Live Prices for Beancount
Your books. Today’s prices.
You’ve recorded what you own. Keep its value up to date with one line of plain text. Beancount.io takes care of the price updates.
For supported price sources in hosted Beancount.io ledgers.
Choose your price sources
Have a ledger? Find its assets
Your ledger excerpt stays in your browser.
; Choose assets above to generate includes.Paste into a file your ledger loads. Asset symbols must match your ledger.
Your next report shouldn’t start with a price update.
A purchase records a moment. A market price keeps moving. If you track investments in plain text, maintaining quote scripts and price files can become a second job. Managed price includes handle that recurring work.
Connect once. Open your books as usual.
Add the price source
Choose your valuation currency and the assets you hold, then paste the generated include lines into a file your hosted ledger loads. Asset symbols must match your ledger.
Let prices refresh
When you open your books, Beancount.io checks for new prices once the five-minute refresh window has passed.
Read your valuation
The prices are available to your reports. Your purchases, sales, quantities, and recorded costs remain your own.
; BTC-USD
2026-09-17 price BTC 92000.00 USD
2026-09-18 price BTC 94000.00 USD
Market prices move. Your records stay yours.
Your own price wins
Use a price from your statement when you need to. A price you write for the same date and currency pair takes priority, whichever order you include the files.
Keep a clean history
Refreshing a price does not rewrite your ledger or create a Git commit. Your history stays focused on the changes you make.
A failed refresh keeps the last good price
When a source is unavailable, a previously validated cached price can still be used. It may be stale; a cached price is not a new market observation.
Price history leaves room for your books
Managed price entries do not count toward your ledger’s entry limit.
Start with a source you can inspect.
Every supported feed is readable Beancount text with dated prices and source metadata. Choose a valuation currency above to see the listed price sources for your holdings.
Explore investment trackingAn example price source
Bitcoin / US dollarBTC-USD
The catalog includes crypto, stocks, funds and foreign currencies. Coverage varies by pair; the selector shows the sources listed for your chosen currency.
Choose your price sourcesURL includes are a Beancount.io extension. Upstream Beancount and Fava need local price files.
A few things worth knowing.
Read the bea CLI guideAre these real-time trading prices?
These are automatically refreshed valuation prices. The hosted loader checks for new data when your ledger loads after its five-minute refresh window. Provider observation times can be older. It is not a streaming trading feed.
Will a refresh change my cost basis or transactions?
No. A managed feed supplies price directives only. Prices affect market valuation; they do not change quantities, purchase costs, cash flows, fees, or realized gains recorded in your ledger.
Can I use my own prices?
Yes. Your own price takes precedence for the same date and commodity pair, including the reciprocal pair, regardless of include order. A managed price on a later date can still be used.
What happens if a price source goes offline?
A failed refresh does not replace a validated cached feed with an empty one. Cached prices may be stale. If no validated price is available, your books still load, but that holding may lack a market valuation.
Does a URL include work in upstream Beancount or Fava?
Upstream Beancount and Fava do not fetch URL includes themselves. Use this setup in hosted Beancount.io ledgers. Compatible bea CLI versions also resolve managed includes and can export local price files for offline tools; see the CLI guide.
Which assets can I connect?
Choose your valuation currency, then pick a shortcut or search an asset code. The selector uses the current price catalog and generates includes for listed pairs. A pair missing from the catalog may still be supported through on-demand derivation; it is not included in the copied configuration until support is confirmed. Use matching asset symbols in your ledger.
Keep your books. Lose the price-update chore.
Add a supported price include to your hosted ledger and let your next valuation start with fresher data.