Updated August 1, 2026. Quick answer: we read the fee schedules that 176 SEC-registered investment advisers file in their own Form ADV brochures and computed what advice actually costs. The headline is not the price. It is that 61.4% of firms cannot give a household with $250,000 a usable price at all — they set a minimum above it, publish only an “up to” ceiling, or write the fee in language too vague to compute. For the 28.4% that can, the median lands at $2,000–$2,500 a year (0.80%–1.00%).
What advice costs, and who can find out
| Portfolio | Annual cost | Effective rate | Range | Firms |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $250,000 | $2,000–$2,500 | 0.80%–1.00% | 44 | |
| $500,000 | $3,750–$5,000 | 0.75%–1.00% | 48 | |
| $1,000,000 | $8,750–$10,000 | 0.88%–1.00% | 54 | |
| $2,000,000 | $16,000–$19,375 | 0.80%–0.97% | 57 | |
| $3,000,000 | $24,000–$26,000 | 0.80%–0.87% | 59 |
Each row is an identification interval, not a point estimate: the low figure takes the bottom of every disclosed fee range, the high figure the top. We publish both and no midpoint, because a midpoint would invent precision the filings do not contain. “Firms” counts the firms whose disclosures could be priced at that balance.
The access gap: most firms will not price a $250,000 household
This is, as far as we can tell, the first time anyone has quantified it from the filings themselves. The question is not what advisers charge — it is how many will tell you. At $250,000, 61.4% of firms with a retail advisory programme cannot produce a usable price for that household. That splits three ways, and the three are mutually exclusive:
- 18.9% set a minimum above the balance — the household is not eligible at any price.
- 16.8% publish only a ceiling — an “up to” maximum with no floor. You can bound the cost above, not price it. Their median published ceiling at this balance is $4,000 (1.60%), across 22 firms.
- 25.7% write the fee in language too vague or qualified to compute — “negotiable,” “depends on complexity,” and similar.
A separate 10.2% of sampled firms do not serve retail clients at all. We report them apart from the gap rather than inside it: they are not withholding a price, they are not in this market. Adding the priced share, the gap and the not-retail share gives 100.0% for this row.
| Portfolio | Cannot price | Minimum | Ceiling only | Too vague | Priced | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| $250,000 | 61.4% | 18.9% | 16.8% | 25.7% | 28.4% | |
| $500,000 | 58.0% | 13.8% | 17.1% | 27.1% | 31.8% | |
| $1,000,000 | 54.0% | 7.4% | 19.7% | 26.9% | 35.8% | |
| $2,000,000 | 52.8% | 6.2% | 19.7% | 26.9% | 37.0% | |
| $3,000,000 | 51.3% | 5.6% | 19.7% | 26.0% | 38.4% |
The gap narrows as balances rise — from 61.4% at $250,000 to 51.3% at $3,000,000 — but it never comes close to closing. Even at $3,000,000, fewer than two firms in five publish something you could price.
What the firms that do open up actually charge
Firms that cannot price a $250,000 household but can price a $1,000,000 one — call them the entrants — charge a median of 1.00% at $1,000,000 ($10,000 a year), across n = 11 firms. That is measured at $1,000,000, on firms whose first usable price appears above $250,000; state the definition whenever the number is quoted, because other reasonable definitions give different answers on the same data. The subgroups here are small — they show direction, not precision, and we do not build a headline on any of them.
The opacity finding, on current numbers
Set the minimums aside and look only at firms that have a programme for the household but will not put a computable number on it. At $250,000 that is 42.5% of firms — 16.8% ceiling-only plus 25.7% too vague to compute. Opacity is not a small-account problem: it is flat-to-worse as balances rise, because the largest firms are the most likely to describe fees as negotiable rather than publish a schedule.
| Portfolio | Ceiling only | Too vague | Combined |
|---|---|---|---|
| $250,000 | 16.8% | 25.7% | 42.5% |
| $500,000 | 17.1% | 27.1% | 44.2% |
| $1,000,000 | 19.7% | 26.9% | 46.6% |
| $2,000,000 | 19.7% | 26.9% | 46.6% |
| $3,000,000 | 19.7% | 26.0% | 45.7% |
A note on a number that moved. Several pages on this site cite 47.1% for the combined opacity share at $250,000. That figure was correct on the earlier basis of 137 sampled firms; on the current 176-firm basis the same measure is 42.5%. The measure did not change — the sample grew. Where the two disagree, this page carries the current number.
Methodology
This is an original analysis of public SEC filings, run by Clear Money Guide. It is not a survey, and no adviser was asked anything: every figure comes from what firms themselves wrote in Form ADV Part 2A.
- Frame and sample. A screened candidate frame of 9,234 firms from SEC Part 1 data as of July 1, 2026, in 16 strata by region and firm size. 176 sampled firms are fully processed; 145 of them have a primary non-wrap AUM programme, which is the denominator for every availability figure on this page. Wrap programmes and non-AUM fee models are out of scope for that measure.
- Weighting. Stratum population shares are preserved; within a stratum the share is divided equally among firms with a programme at that balance. Quantiles are left-continuous and weighted, with a 2,000-draw within-stratum bootstrap for the confidence intervals.
- Identification intervals. Where a firm discloses a range, we carry the range through rather than picking a point. Every cost figure is therefore a low–high pair, and the access figures use the conservative endpoint.
- Rounding. Component shares round independently to one decimal, so a row can sum to 99.9% rather than exactly 100. The tables show the components as measured, not forced to a total.
Limitations, stated plainly
- This release is pre-final. The research plan behind it sets release gates of at least 200 completed firms and at least 10 per stratum. This basis has 176. Two strata were suppressed at $250,000 for thin coverage. The direction of these findings has been stable across both computed bases, but the decimals will move.
- Disclosed schedules are not transaction prices. We measure what firms publish. Negotiated outcomes are not observable in these filings, and the 25.7% that call fees negotiable are evidence that some of them differ.
- Balances outside $250,000–$3,000,000 are not covered and nothing here should be extrapolated past them.
- Small subgroups. Any figure resting on fewer than ten firms is reported with its n inline and should be read as direction only.
Cite this report
Free to reuse, including commercially, under CC BY 4.0, with attribution.
Clear Money Guide (2026). State of Advisor Fees 2026. Original analysis of SEC Form ADV Part 2A disclosures. https://clearmoneyguide.com/state-of-advisor-fees-2026/
The underlying dataset has an archived, citable copy: DOI 10.5281/zenodo.21741167. Machine-readable copies and the full methodology sit with the fee benchmark and on the research index. Corrections are published, not silently edited.
This page is the report. It is styled to print cleanly — use your browser’s print or “save as PDF” command and the site chrome drops away. Updated annually; the next revision lands when the sample clears its release gates.
Related: check your own fee against these medians · is an adviser worth it · am I paying too much.
At $1 million and above: are private banks worth it? — the surcharge priced against our measured median rather than against a brochure, with what the premium actually buys and what it does not.
Citable figures: our statistics index collects 20 measured figures from four open datasets, each with the DOI to cite and all free to reuse under CC BY 4.0.