Right now every number on the portfolio screen is made up. Replacing them with real ones is easy. Getting permission to show those prices to customers is the hard part — and it decides the cost, the timeline and the design.
The exchange now sells prices directly — about $14 a month.
No one sells Dubai prices cheaply. The going rate is around $1,100 a month.
Most low prices are "for your own personal use". Showing them in an app is a separate, pricier deal.
The app has never fetched a real share price. The only outside service it talks to is the AI assistant.
The same invented figure — AED 492,000 — is typed into three different places in the code.
There is nowhere in the database to record that a customer owns 10 shares of anything.
American shares, crypto and gold are cheap and easy to buy prices for. The two local exchanges are not.
The exchange started selling prices directly in August 2026 — about $14 a month, updating live. That is roughly a hundred times cheaper than every other route we found.
Nothing comparable exists. You have to go through a big financial data company, and the cheapest quote we found is $1,099 a month for yesterday's closing prices — not live ones.
We checked their own data files rather than their marketing. Abu Dhabi simply isn't in them — no ADNOC, no FAB, no Emirates NBD. That is most of the local market missing.
| Supplier | Abu Dhabi | Dubai | US shares | Cost to show customers | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Abu Dhabi exchange | Live | — | — | ~$14 / mo | The only realistic option |
| Twelve Data | Yesterday's close | Yesterday's close | Live | $499 – $1,099 / mo | Only one covering both |
| CoinGecko | — | — | — | $35 / mo | Crypto. Permission is clear |
| MetalpriceAPI | — | — | — | $12 – $32 / mo | Gold. Permission is clear |
| Marketstack | Nothing | Yesterday only | Partial | $9.99 / mo | No Abu Dhabi. Terms unclear |
| FMP | Nothing | 20 min old, top plan | Live | Ask for a quote | Every listed plan bans apps |
| Massive | — | — | Live | ~$2,499 / mo | Only legal on the top plan |
| Finnhub · Alpha Vantage | — | — | Yes | Not sold | Personal use only, every plan |
“Cost to show customers” is what we'd actually pay to display prices in the app — not the advertised developer price, which is usually much lower and comes with a ban on customers seeing it.
Nearly every cheap plan says: you may look at this data yourself, but you may not show it to anyone else. Two suppliers spell it out.
“You may not use the Market Data to build an application intended for use by end users other than you.”
Their $29 plan behind our app would break that contract outright. The version that permits customers costs about $2,499 a month.
“Prohibited from showcasing FMP Data on … applications designed for utilization by multiple individuals, irrespective of whether such usage is complimentary or paid.”
Every plan they publish — free through $139 a month — is marked “Individual”. Paying more does not fix it. You have to phone them.
The bill jumps past $1,000 a month, and there is no clever way around it. Nobody sells live Dubai prices at a small-business price.
No single company sells everything we need at a price we can legally use. So we buy each piece from whoever does it best.
| What we need | Who from | Cost / month | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abu Dhabi shares | The exchange itself | free – $14 | Check their terms before signing up |
| Dubai shares | Twelve Data, or chase a free delayed feed | $1,099 or possibly free | There is no cheap live option today |
| US shares | Twelve Data | $29 – $499 | Easiest of all of them to work with |
| Crypto | CoinGecko | $35 | Cheapest with clear permission to display |
| Gold | MetalpriceAPI | $12 – $32 | Permission to display is written down |
| Fund prices | Tiingo | $30 – $50 | Covers 60,000 funds |
If the app asked suppliers directly, our paid account keys would be sitting inside every customer's phone — visible to anyone who looked. They also require a single controlled point of delivery.
Each stage is useful on its own, and each one is safe to stop after.
Live US shares, crypto and gold. No database changes at all. Proves the whole chain works, end to end.
Customers type in what they own. The app works out what it's worth. All the fake numbers get deleted.
Abu Dhabi added once its terms are confirmed. Dubai only if you decide it's worth the money.
Everything in dirhams, clear labels on older prices, and the AI assistant able to see the portfolio.
A place in the database to store holdings · a form to add and edit them · the portfolio screen rewritten from scratch · the three fake totals deleted for good.
Our current tests write to the real database — that needs fixing before we can test holdings safely. And we have no way to test screens at all, only calculations.
A Dubai price from yesterday sitting next to a live American one, added into a single total, is misleading. Every line says how fresh it is — and the total inherits the oldest one.
This matters legally as much as it does for trust.
Dirhams, dollars, crypto and gold in one portfolio. We convert on the server, once, and show both the original and the converted figure — never let each screen do its own maths.
The dirham is pegged to the dollar, which covers most of it.
The assistant gets portfolio context the same way it already gets spending: assembled on our server, only with consent, and only as totals — never a list of individual trades.
Same pattern we already use. Nothing new invented.
Unrelated to this project, but anyone doing routine database work could trip it today.
Our database tool works out what changed by comparing the code to a list. Two tables that exist and hold real data aren't on that list — the audit trail and the spending profiles.
So the tool concludes they were deleted on purpose, and the next routine update it writes will say: delete these two tables. Anyone who runs it without reading it carefully first destroys both.
Add the two names to the list. It is a two-line change, and it should go in on its own, before any of the work in this deck — not bundled with it.
Their website blocks automated visits, so the $14 figure this entire recommendation rests on is unconfirmed. Two things to check while you're there: are we allowed to show their prices to customers, and do they offer the ordinary way of fetching data or something unusual that would take us longer to build?
There is a suggestion they give away 15-minute-delayed Dubai prices free. We found it in a search result and could not confirm it. If it's true, it removes the single biggest line from the budget — $1,099 a month, gone. One email is worth the attempt.
Displaying a price, and adding up what someone owns, is ordinary product work. The “AI recommendations” panel on the current portfolio screen is a different thing entirely — telling customers what to buy or sell is regulated financial advice. This plan deletes that panel rather than making it real. Bringing it back is a separate decision for someone qualified to make it.
Confirm this replaces the earlier decision to leave portfolio work alone.
One person, one browser tab, one email. Everything else waits on it.
A day old and nearly free, or live for over $1,000 a month. No middle option exists.