it’s a valuable resource, these issues hold it back from being as seamless and user-friendly as I’d like.

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

I find Morningstar Direct to be an incredibly data-rich platform, which is a huge advantage for my firm. Its extensive features allow me to produce high-quality client materials, research pieces, and detailed data comparisons with ease. It’s particularly valuable for comparing our funds, helping us analyze performance and make informed investment decisions efficiently.

Cons:

However, I often find Morningstar Direct frustratingly slow, especially during North American stock trading hours, which disrupts my workflow. The Presentation Studio is a particular pain point—it’s sluggish and not intuitive, making it tough for me to create specific charts without a struggle. Morningstar’s support team can also be slow, sometimes taking days to respond and weeks to resolve my queries. Additionally, certain features, like trying to edit “My Sector” on our firm-level database, feel underdeveloped and restrictive, which limits my ability to customize data as needed.

Shane S.

Verified reviewer

Investment Management

2-10 employees

Used daily for more than 2 years

Reviewed October 2025

Chief Executive Officer

Morningstar Direct has assisted us in running our Fiduciary Scoring process since 2016, before that it was all manual, plug and chug of data. The automation process has been a huge value to our Firm. Very thankful.

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

The best thing is the automation I use in EXCEL API data tools. The platform is stable, runs quickly on most days. The staff is very helpful in helping get things fixed, the software might have been down 2 or 3 days since 2016. That is a solid track record in my book. If you are an API excel user, this is the product for you.

Cons:

The biggest issues I have are mainly to do with limitations of data. It seems over time the API data points have steadily declined, while the price has steadily increased. SBBI, benchmark, index, and category data have been but along with data pulls for balance sheet and income statement data we used for business valuation.

Reasons for choosing Morningstar Direct

It was i started with, and thus far, i have been happy.

Daniel N.

Verified reviewer

Financial Services

1001-5000 employees

Used daily for more than 2 years

Reviewed October 2025

Morningstar Direct - Best in the business

Very positive and I have used Morningstar Direct for 10 years. It is the best program in the market and has the most extensive data set. I love the peer group comparisons and ability to compare different styles against their most appropriate peer group.

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

The amount of data within Morningstar Direct is better than competitors. I use it extensively for portfolio aggregation, and performance and style analysis. I also upload our portfolios in Morningstar Direct to monitor as a shadow portfolio.

Cons:

It can take a while to load and can be clunky at times. For first time or novice users it is also difficult to navigate. However, training support is very strong.

Reasons for switching to Morningstar Direct

Fees and when I joined from Morningstar to Isio, I asked that we switch to Morningstar given my familiarity with the product.

Verified

Reviewer

Financial Services

11-50 employees

Used daily for more than 2 years

Reviewed August 2025

Great Mutual Fund and ETF Data. Interface Could Use Work.

3 out of 5 stars. There is great data, but there are many issues with the data being slow. Issues with index data loading.

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

Presentation Studio. Customizing and making edits in Presentation Studio is nice. There is also great mutual fund and ETF data.

Cons:

Not always intuitive or smooth when making edits. Can be clunky and slow. Batch reports constantly have errors. Reports in PS don't load.

Reasons for choosing Morningstar Direct

Mainly price, however, Morningstar is much more expensive today than when we first reviewed FactSet.

Marta D.

Verified reviewer

Investment Management

51-200 employees

Used daily for more than 2 years

Reviewed May 2025

Perfect for Funds, but Falls Short on Bonds and Macro Data

I’ve been using Morningstar for many years and overall I’m very satisfied, especially because I mainly use it for funds and ETFs. However, it’s true that Bloomberg provides more comprehensive information when it comes to bonds and macro data such as inflation, GDP, and so on.

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

What I like the most is the quantity and quality of information on investment funds at an international level. I love the ability to access it in a very visual format through the Presentation Studio module, as well as the ease of downloading data into Excel.

Cons:

What I like the least is the information about bonds and fixed income in general.The information on bonds and fixed income is incomplete. The disclosure of underlying currency exposure could be improved — it should be provided by the fund manager, along with net positions when derivatives are used.

Reasons for switching to Morningstar Direct

At the time, Morningstar was more cost-effective tha Lipper and provided more comprehensive information, and we found the Presentation Studio functionality particularly useful.

Verified

Reviewer

Investment Management

11-50 employees

Used daily for more than 2 years

Reviewed August 2025

Essential tool for product managment

Very good, using it on daily basis. great platform for product managers for fund analysis, industry intelligence and product shelf review.

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

The depth of available data and ability to generate customer analysis. Great support from Morningstar account management team

Cons:

Bit slow when running a large sets of dstapoints. Another improvement can be useful is the capability of AI assistant, similar to ChatGPT

Reasons for choosing Morningstar Direct

Depth of data available and ability to run custom reports and analysis

Kevin M.

Verified reviewer

Financial Services

51-200 employees

Used daily for more than 2 years

Reviewed February 2025

Honest Review - Morningstar Direct

Overall, I love Direct. I convinced our Dealer to replace Bloomberg with Direct and haven't looked back. Again, more on-going news about companies/economics etc... would be great but besides that, love the system.

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

Robustness of the data. I like that it has thousands and thousands of investment types, but also thousands of different data points for analysis.

Cons:

Not enough news on investments/countries/economics etc... For example, in Bloomberg, I can type in a specific stock ticker and get weeks and weeks of news on earnings, upgrades/downgrades, anything you can think of to do with the company. Not in Direct...

Reasons for switching to Morningstar Direct

Ease of use, familiarity. I used it at all my past jobs and love it. One thing that makes it better is the ease of access to Canadian content.

Richard H.

Verified reviewer

Investment Management

10000+ employees

Used daily for more than 2 years

Reviewed August 2025

Morningstar Direct does most of the heavy lifting

Not tapping its full potential due to time spent exporting content and manipulating data outside of MD .

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

data availability, client support, and analytics meets most needs even when you are a non-typical user

Cons:

Flexibility of Presentation Studio for user specific needs User friendliness of GUI interface Availability to view Morningstar Learning Opportunities post session. Unfortunately , firm does not allow connecting to external link provided by Morningstar. Missed opportunity for upgrading MD skills

Reasons for switching to Morningstar Direct

particular data was critical and other users to provide assistance at firm

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