Is The Motley Fool Epic Service Worth It?
The Motley Fool made some big changes to its product suite.
Previously, the company offered over 40 distinct services, which created thousands of possible product and renewal combinations. This made the site challenging to navigate and created a messy experience for members.
To simplify its offerings, The Motley Fool has introduced a new product suite for all levels of investing.
Now, each product (other than the first) contains several of its former products. So, instead of having 40+ offerings from which to choose, there are only five.
Its Epic service — which includes stock picks and a host of other features — is one of the most popular, and I'd argue is also the best value.
Still, at $499/year, it certainly isn't for everyone.
I've been subscribed to a couple of The Motley Fool's products for the last few years, and decided to try out the new Epic product for myself.
Here's my review of what's included in the subscription, who it's best for, and who might want to choose another subscription.
Note: Besides Stock Advisor, there is no other way to access the individual products The Motley Fool offers. They are only available via the five services.
Motley Fool Epic review summary
- Overall rating:
- Service type: Stock-picking newsletters
- Best for: Long-term investors with portfolios of $50,000+
- Cost: $499/year (new members can get their first year for $300)
In my opinion, Epic is the best value out of the five services The Motley Fool now offers.
One step above The Motley Fool's entry-level service, Epic delivers five new stock picks each month. These are a mixture of growth, emerging technology, and dividend stocks.
However, Epic is not for everyone.
The main drawbacks are the cost and the size of portfolio you should have before subscribing to this tier. The Motley Fool suggests you have at least $50,000 to invest.
Personally, I think you can have a smaller portfolio, but you probably want to add at least $1,000 to it every month if you want to invest in all of the new picks.
If the subscription is too expensive or if your portfolio isn't big enough yet, you may be better off with a Stock Advisor subscription, which is one service down from Epic.
An overview of Motley Fool's new products
Before jumping into the article itself, let's back up and see where Epic fits in The Motley Fool's new product stack.
TMF's membership-fee-back guarantee
Many of The Motley Fool's products come with a 30-day, membership-fee-back guarantee.
Now that you've seen the snapshot of offerings and how Epic fits in that lineup, let's dig into Epic's specific features.
What's included in Motley Fool Epic?
Before launching their new services, The Motley Fool's two most popular products were the stock-picking newsletters Stock Advisor and Rule Breakers.
These two products are the core of the new Epic service, though it also comes with a couple of other previously standalone products: Hidden Gems (formerly “Everlasting Stocks”) and Dividend Investor (which replaced “Real Estate Winners”).
Altogether, an Epic subscription provides five stock picks per month:
- 2 from Stock Advisor
- 1 from Rule Breakers
- 1 from Hidden Gems (formerly “Everlasting Stocks”)
- 1 from Dividend Investor (which replaced “Real Estate Winners”)
Additionally, there are several other bonus features that are worth mentioning (which I cover below).
1. Stock Advisor
Stock Advisor is The Motley Fool's most popular product. It's a stock-picking newsletter that provides two stock picks each month.
The Stock Advisor team invests in growth stocks — any company that is growing its revenue and earnings per share and has sustainable competitive advantages is a candidate for the portfolio.
Most of the picks are well-established companies such as Netflix (NFLX), Costco (COST), or Amazon (AMZN).
Stock Advisor was launched in 2002. Since its inception, Stock Advisor has more than quadrupled the S&P 500:
Stock Advisor can still be purchased as a standalone product — it's Motley Fool's entry-level service. You can see my full Stock Advisor review for more details.
But, if you want to bundle it with Rule Breakers, you'll need to go to the next product — Epic.
2. Rule Breakers
Launched in 2004, Rule Breakers is The Motley Fool's second-oldest product.
While Stock Advisor invests in all growth stocks, Rule Breakers has a more narrow focus. The service only invests in disruptive technology companies, meaning companies that have the potential to change entire industries.
Oftentimes, this entails picking companies that are still (relatively) young and haven't totally established themselves. While investing in these early innings could offer investors the potential for greater upside, there is also greater risk and volatility involved.
However, when they correctly spot a trend, they can pick some big winners. A few of their past picks are Shopify (SHOP), Tesla (TSLA), and MercadoLibre (MELI).
These picks have helped Rule Breakers generate an impressive track record:
While the chart above is from when Rule Breakers was a standalone product, it still invests in the same type of companies as it did then. However, the team now only makes one stock recommendation per month.
Personally, while it's nice to have Hidden Gems, Dividend Investor, and the other features I'm going to cover next, I find most of the value of Epic is in the subscriptions to Stock Advisor and Rule Breakers.
These were my favorite services before The Motley Fool changed its offerings and they still are.
3. Hidden Gems
Hidden Gems, which was formerly known as Everlasting Stocks, is another stock-picking service that used to sell for $299/year.
In a lot of ways, the service resembles Stock Advisor, as the team focuses on finding well-established growth stocks.
But they took their stock selection process a step further by adding an additional layer of criteria: only invest in stocks that you can buy and hold forever.
While this might not technically be feasible, you can see how it would change the type of companies you invest in.
Growth is important, but so is having a robust moat and defendable competitive advantages. If a company doesn't have those, the Hidden Gems team will pass on it.
Hidden Gems was launched in September 2018. Since then, it has slightly lagged the S&P 500, but not by much.
4. Dividend Investor
An Epic subscription also provides one new dividend stock recommendation per month through its new Dividend Investor product.
Dividend Investor was launched in February 2023 and, as far as I can tell, is the replacement for Real Estate Winners.
Real Estate Winners was a stock-picking newsletter that invested in real estate investment trusts (REITs), homebuilder stocks, or other companies in the industry.
It seems The Motley Fool team ditched their focus on the real estate industry specifically and opted for a more general, dividend-focused product that appeals to a broader audience.
Other features
Here's a list of all the other things that come with an Epic subscription:
- Recommendations and rankings: After subscribing, you don't have to wait for the regular schedule to get stock picks. If you're new to the service, new to investing, or just want to add some new stocks to your portfolio, an Epic subscription comes with several lists of stocks that are a great place to start.
- Portfolio strategies: Once you become a member, you can choose a strategy (cautious, moderate, or aggressive) that best suits you, and the service will tell you which of its stock recommendations are best for your portfolio.
- GamePlan+: The GamePlan+ tool will give you some resources to help you set up your portfolio. It shows you which stocks to pick, makes sure you're following the Fool's Investing Principles, and gives monthly challenges to help members hit their financial goals.
- Epic Opportunities podcast: The Motley Fool's members-only podcast discusses different opportunities, personal finance, and how the team finds new stocks.
- Research tools: If you want to do your own stock research, you can use your subscription dashboard to access The Motley Fool's tools, information, and news articles.
As mentioned above, I personally find the bulk of Epic's value to be in the access to Stock Advisor and Rule Breakers.
That said, these additional features are all nice to have, especially if you're new to investing.
Is Motley Fool's Epic worth the money?
At $499/year — after an introductory price of $300 — the new Epic product is significantly cheaper than what The Motley Fool used to charge for all of these products individually.
Previously, Stock Advisor was $199/year and Rule Breakers, Everlasting Stocks (replaced by Hidden Gems), and Real Estate Winners (replaced by Dividend Investor) were $299/year each.
The Motley Fool also used to offer a bundle of Stock Advisor and Rule Breakers for $499/year.
With the new Epic service, for the same price as the old bundle, subscribers also get access to Hidden Gems and Dividend Investor — which means two additional stock picks per month and two more complete portfolios of recommendations.
For this reason, I find Epic to be the best value for money out of all the new products offered by The Motley Fool.
Who should try Motley Fool's Epic?
Despite all the value provided, I don't think Epic is for everyone.
After the introductory year, the $499/year cost is not overly expensive. However, if your portfolio isn't large enough, the subscription will eat into your returns.
For example, if you have a $10,000 portfolio and the stock picks generate a 10% return, the $500 subscription cost will leave you with just a 5% net return, or $500.
Meanwhile, on a $50,000 portfolio, a 10% return will net you a 9% return, which is $4,500, after the cost of the subscription.
As you can see, the bigger your portfolio, the less of an impact the subscription will have on your net returns.
Furthermore, five new stock recommendations per month is quite a lot.
If you wanted to invest $200 into each new pick, you would need to add $1,000 per month to your portfolio. To invest $500 into each new recommendation, you would need to add $2,500 per month to your account.
If you don't need five new picks per month or you aren't regularly contributing new money to your portfolio and/or starting with a decently sized account, you may be better off with a subscription to Stock Advisor.
More about Stock Advisor
For more information on Stock Advisor, check out my full review.
What does Epic look like?
The Motley Fool also changed how it displayed its products behind the paywall, making for a much simpler and more streamlined experience.
Remember, Epic is a bundle of several products, and that's how it's displayed for subscribers. Here's a look at the main dashboard (the stock recommendations are hidden):
The dashboard shows you the aggregate view of all the stock picks and rankings across all of the products included with Epic.
You can filter each of the products individually by clicking on the My Services tab and selecting the one you're interested in (Stock Advisor, Rule Breakers, Hidden Gems, and Dividend Investor).
Overall, the website design update makes for a much more cohesive experience for members who are subscribed to multiple products.
Final verdict
The Motley Fool's new Epic service provides members with a mix of growth, dividend, and under-the-radar stocks to build a well-rounded portfolio.
It also comes with member-only perks, analytics and research tools, and expert guidance on building a portfolio.
However, at the end of the day, you're buying access to their stock picks.
Epic is the best way to access both of The Motley Fool's oldest and best-performing services, Stock Advisor and Rule Breakers. It also comes with subscriptions to Hidden Gems and Dividend Investor.
In my opinion, it's the best value of any of their new services.
