Questrade is one of Canada's most popular self-directed brokerages, offering commission-free ETF purchases and competitive pricing. But Questrade's built-in portfolio view is limited — it shows your holdings and account balances, not consolidated analytics across multiple accounts, not how you actually compare to the S&P 500, and not the true geographic exposure hiding inside your ETFs. WealthWise fills that gap with read-only broker sync, deep look-through ETF analysis, and a real benchmark — all for free.
| What you get | Questrade (built-in) | WealthWise |
|---|---|---|
| Multi-account view | Shows your holdings and account balances, not consolidated analytics across multiple accounts | Calculates your combined allocation across all account types |
| Return calculation | Shows your holdings and account balances, not how you actually compare to the S&P 500 | Calculates a Time-Weighted Return (Modified-Dietz method), benchmarked against the S&P 500 in Canadian dollars |
| ETF look-through | Not the true geographic exposure hiding inside your ETFs | Reads the actual top holdings of each ETF to compute your true sector and geographic exposure |
Questrade does a lot of things well. Low commissions, margin accounts, RRSPs, TFSAs, FHSAs, RESPs — the account variety is excellent. What it doesn't do is give you a unified analytical view across all of those accounts at once.
Most Canadian DIY investors hold several Questrade accounts simultaneously: a TFSA for long-term growth, an RRSP for retirement savings, possibly a non-registered account for overflow, and maybe a spousal RRSP. Questrade shows you each account in isolation. You have to add up the numbers yourself to understand your actual portfolio-wide asset allocation, sector exposure, or total dividend income.
Beyond consolidation, Questrade's native tools don't answer the questions that matter most to serious DIY investors:
These are the questions WealthWise was built to answer. And because it connects to Questrade in read-only mode, there is zero execution risk — WealthWise cannot place trades, move money, or modify your account in any way.
WealthWise uses SnapTrade to connect to your broker with read-only, OAuth-based access. You authorize the connection through Questrade's own login screen — your credentials are never stored by WealthWise. The connection grants read access only: account balances, positions, and transaction history. That's it.
Once connected, WealthWise pulls in all of your Questrade accounts automatically:
Each account syncs as a separate portfolio, and WealthWise lets you view them individually or merged into one consolidated view. This is the foundation that makes everything else possible.
Once your accounts are synced, WealthWise calculates your combined allocation across all account types. If you hold XEQT in your TFSA, VFV in your RRSP, and a few individual Canadian stocks in your non-registered account, WealthWise adds it all up and shows you where you actually stand.
But it goes further than surface-level allocation. When you hold ETFs, WealthWise applies a look-through decomposition — it reads the actual top holdings of each ETF to compute your true sector and geographic exposure. This matters because an ETF like XEQT that is labeled "global equity" actually has a specific breakdown across North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and emerging markets that shifts over time. WealthWise surfaces this breakdown rather than simply labeling the whole position as "equity."
For investors who hold fund-of-funds structures — like XEQT, which itself holds XUS, XEF, XEC, and XIC — WealthWise recurses through the layers to give you the final real-world exposure. See how ETF geographic exposure is derived from real holdings for a deeper explanation of how this works.
Questrade tells you your account balance and your unrealized gains. It does not tell you whether your portfolio has beaten, matched, or trailed a simple index fund over the same period.
WealthWise calculates your Time-Weighted Return (Modified-Dietz method) and benchmarks it against the S&P 500 in Canadian dollars. This is the same methodology used by professional portfolio managers because it neutralizes the effect of cash flows — deposits and withdrawals don't distort the performance number the way simple return calculations do.
The result is a direct, honest comparison: given your actual holdings and timing, how did you do versus just buying VFV or SPY? Over time, this benchmark becomes one of the most valuable pieces of data a DIY investor can have. It tells you whether your stock-picking, ETF selection, or tactical decisions are adding value or costing you returns. You can read more about time-weighted vs. money-weighted returns in a Canadian context.
| Tool | What it shows you |
|---|---|
| Real dividend yield | Calculated on your actual cost basis and current price, including accurate yields for CDRs |
| Dividend calendar | A visual month-by-month view of expected income across all accounts |
| DRIP simulation | Project how your dividend income compounds if you reinvest automatically |
| Yield-on-cost | See how your yield has grown relative to your original purchase price |
| Passive income goal tracker | Set a monthly income target and see how far your current holdings take you toward it |
If you hold dividend-paying stocks or ETFs in your Questrade accounts, WealthWise gives you a complete dividend suite:
These tools work across all your Questrade accounts simultaneously, so you see your total expected dividend income rather than having to compute it account by account.
One of the less-visible risks in a self-directed portfolio is concentration — too much weight in a single stock, sector, or country. WealthWise calculates a concentration risk score based on your actual holdings (including look-through weights for ETFs) and flags positions that represent outsized exposure relative to a diversified benchmark.
For Questrade users who mix ETFs with individual stocks — a common approach among Canadian DIY investors — this score is especially useful. You might hold XEQT for broad diversification and then add individual positions in Shopify, TD Bank, and Canadian Natural Resources. The risk score accounts for the overlap between your individual stocks and what's already inside the ETF.
If you hold accounts at both Questrade and Wealthsimple — a setup that's common among Canadian investors who want commission-free ETF trades at Questrade and fractional share trading at Wealthsimple — WealthWise handles both simultaneously. All brokerages supported by SnapTrade can be connected at once, and WealthWise consolidates everything into a single portfolio view.
You can also add accounts manually or import them via CSV if you have holdings at a broker that isn't yet connected through SnapTrade. WealthWise's analytics apply equally to synced, manual, and imported accounts.
WealthWise is an analytics and tracking companion — not a brokerage. It cannot execute trades, place orders, or interact with your Questrade account in any active way. It does not provide personalized investment advice. All analysis is informational, designed to help you make better-informed decisions as a self-directed investor.
The connection to Questrade is entirely read-only and uses SnapTrade's institutional OAuth infrastructure. You can revoke access at any time from within WealthWise or directly through SnapTrade's authorization portal.
| Step | What you get |
|---|---|
| 1. Connect Questrade (read-only) | WealthWise pulls in all of your Questrade accounts automatically |
| 2. See your real asset allocation | WealthWise calculates your combined allocation across all account types |
| 3. Benchmark vs. the S&P 500 | Time-Weighted Return (Modified-Dietz method), benchmarked against the S&P 500 in Canadian dollars |
| 4. Analyze dividends & passive income | A complete dividend suite across all your accounts |
| 5. Measure concentration and risk | A concentration risk score based on your actual holdings |
Setup takes about two minutes. Create a free WealthWise account, navigate to the broker connection screen, select Questrade, and complete the OAuth authorization on Questrade's login page. Your accounts and holdings will sync automatically, and the full analytics suite is available immediately.
WealthWise is free for core features. There is no credit card required to connect your Questrade account and explore the dashboard.
Yes. The connection uses SnapTrade's read-only OAuth infrastructure, which is the same technology used by major financial aggregators. Your Questrade credentials are authenticated directly on Questrade's login page and are never stored by WealthWise. WealthWise receives only read access to your balances, positions, and transaction history — it cannot place trades or move money.
WealthWise syncs all account types available through SnapTrade's Questrade connection, including TFSA, RRSP, Spousal RRSP, FHSA, RESP, non-registered (cash and margin), LIRA, and RRIF accounts.
Questrade's performance views typically show simple percentage return or dollar gain/loss. WealthWise calculates a Time-Weighted Return using the Modified-Dietz method, which accounts for the timing of deposits and withdrawals. It then compares your return to the S&P 500 in Canadian dollars over the same period — giving you a meaningful apples-to-apples comparison.
Yes. WealthWise supports connecting multiple brokers simultaneously through SnapTrade. You can link Questrade, Wealthsimple, Disnat, and other supported brokerages at the same time, and WealthWise will consolidate all accounts into a single unified portfolio view.
Once connected, you can choose which accounts to include in your consolidated view. You can view accounts individually, group them, or exclude specific accounts from the combined analytics.
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