You can listen to most public company earnings calls for free, either live or as a recording, through the company’s investor relations website or a third-party aggregator app. No special account or brokerage relationship is required. Here’s how to find them, tune in, and get the most out of what you hear.
Find the Call on the Company’s Website
Every publicly traded company maintains an investor relations section on its website, usually linked from the footer or under an “About” or “Investors” tab. This is where the company posts its earnings call schedule, webcast links, and dial-in details. Most companies hold these calls quarterly, within a few days of releasing their earnings report.
When you land on the investor relations page, look for a section labeled “Events and Presentations” or “News and Events.” You’ll typically see a list of upcoming calls with the date, time, and a webcast link you can click to listen in your browser. Some companies also offer a phone dial-in option. Corning, for example, provides a registration link that gives you a personal dial-in number and PIN. Either way, you’re listening to the same call.
For the webcast option, you usually just click a link at the scheduled time. No registration is needed in most cases. Phone dial-ins sometimes require you to register in advance to receive your access code. If you’re planning to listen live, check the page a day or two beforehand so you know the format and aren’t scrambling at start time.
Use an Aggregator App
If you follow multiple companies, checking each investor relations page individually gets tedious. Aggregator platforms solve this by pulling earnings calls from thousands of public companies into one place. Quartr is one of the most popular dedicated apps for this. It streams live audio and recorded calls with a podcast-style interface, covering public companies globally. You skip the webcast registration entirely and just hit play.
Quartr also lets you follow specific companies, build a personalized feed, and get alerts when a call goes live. It includes real-time transcripts alongside the audio, which is helpful if you want to read along or search for specific topics discussed during the call.
For tracking when calls are scheduled without necessarily listening through the platform, earnings calendars from financial research sites like Zacks Investment Research compile release dates, estimated and reported earnings per share, and conference call times across hundreds of companies reporting in a given week. These calendars are free and let you plan which calls to tune into.
What Happens During the Call
Earnings calls follow a predictable structure, and knowing it helps you listen more efficiently. A typical call runs 45 minutes to an hour and has three parts.
First, a company representative reads a safe harbor statement. This is a legal disclaimer warning that the discussion will include forward-looking statements (predictions about future performance) and that actual results could differ significantly. It sounds like boilerplate because it is. It usually lasts a minute or two.
Next comes the prepared remarks, which are the real substance. The CEO and CFO are almost always on the call, and other executives may join depending on the company. They walk through the quarter’s financial results: revenue, profit, margins, and key business metrics. They also discuss what’s ahead, including goals, strategic priorities, and how management expects those plans to affect future performance. This section typically runs 15 to 25 minutes and is often scripted or heavily rehearsed.
The final portion is a Q&A session where Wall Street analysts (and occasionally other participants) ask the executives questions about the results, guidance, or strategy. This is often the most revealing part of the call because it pushes management beyond their prepared talking points. Executives can decline or defer questions, and they sometimes do, but analysts tend to press on the topics the market cares most about. The Q&A usually fills the remaining 20 to 30 minutes.
Listen to Replays After the Call
If you miss the live event, you have several options. Most companies post a replay of the webcast on their investor relations page shortly after the call ends. These recordings typically stay available for weeks or months, though the exact duration varies by company.
For transcripts, Seeking Alpha is one of the most widely used free sources. Navigate to the company’s page, select the Articles tab, and filter by Transcripts to find a full written version of the call. Reading a transcript can be faster than listening to the full audio, and it lets you search for specific terms like “margin,” “guidance,” or a product name you’re interested in.
Aggregator apps like Quartr also archive recorded calls, so you can listen on your own schedule the same way you’d catch up on a podcast episode. If you prefer reading over listening, the transcript route is faster. If you want to hear the tone and confidence (or hesitation) in an executive’s voice, the audio replay is worth the time.
Tips for Getting More Out of the Call
Read the earnings press release before the call starts. Companies publish their headline numbers (revenue, earnings per share, guidance) in a press release that usually drops before or right at the start of the call. Having those figures in front of you lets you focus on the context and color management provides rather than scrambling to write down numbers as they’re read aloud.
Pay attention to what analysts ask during the Q&A. Their questions often highlight the issues that matter most to the stock’s valuation. If three analysts in a row ask about the same product line or cost category, that’s a signal about where uncertainty or concern sits in the market.
Compare what management says now to what they said last quarter. Did they hit the targets they laid out three months ago? Did they quietly stop mentioning an initiative they were excited about before? Consistency (or the lack of it) between quarters tells you a lot about how well a company is executing. Transcripts from prior calls, available through the same sources listed above, make this comparison straightforward.