Published: October 13, 2026 · Updated: October 22, 2026

By Nir Dukas, founder of SeeNote.

SeeNote vs BamSEC vs raw EDGAR: which should you use to read footnotes?

Use BamSEC if your work is searching: it finds text across filings and transcripts, exports tables to Excel and compares filings (Pro is $69 a month billed annually). Use SeeNote if your work is reading one filing closely: it opens each referenced note in place, reads the filing's key figures with a link to each line, and covers TASE filings. Raw EDGAR is free and enough for occasional reading.

This page compares a product we make with one we do not, so every BamSEC fact below comes from BamSEC's or AlphaSense's own pages, opened on October 4, 2026, and is linked. Where their pages are silent, the table says so rather than guessing.

How do SeeNote, BamSEC and raw EDGAR compare?

The three tools answer different questions. EDGAR is the SEC's own archive and the source the other two read from. BamSEC is a web service built for finding things across filings and transcripts. SeeNote is a Chrome extension built for reading one filing closely, on the site that publishes it. The table puts them side by side for footnote work, using what each vendor states publicly.

Sources: bamsec.com and BamSEC pricing, both opened October 4, 2026; AlphaSense, "BamSEC is Now Part of AlphaSense"; SEC, EDGAR Full-Text Search FAQ. SeeNote column from seenote.co. Where a cell says a page did not mention something, that is all it means: check the vendor before relying on it.

Where does BamSEC win?

On anything that involves more than one document. BamSEC's homepage puts the pitch plainly: "No more looking through documents one by one. Find any text instantly, across all filings and transcripts." If your question is "which issuers in this sector mention a covenant reset," or "when did this company first describe that risk," a search across every filing answers it, and a reading tool does not. SeeNote has no search across filings at all, by design.

The table tools are the second clear win. The Pro plan lists "Download Tables to Excel" and "Similar Tables and Merge Tables," and the homepage pitches them as a way to stop "painstakingly searching for past versions of tables." For a modeler who needs the same segment table from several years of 10-Ks in one spreadsheet, those tools target exactly that job. SeeNote has no table export.

BamSEC also covers sources SeeNote does not touch. Pro includes "Earnings and Event Transcripts," "Email Alerts" and "All-Company Screening Tools," and the homepage adds that you can "compare filings, add highlights, and take advantage of many other tools." It goes after document hunting directly too: "Manually tracking down each credit agreement or a specific press release? There is a better way." The Enterprise plan adds consolidated invoicing, usage reporting and priority support; SeeNote has no team features. Comparison is the one place the gap narrowed: SeeNote's History sets one note beside the same note in an earlier filing with a Redline, on EDGAR, but compares nothing wider than a note.

Ownership matters to some buyers. According to AlphaSense, BamSEC became part of AlphaSense in July 2024 through AlphaSense's acquisition of Tegus, "which had acquired BamSEC in 2021," and "BamSEC continues to serve as a standalone solution for fast, self-serve SEC filing and transcript research." The same page points BamSEC users toward AlphaSense's wider platform, which advertises Generative Search and Smart Summaries of transcripts. Those are AlphaSense features, not BamSEC Pro line items, so check which plan you are buying.

Where does SeeNote win?

On reading a single filing without leaving it. SeeNote turns every "see Note 12" style reference into a link that opens the referenced note verbatim in a popup where you are reading. References inside that note are links too, so a chain of notes can be followed without leaving your place. Pressing S opens an index of every note in the filing, and hovering a reference shows the note's first lines before you commit to opening it. Where a reference is ambiguous, SeeNote abstains rather than guess.

On the numbers beside the note. The Key figures tab reads the filing's headline figures from the filing itself, revenue to total debt, this period against the comparative, and links every one to the line that prints it. It computes gross margin, operating margin, free cash flow and net debt and shows each formula with its inputs as links. That much is free; a subscription adds 28 ratios, trend sentences built from fixed templates, the largest moves with where the filing reports them, and five years of EDGAR history. A line it cannot read with confidence is "—" with a reason, never a guess: the same rule as for notes.

It also reaches filings BamSEC's pages do not mention. SeeNote works on Israeli TASE filings from Maya, both the Hebrew PDFs and iXBRL, follows reference chains across the separate PDF files that make up one Maya report, and reads Key figures from both. BamSEC describes itself, through AlphaSense, as a tool for "SEC filing and transcript research," and neither of its pages we read mentions TASE filings.

Privacy differs too. SeeNote runs in your browser. There is no language model and no generated prose, what you read is never sent to SeeNote, and the company tabs ask the SEC or Maya directly from your browser rather than through a service of ours. Highlights and your own notes stay on your device, collected in a "My marks" library, and they are free on every filing, including after your three free filings are used. BamSEC is a hosted web app, which is what a search across every filing requires. We did not read its privacy terms, so check them if what you read is sensitive.

On price, SeeNote's $15 a month or $129 a year sits against $69 a month billed annually for BamSEC Pro; the cost table below sets them out, though the two do different jobs.

When is raw EDGAR enough?

More often than either vendor would like. EDGAR costs nothing, needs no account and no install, and it is the authoritative copy. Its full-text search covers "the full text of all EDGAR filings submitted electronically since 2001," and "all data in the filing itself as well as all attachments (such as exhibits)." That is a real cross-filing search, without BamSEC's transcripts, alerts or table tools.

What EDGAR does not do is move you around inside a filing. Every note reference is plain text, so following one means a find or a scroll and then a scroll back. Our page on raw EDGAR vs SeeNote goes through those trade-offs row by row.

What does a real chain of note references look like in each tool?

Coca-Cola's 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2025, filed February 20, 2026, makes a fair test. It has 21 numbered notes and, by our count, 129 numbered note references, 74 of them inside the notes themselves. Its longest chain of references runs 9 hops, the longest of the 28 Dow 10-Ks we analysed. The first three hops from Note 4 look like this:

Source: The Coca-Cola Company Form 10-K for 2025, Notes 2, 4, 5 and 17. Reference counts and word distances are SeeNote's own count from a plain-text copy of the filing (the full 10-K runs about 95,400 words); distances are approximate.

On raw EDGAR, each hop is a find for the heading ("NOTE 17: FAIR VALUE MEASUREMENTS"), a read, and a trip back. The three hops add up to about 43,000 words of scrolling, and the way back to Note 4 depends on remembering where you were.

On BamSEC, the job its public pages describe is a different one. Its search is built to find text across filings, such as other 10-Ks that discuss Level 3 impairments of assets held for sale, and its table tools are built to pull tables like the fair value hierarchy into Excel. Whether its document view links "Refer to Note 17" to Note 17 is not something its homepage or pricing page says, so test it in the trial if that is your use.

With SeeNote on the EDGAR page, "Refer to Note 5" in Note 4 opens Note 5 in a popup, "Refer to Note 17" inside that popup opens Note 17, and "Refer to Note 2" opens Note 2. Each popup is the filing's own text, and closing them puts you back in Note 4. If you then move to a 10-Q, remember that its notes are condensed and lean on the 10-K; our guide to how 10-Q notes differ from a 10-K explains what gets left out.

What does each tool cost per year?

Sources: BamSEC pricing page and bamsec.com, opened October 4, 2026; seenote.co pricing. The per-year figure for BamSEC Pro is $69 times 12. Prices change; the vendors' own pages are authoritative.

BamSEC's pricing page also shows a free tier alongside Pro. Its comparison table lists all-company document search and filings under Free, with company-level search, table downloads, transcripts, highlighting and email alerts under Pro.

Which should you use?

• You search across companies or years, track credit agreements, or build models from tables: BamSEC. Nothing in SeeNote replaces a cross-filing search or a table export.
• You read one 10-K, 10-Q or Maya report closely and keep losing your place following notes: SeeNote.
• You want the filing's headline numbers and four ratios beside the note you are reading, each linked to its line: SeeNote's Key figures tab, free.
• You read Israeli filings at all: SeeNote, since BamSEC's stated scope is SEC filings and transcripts.
• You are not allowed to send what you read to a third-party service: SeeNote runs locally, or raw EDGAR.
• You open a handful of filings a year: raw EDGAR, and SeeNote's three free filings if you want to try clickable references.

Some readers will want both, since they cover different halves of the work: BamSEC to find the filing and the passage, then the filing itself on EDGAR to read around it. SeeNote's coverage list is EDGAR and Maya, so it adds links on the EDGAR copy, not inside BamSEC's viewer.

Questions

Reading footnotes without losing your place

A search tool gets you to the right filing; the reading still happens one note reference at a time, as Coca-Cola's Note 4 to Note 5 to Note 17 to Note 2 chain shows. SeeNote is a Chrome extension that opens each referenced note verbatim in a popup on EDGAR and Maya, follows the chain inside notes, and reads the filing's key figures with a link to each line; nothing you read is sent to SeeNote. Your first three filings are free, with no card and no expiry; pricing is on seenote.co.