How do I get live investment prices?
Add a free Alpha Vantage API key in Settings and give each holding a ticker. No key? Set values yourself with Update value.
Updated 3 October 2026
Bunse fetches prices from Alpha Vantage, a market-data service with a free plan. You need your own free key, and each holding needs a ticker. You don't have to use live prices: you can set a holding's value yourself instead.
Get a free key
- Go to alphavantage.co/support/#api-key and fill in the short form. It only needs an email address, no card details.
- Your key appears on screen straight away. Copy it.
- In Bunse, open Settings and, under Investment prices, paste it into Alpha Vantage API key. Tap away from the box and you'll see Saved.
- Open the Investments tab and tap Refresh prices.
Your key is stored only on your device and is sent straight to Alpha Vantage. It never passes through Bunse's servers.
Get the ticker right
Add the ticker when you add a holding, or tap the pencil on it later. London-listed funds and shares need the .LON suffix: VWRP.LON, not VWRP.
Without the suffix, a ticker can match an unrelated US company and quietly return the wrong price. If a value looks wildly off, check the ticker first.
What the free plan gives you
- 25 requests a day, 5 a minute. Each holding with a ticker uses one request per refresh, so with four holdings you can refresh six times a day.
- End-of-day prices. Free keys return the last closing price, so figures won't match your broker's live view during the day. Each holding shows the date its price is from.
- About 100 trading days of price history for each holding's chart. If you pay for a premium key, choose Premium under Alpha Vantage plan in Settings for the longer chart periods.
Bunse also refreshes prices by itself when you open the app, if they haven't been refreshed for about a day.
No key, or no ticker?
Open the holding and tap Update value to enter what it's worth today, as a total or a price per unit. This works for any holding, including funds Alpha Vantage doesn't cover. See keep its value up to date.
If you set a value by hand and later refresh prices, the newest price wins. A value you've set today isn't replaced by a closing price from yesterday.