FreeEdgar.com, an online portal service that features financial news, information and Securities and Exchange Commission documents, said yesterday that it will start charging many users for an e-mail alert service it used to provide free.
The portal, a service of EDGAR Online Inc., Norwalk, CT, said its SEC e-mail alert service, which tracks new documents added to the SEC's EDGAR database of financial filings, will remain free to anyone who wants to track five or fewer companies. But users who wish to track more than five companies will have to sign up for FreeEdgar's Premium Service, which offers plans ranging from $9.95 per month to $99.95 per month.
EDGAR Online said its e-mail alert service had become so popular that many users were tracking hundreds of companies at a time, necessitating the move. The company said it has more than 100,000 users of the service and that apparently many of them worked at banks and law firms, so they may be willing to pay for the service.
The company has been moving away from its original free service model in the past few years, toward a business-to-business model. About 70 percent of its revenue comes from corporate contracts.
