Signal8 vs AskEdgar in 2026: AI Filing Q&A or a Structured Dilution Snapshot

Same entry price: $59 a month for each one's first paid plan, as of 2026-10-12. Both read SEC filings for small-cap dilution risk. Where they split is how you get the answer out.

AskEdgar is built around asking. Its paid plan gives you a monthly budget of AI questions over filings, transcripts and news, plus dilution data, alerts and screeners. Signal8 is built around a fixed layout: a per-company dilution snapshot (warrants, convertibles, preferred, ATMs, shelfs, equity lines, recent offerings, cash and float) where each figure is tied to the filing it came from, and a scanner that can filter the whole market on dilution risk and cash runway.

People who think in questions will probably prefer AskEdgar. People who want the same fields on every ticker, and want to scan across tickers on them, will lean Signal8.

Every AskEdgar cell comes from askedgar.io/pricing or askedgar.readme.io, checked on 2026-10-12.

The pricing page sells AI questions and insights. The free plan lists "Limited access to AskEdgar Copilot" and AI-generated filing titles. Pro lifts the budget to 600 AI questions and adds "Real-time filing & news alerts", "Complex dilution & offering data", filing, transcript and news summaries, and screener access. Professional+ goes to 1,000 questions, with a two-year deals screener and "Historical banks & investors data".

Its API docs describe a dilution rating that rolls cash runway, registration capacity, offering history and Nasdaq compliance into one High, Medium or Low grade. For a fast first read on a ticker, that is useful.

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The docs are also plain about scope:

audited numeric data currently covers companies under ~$1B market cap. Larger companies return null for the affected numeric fields, and the response message flags it.

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That ceiling is about twice Signal8's snapshot scope. If you trade companies between $500 million and $1 billion, it matters.

Signal8 reads a company's filings and builds a dilution snapshot: one row per instrument family, with share counts, exercise or conversion terms, shelf and ATM capacity, cash and runway. Through the API and MCP server, each figure carries the accession number, filing date and the sentence it was read from, so you can open the filing and check. Snapshots go through consistency checks before publication; a figure that cannot be verified is withheld and marked not measured, never shown as zero.

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The other half is the scanner. Signed-in free accounts get real-time presets (top movers, gap up, low float, squeeze and others). Pro adds custom filters, dilution risk and cash runway among them, so you can pull up gappers that are also short on runway. If those terms are new, start with warrant overhang and cash runway.

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The two plans meter different things.

AskEdgar Pro gives 600 AI questions a month. Over a 30-day month that is 600 ÷ 30 = 20 questions a day, so five watchlist tickers at four questions each spends the day's budget.

The AskEdgar API is billed on top. Its free cost-estimate endpoint, queried on 2026-10-12, priced dilution data at $12,500 per GB. A one-ticker request returned 17,844 bytes for an estimated $0.21. A 100-ticker sample returned 443,870 bytes for $5.17, or about 5 cents a ticker.

Signal8 Pro has the API inside the $59, capped at 10,000 requests a day. No per-question meter, but also no in-app chat to spend one on.

Neither is cheaper across the board. A few deep questions a day sit comfortably in AskEdgar's budget. Pulling the same fields for hundreds of tickers is where its per-GB meter starts to show.

• No in-app AI chat. If you want to type "does this company have a reset on its warrants?" and get an answer back, AskEdgar does that directly. With Signal8 you read the snapshot, or connect your own AI assistant through the MCP server.
• Narrower size range. The snapshot product is scoped to companies under $500 million. AskEdgar's stated audited coverage runs to about $1 billion.
• Snapshots are built on request. An in-scope company with no snapshot yet needs a one-click request (Get dilution data) and a 10 to 90 minute wait. Until then Signal8 calls it "not covered", which means the filings have not been read yet, not that the company has no dilution. We have not measured what share of in-scope tickers is covered, so we don't quote one.
• No banks-and-investors history listed. AskEdgar Professional+ lists historical banks and investors data and a two-year deals screener. Signal8 Pro lists nothing equivalent.
• One plan. Nothing between free and Pro, and no enterprise tier.

• The API is metered separately from the subscription, by data volume.
• Screener depth is tiered. Pro lists "Screener Access (Limited)"; the advanced screener with full history is on the $199 plan.
• Annual pricing was not shown on their pricing page on 2026-10-12.

You would rather ask in plain English and read a summarised answer than scan a table. You want earnings call transcripts and news summarised next to the filings. Your names sit between $500 million and $1 billion in market cap, or you want history on banks, investors and deals (that is Professional+). And you only need API data now and then, so paying per use suits you.

You want the same dilution fields, laid out the same way, on every ticker you check, with each number traceable to a filing. You want to scan the market on dilution risk and cash runway instead of looking up one company at a time. You want the API and MCP server inside the subscription. Or you already use insider, congressional trade, halt or reverse-split data and would like it in the same place.

The free Academy guides what is dilution and S-1 vs S-3 and the baby shelf explain the filings both tools read.