Clear Money Guide
What this guide covers
A quick view of the questions and evidence developed below.
Updated July 31, 2026. Quick answer: you need a plan for certain; whether you need an ongoing adviser depends on how many of the decisions below you are comfortable making alone. What changes at retirement is where the value sits: accumulating, it is contribution rate and allocation; drawing down, it is withdrawal sequencing, Social Security timing and tax-bracket management, and those are worth real money on $500,000. In our own benchmark of published adviser fee schedules, ongoing percentage-of-assets management at $500,000 has a weighted median cost of $3,750 to $5,000 a year — against a portfolio you are now spending down, that is a materially bigger decision than it was while you were saving.
The five decisions that carry the value
1. Withdrawal order. Which account you draw from first, and in which years, changes lifetime tax by more than fund selection ever will — the withdrawal-order calculator. 2. Social Security timing. A once-and-for-all decision worth tens of thousands over a long retirement — the claiming-age calculator and 62 versus 67. 3. The low-bracket years between retiring and required distributions, which are the best Roth conversion window most people will ever get, and it closes. 4. Health-coverage and premium thresholds before Medicare and after. 5. The sequence-of-returns problem — a poor first few years of withdrawals does lasting damage, and the mitigation is structural rather than clever.
Buy the decisions without buying the percentage
Here is the part the matching-service articles do not say: every one of those five is a decision, and decisions can be bought by the project. A flat-fee or hourly retirement-income engagement can settle all five for a fraction of one year’s percentage fee, and you can repeat it every few years as things change. Hourly rates, project pricing, how many hours a retirement plan needs. The case for the ongoing arrangement instead is real but specific: you want someone answering the phone in a bad market, or you want a spouse to have a relationship in place if you are the one managing the money. That is a legitimate purchase — just name it as the thing you are buying.
In retirement you are buying decisions, not investment management.
Ask any adviser you meet how they would sequence withdrawals on $500,000 and when they would claim Social Security. The service below matches you with 2 to 3 advisors so you can compare answers.
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.
If you already have an adviser
Retirement is the natural moment to price the relationship rather than continue it by default. A second-opinion review costs a fraction of an annual fee and tells you whether the withdrawal plan is sound. If the answer disappoints, moving is paperwork rather than a confrontation: how switching works. And check the arithmetic on the fee itself: the break-even calculator and the benchmark.
Neighbouring questions
Retiring with $1 million · $500,000 while still working · the ladder by service tier · the complexity checklist.