Forex Factory and MacroSetup do different jobs
People search for these two together, so it is worth saying plainly: we are not trying to replace Forex Factory and you should not cancel it for us. It is the best calendar on the internet and it is free. What it deliberately does not do is tell you which currency the macro is behind today, or why. That is the part we do.
We are not affiliated with Forex Factory, and nobody paid for this page.
Side by side
| MacroSetup | Forex Factory | |
|---|---|---|
| The job it does | Says which of the eight majors the macro is behind this morning and against which, with the reason written out. | Says what is coming, when, and what it came in at. The standard the rest of the industry copied. |
| The calendar | Short on purpose: the releases the central banks themselves say they watch, with the currency it belongs to and what a surprise would mean for its score. | Complete, with impact ratings, filters, event detail views, data source links and charts per event. Their own products page dates those innovations to 2005. |
| News | None. We write about a release only when it changes a score, and then in one or two sentences. | A news product they describe as breaking market moving news faster than any internet source, minute by minute. |
| Community | None, and that is deliberate. Everyone sees the same research at the same moment and there is no room to talk your book. | The largest trading forum in the world by their own description, plus a Trades product showing live brokerage accounts and aggregate positioning. |
| Prices and charts | We measure currency strength from prices, but we are not a charting package and never will be. | A Market product aggregating prices from several sources, with synthetic crosses against metals, energy and crypto. |
| Who reads it for you | Every morning the eight majors and all 28 pairs are scored and the three widest gaps become the setups of the day. | Nobody. It is a data and community product, which is exactly why it can stay neutral. |
| Track record | Every day's top 3 measured on price from one London opening to the next, published day by day, misses included. | Not applicable. They do not publish calls, so there is nothing to keep score of. |
| Price | $49 a month, with a 14 day trial and no card needed to start. | Free, and we found no paid plan on their site when we checked. An account is free too. |
The gap a calendar leaves
A calendar row tells you that inflation is out at half past one and what the forecast is. It cannot tell you whether a miss matters for that currency, because that depends on what its central bank is steering on right now. The same figure moves a currency when the bank is watching prices and moves nothing when it has said it is watching jobs.
It also cannot tell you the other side of the trade. A weak number is only useful once you know which of the other seven currencies has a reason to be bought against it, and that is a comparison across eight economies rather than one row in a table.
So the honest division of labour is this. Their calendar for what is coming, in full, for every market and every tier. Our reading for what it means for the eight majors, before the London open and again when the number lands.
Use both like this
- Before the session. Our ranking for the direction and which pairs have two legs pulling the same way.
- Filter their calendar down to the currencies in those pairs, so you know what can go wrong in the next few hours.
- When the number lands. Their detail view for what it actually came in at, and our check within the hour for whether the assessment changed.
- Afterwards. Our track record to see whether the reading was worth anything, which is the part most services skip.
How we checked
Everything in the right-hand column comes from pages Forex Factory publishes about itself, read on 24 September 2026: their home page and their products page, where they describe the Calendar, News, Forums, Trades, Market and Brokers products in their own words.
Things change. If something here is out of date or wrong, tell us and we will correct it, and the date above moves with it. Forex Factory is their trademark, we have no affiliation with them, and nobody paid for a word of this.
The other comparisons we keep are MacroSetup and Forex Fundamentals and MacroSetup and EdgeFinder.
Questions about the two
Is MacroSetup an alternative to Forex Factory?
Not a replacement, a layer on top. Forex Factory tells you what is coming and when, faster and with more coverage than anyone. We tell you which currency the macro is behind this morning and why, which is the question the calendar cannot answer. Most of our members keep both open.
Is Forex Factory free?
Yes. The calendar, the forum, the news feed and the trades product are free to use, and an account is free as well. We found no paid plan on their site when we checked on 24 September 2026, which is part of why we do not pretend to compete with it.
What does your calendar add to the Forex Factory one?
Ours is deliberately shorter. It carries the releases the central banks themselves say they are watching, with the currency it belongs to and what a miss would mean for that currency's score. It is a reading list, not a complete calendar, and it sits next to a ranking that changes when the number lands. Our calendar
Which is better for trading the news?
Forex Factory for the moment itself: it is faster and it has the detail view, the filters and the history per event. Us for the hour before and the hour after, because the question then is whether the number changes the direction of that currency, and that needs a score to change rather than a headline to arrive.
Do you take anything from Forex Factory?
No. Our calendar is built from what each central bank and statistics office publishes itself, and the outcomes are read from the primary source. We have no affiliation with Forex Factory and nobody paid for a word of the comparison.