Clear Money Guide
What this guide covers
A quick view of the questions and evidence developed below.
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Updated July 29, 2026. Quick answer: An inheritance creates a burst of decisions, not a permanent stream of them. AUM pricing charges a percentage of the balance every year forever; hourly and project pricing charge for the work and then stop. On a 20-year view the model, not the advisor, drives most of the cost difference — and on most inheritances the work genuinely finishes.
Which of the decisions actually recur
| The work | Finite or ongoing? |
|---|---|
| Deciding an allocation for the lump sum | Finite |
| Setting a drawdown schedule for an inherited account | Finite — decided once, then executed |
| Consolidating and retitling accounts | Finite |
| Unwinding a concentrated position | Finite, if on a plan |
| Deciding whether to keep or sell property | Finite |
| Rebalancing a portfolio | Ongoing, and largely automatable |
| Continuous planning as your life changes | Genuinely ongoing |
Count the rows. Five of the seven finish. If most of what you need done is on the finite side, an arrangement that bills annually forever is priced for a different problem than the one you have. That is not an accusation of bad faith — it is what the model is for. The mismatch is the point.
Finite work should not be priced as if it never ends.
Once you know which model fits, the next step is getting names to compare on it.
Before you start, what actually happens. The form is run by Kapitalwise, our advisor-matching partner. Kapitalwise sends your details to advisers who pay for the introduction, so expect calls and texts. Clear Money Guide is paid when you submit the form, whether or not you ever hire anyone. The matching service is free to you and there is no obligation to hire anyone.
The Kapitalwise form opens here. You stay on this page.
What happens when you press the button
It requests contact details and phone verification by text. Nothing loads and nothing reaches Kapitalwise until you press the button. Submitting the form does not guarantee an adviser or a match.
What the difference is worth
On $250,000 over twenty years, a 1% annual fee costs $82,665 in fees paid and $123,466 in ending balance. A finite engagement priced in hours or as a project costs a fraction of that, once, and does not compound. That is the entire comparison, and it does not require anyone to be better at investing than anyone else — the arithmetic is in the fee, not in the performance.
The assumptions, so you can disagree with them. 6% gross annual return, a 1.00% advisory fee charged each year on the running balance, and 0.10% as the cost of holding a broad index fund yourself. Change any of the three and the numbers move — the point is the shape, which does not.
When AUM is the right answer anyway. If you want somebody continuously responsible — not consulted, responsible — that is a real service and a percentage is a coherent way to buy it. It also self-enforces: people who intend to review a plan annually mostly do not, and paying for it is a commitment device. The honest version of the question is whether you are buying a decision or a relationship.
The practical catch at smaller balances
Hourly and project-priced planners are less numerous than percentage-based firms, and the firms most willing to take a one-time engagement are often not the ones advertising. At smaller balances you may also be below a firm’s asset minimum, where an annual minimum fee pushes the effective rate above the headline percentage — which makes the finite engagement more attractive rather than less.
Whether you need any of it depends on what the inheritance consists of, and the timing question has its own answer — hiring and deploying are two different clocks.
Run your own numbers. Hourly scope estimator — estimate the hours a real engagement takes.
Sources
Arithmetic computed for this page on the stated assumptions — 6% gross annual return, a 1.00% advisory fee charged annually on the running balance, and a 0.10% self-managed cost. These are inputs, not forecasts, and not a claim about any firm’s schedule. Fee-level context: our own AUM fee pages. Every tax rule referenced is linked to the page that carries it rather than restated here.
This is arithmetic and decision framing, not tax, legal or investment advice. Nothing here states a tax deadline or a filing requirement — where one matters, the link goes to the page that carries it. Your own answer turns on what the inheritance consists of and on facts no page can see.
Related
What the filings actually say. We measured the fee schedules 176 SEC-registered advisers publish in their Form ADV Part 2A filings: at $250,000 only 28.4% disclose a fee you can price at all, and the weighted median annual cost among those that do is $2,000 to $2,500. The full benchmark, with method.