Ten questions to ask any advisory before you pay

A stock advisory subscription is a deal with a stranger about your money. These ten questions take under an hour to ask. They cost nothing. They separate a service that answers for its work from a sales pitch. We answer all ten about ourselves at the bottom.

Published 6 September 2026 · Potoos Research Services

The checklist

Ask these in writing, on WhatsApp or email. Keep the replies. An honest service loses nothing by writing its answers down. A dishonest one loses a lot, because a vague written answer is easy to screenshot. Watch whether the sales talk steers you away from these questions. If it keeps pulling you back to how good the calls are, that steering is the answer.

1. What is your SEBI registration number?

   This is the first question. It is the only one with a yes or no answer. A Research Analyst's number starts with INH. Do not accept a certificate image. Do not accept a line in a bio. Do not accept a confident tone. Search the number yourself on SEBI's public register. Check that the registered name and city match the website in front of you. Our four-step guide shows exactly where to click. No number ends the conversation. So does a number that returns someone else.

2. Who exactly am I dealing with?

   A registration belongs to one named person or company. Ask who the registered analyst is. Ask who the compliance officer is. Ask where they are. If the website will not put a real name and city against the registration, you have nobody to hold responsible. You only have a brand. The name on the register and the name on the site should match, with no explaining needed.

3. How is your record of calls kept, and do losing calls stay visible?

   Most people ask this the wrong way round. SEBI's advertisement code has been in force since 1 May 2023. Under it, a registered analyst may not publish past performance, win rates or return figures in public. So a public track record page is a warning sign, not a credential. The real question is about record-keeping. Is every call dated and kept? Do the losses sit next to the gains? Is anything edited or deleted later? Can a subscriber see the whole record in context? We have written out how our own record is kept and where it lives.

4. What does one call actually contain?

   A bare ticker with "buy now" next to it is noise. A call you can act on, and check later, carries an entry range and staged targets. It also carries a stop-loss set before you enter, and written reasoning you are free to disagree with. Ask to be shown the structure of one call, not its outcome. The outcome tells you about one day. The structure tells you about the service.

5. What are the fees, and how do they sit against SEBI's cap?

   A registered Research Analyst cannot charge one family more than Rs 1,51,000 in a year. Anyone quoting a bigger package is working outside the rules, or outside the registration. The same goes for a ladder of ever costlier "VIP tiers". Ask for the full fee in writing. Ask whether anything else is charged later. Ask how the money is collected.

6. What risk disclosure happens before I receive anything?

   A genuine service writes down the risk before it takes your money. That means the standard market-risk warning. It means a risk profile of you as a client. And it means clear statements of what is not being promised. If signing up is only a payment link and a welcome message, that step has been skipped. The step exists to protect you. Ask what happens between your payment and your first call.

7. What capital does this service assume I have?

   A subscription fee is a fixed cost. Fixed costs are simple arithmetic. The smaller your capital, the bigger the bite the fee takes. That bite comes before the market has said a word. A service happy to sign up someone well below its own stated minimum has not thought about whether that can work, or does not care. We suggest a minimum of Rs 50,000 for our own plans. We would rather say that here than find out with you later.

8. Will I be required to trade F&O, intraday or with leverage?

   Derivatives and leverage are separate skills. They carry separate risks. SEBI studied individual traders in equity derivatives and published it on 20 August 2026. It found that 87.7% ended the year losing money. A service that pushes every subscriber into options, whatever their situation, is chasing excitement rather than fit. Ask whether there is a cash-equity-only path. Ask whether that path is a real desk or an afterthought.

9. What is your grievance route?

   Every registered intermediary must publish one. Behind it sit SEBI SCORES and SMART ODR. You can use both yourself. Find the grievance page on their website before you pay. If it does not exist, or the link is dead, you have learned how a future complaint will go.

10. What happens when I want to leave?

    Ask what the end of a subscription looks like before you see the start of one. What happens when the term ends? Does anything renew on its own? Do you keep access to the record of calls from your term? What are the exit terms in writing? A service confident in its work has no reason to make leaving confusing. Get the answers in writing before you pay. Keep them.

11. How much will I make?

    This is the trick question. It belongs on the list because the answer sorts services faster than anything else. Any number you get back is either made up or against the rules. That includes any "average monthly return" and any "90% accuracy". No genuine service controls what the market does. And no registered service is allowed to advertise returns. The only honest answer is a refusal with a reason. That is why we wrote a whole page on what a paid advisory can and cannot do for you.

Our own answers, briefly

Our registration number is INH000027380. It is registered to Vinoth Kumar S, Chennai. He is also the compliance officer. Check it yourself on SEBI's register, using our own guide. Every call carries an entry range, staged targets, a stop-loss set before entry, and written reasoning. It reaches you in the Potoos app the day before the market opens. The record sits in the app, dated, losses beside gains, with nothing edited after the fact. The full description is here. Plans are Rs 2,999 quarterly, Rs 5,499 half-yearly and Rs 9,999 annual. Every plan is under the legal cap, and they are listed on the home page. Risk profiling is part of signup. Suggested minimum capital is Rs 50,000. We run two separate desks. The positional equity desk never requires a derivative or screen time. The grievance route is in the footer of every page, backed by SCORES and SMART ODR. And we will not tell you how much you will make, because nobody honestly can.

Common questions