ninethirty

ninethirty's Alpha plan at $99.99/month gives agencies unlimited backtests, 50 active alerts, and 500 candles of historical data, enough to run seasonal equity research for multiple advisory clients without per-seat cost creep. The strategic bet is that a $1,800 Seasonal Starter Audit built on the same screener and heatmaps can be delivered in roughly 16 hours of setup, turning a contested academic idea into a billable research artifact. Agencies that ignore it cede the seasonal-pattern conversation to whoever shows the client a heatmap first.

Self-Report Decay Rate is the framework for estimating how fast a piece of research evidence loses predictive value after collection. Stated preference decays fastest: a survey answer about intent holds for weeks, a behavioral recording holds for quarters, and a structured observation of what people actually did holds longest. Agencies that treat every input as equally durable end up rebuilding strategy decks on stale self-report while the behavioral record underneath has already shifted. The practical move is to date-stamp every insight with its decay class before it enters a client deliverable, then set a refresh interval per class. A conversational capture tool such as Typeform is efficient for stated-preference work, but its output should carry a shorter shelf life than a Hotjar-style session recording of the same funnel. With 69% of marketers publishing more AI-generated content than last year, the volume of cheap self-report keeps rising while its marginal predictive value falls, which makes decay classification a defensible differentiator rather than a research nicety.

The Evidence Depth Ladder ranks research inputs by how much they can be trusted when a client challenges a recommendation. Rung one is self-reported data: survey answers, form responses, stated preferences. Rung two is observed behavior: session recordings, click paths, drop-off points. Rung three is verified outcome: what actually converted, renewed, or paid. Most agency research stacks stall on rung one because forms are cheap and fast, and the resulting decks collapse the moment a client asks why. The framework's rule is that no strategic claim ships on a single rung. Pair a Typeform intake with behavioral evidence before writing the recommendation, and treat tools that only capture stated intent (IdeaStream's Reddit and search-trend signals, for instance) as hypothesis generators rather than proof. The ladder also sets retainer pricing: rung-three evidence commands diagnostic fees, rung-one evidence gets bundled into project scope. Agencies that climb deliberately can defend a recommendation in a renewal meeting instead of re-running the study.

Evidence half-life is the interval over which a research finding still supports a decision before market, audience, or platform shifts erode it. A pricing survey from eight months ago may still hold; a competitive positioning study from the same quarter often does not, because AI answer engines now rewrite category narratives faster than annual research cycles. For agencies, the framework converts research from a one-off project into a scheduled asset: each deliverable carries a stated expiry, and renewal conversations are timed to when the evidence, not the contract, runs out. HubSpot's October 2026 AEO guidance is a working example, since brand descriptions inside ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini drift as third-party sources change, which means a visibility baseline captured in Q3 needs re-querying before it can anchor a Q1 content scope. Pair self-reported data with observational signals so the expiry date reflects behavior, not just stated intent.

Adopt ninethirty only when a paying client has already asked for recurring monthly equity patterns on a named watchlist, and price the work as a fixed-scope audit rather than an open-ended retainer.

Treat self-reported research as a hypothesis generator, not a verdict, and pair every stated-preference finding with at least one behavioral or observational signal before it reaches a client report.

IF your agency already sells equity research or advisory retainers and can absorb $99.99/month for the Alpha plan, THEN ninethirty's unlimited backtests, 50 active alerts, unlimited saved screens, and 500 candles of historical data support a repeatable seasonal pattern deliverable. IF your client work sits outside equity seasonality (crypto, FX, private markets) or you need broader market research coverage, THEN skip it because the tool is purpose-built for monthly stock and index patterns only.

A productized retainer that turns ninethirty's seasonal consistency screener and monthly heatmaps into a recurring client research deliverable for financial advisory and wealth management agencies.