Clear Money Guide
What this guide covers
A quick view of the questions and evidence developed below.
Updated July 31, 2026. Quick answer: at $2 million you can hire anyone, and the firms calling themselves wealth managers will want the account. Two things to hold onto. First, the price: in our own benchmark of published adviser fee schedules the weighted median annual cost at $2 million is $16,000 to $19,375, or 0.80% to 0.97% — and at $3 million it is $24,000 to $26,000 (0.80% to 0.87%), so the rate falls while the dollars keep climbing. Second, and more important: “wealth manager” is a marketing title, not a regulated category. Nothing about the phrase guarantees a fiduciary standard, a credential, or a wider scope of work.
At $17,000 a year, ask what happens that is not about the portfolio.
The answer separates wealth management from investment management with a wealth-management price. The service below matches you with 2 to 3 advisors so you can ask more than one.
If your portfolio is $250,000 or more, this connects you — free, with no obligation to hire anyone — with 2 to 3 vetted advisors.
Before you start, what actually happens. The matching service is run by WiserAdvisor, an independent advisor-matching company. It opens on their site, asks for your ZIP code and a few questions, and matches you with 2 to 3 vetted advisors. It is free to you.
WiserAdvisor states the service is built for portfolios of $250,000 and above. By submitting, you consent to emails, phone calls and text messages from WiserAdvisor and up to three advisors, so expect to be contacted. Clear Money Guide is paid when you complete the form, whether or not you ever hire anyone.
Compare fees, scope, conflicts, credentials and fiduciary duty before you hire anyone. This is not the only way to find an adviser.
Opens on WiserAdvisor’s site in a new tab.
What the extra dollars are supposed to buy
Between an investment-management relationship and a genuine wealth-management one, the difference should be scope: estate structure and coordination with your attorney, multi-year tax planning coordinated with your accountant, charitable strategy, concentrated-position management, insurance review, and family or business-succession work. If a firm charging $17,000 a year is delivering a portfolio and a quarterly review, you are paying wealth-manager prices for investment management. The test is simple and you can apply it in one meeting: ask what they will do in the next twelve months that is not portfolio-related, and ask who does it. The fee detail at this size: advisor fees at $2M, a $2 million portfolio, and at $3 million.
Verify the standard, because the title does not
Form CRS — which SEC-registered advisers and broker-dealers must give retail investors — has to state the legal standard of conduct and whether the firm and its professionals are dually registered. An investment adviser owes a fiduciary duty under the Advisers Act; a broker-dealer is subject to Regulation Best Interest; a dual registrant can act in either capacity depending on the transaction. At $2 million that distinction is worth real money, so establish it in writing: the five-minute verification and the twenty-minute vet.
The breakpoint conversation
Tiered schedules mean the marginal rate on your last dollar is lower than your blended rate, and firms rarely volunteer where the next tier begins. Ask for the schedule tier by tier, ask what your blended rate is today, and ask what it becomes at $2.5 million — Form ADV Part 2A Item 5.A requires the fee schedule to be provided and requires the firm to disclose whether fees are negotiable. The breakpoint ladder, the calculator, and the negotiation scripts. At this balance a flat-fee arrangement can be dramatically cheaper — the break-even.
Neighbouring questions
What the two titles actually mean and which you need at each level: financial advisor vs wealth manager. Below this: $1 million. The ladder by service tier: at what net worth. Where firm minimums sit: advisor minimum assets.