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Are Private Banks Worth It? The Surcharge, Measured

Clear Money Guide

What this guide covers

A quick view of the questions and evidence developed below.

The baseline, measured
Is private banking worth it?
What the surcharge actually buys
How to run the comparison properly
The comparison most people should run first
Comparing offers at this level

Comparison tables scroll horizontally on smaller screens.

Updated August 21, 2026. Quick answer: the honest test is not whether a private bank is “good” — it is what you pay above a measured market median for the extra it provides. At $1 million the median advisory cost across 176 SEC-registered firms is $8,750–$10,000 a year; a large low-cost platform charging a published 0.30% would be $3,000. Private banking sits above both, and the surcharge buys credit, custody and access rather than better investing. Whether that is worth it is answerable — but only against a real baseline, which is the thing almost nobody publishes.

The baseline, measured

These are the medians from our own analysis of the fee schedules 176 registered investment advisers file in their Form ADV brochures. They are identification intervals, not point estimates — the low figure takes the bottom of every disclosed range and the high figure the top.

PortfolioMedian advisory costEffective rate At a published 0.30%Difference per year
$1,000,000$8,750–$10,0000.88%–1.00%$3,000$5,750–$7,000
$2,000,000$16,000–$19,3750.80%–0.97%$6,000$10,000–$13,375
$3,000,000$24,000–$26,0000.80%–0.87%$9,000$15,000–$17,000

Medians: Clear Money Guide 2026 Advisor Fee Benchmark, DOI 10.5281/zenodo.21741167 (CC BY 4.0). The 0.30% column applies Vanguard Personal Advisor’s published tier — “0.30% on Portfolio’s assets below $5 million”, from Vanguard Advisers, Inc.’s own Personal Advisor Select brochure (Form ADV Part 2A) dated March 30, 2026, which also states a $500,000 minimum for that service and that the fee excludes fund expense ratios. It is shown as a published low-cost reference point, not a recommendation.

The table above, drawn as moneyAnnual advisory cost at three portfolio balances. At $1,000,000 the measured median is $8,750 to $10,000 a year against $3,000 at a published 0.30%, a difference of $5,750 to $7,000. At $2,000,000 the median is $16,000 to $19,375 against $6,000, a difference of $10,000 to $13,375. At $3,000,000 the median is $24,000 to $26,000 against $9,000, a difference of $15,000 to $17,000.The table above, drawn as moneyOne lane per portfolio balance on one axis ofannual dollars. The gold mark is the published0.30% reference; the solid teal band is themeasured median across 176 firms; the pale barbetween them is the page’s own differencecolumn.$1,000,000 portfolio$3,000$8,750–$10,000difference $5,750–$7,000 a year$2,000,000 portfolio$6,000$16,000–$19,375difference $10,000–$13,375 a year$3,000,000 portfolio$9,000$24,000–$26,000difference $15,000–$17,000 a year$0$5,000$10,000$15,000$20,000$25,000The rate gets better as the balance rises —1.00% to 0.97% to 0.87% at the top of the band— while the difference grows from $5,750 to$15,000 a year.At $3,000,000 the difference alone($15,000–$17,000) is more money than theentire measured bill at $1,000,000($8,750–$10,000).At $2,000,000 the two meet exactly: thedifference starts at $10,000, which is wherethe $1,000,000 median ends.Medians: Clear Money Guide 2026 Advisor Fee Benchmark, 176SEC-registered firms, DOI 10.5281/zenodo.21741167 (CC BY 4.0)— identification intervals rather than point estimates.Reference: 0.30% of each balance, from Vanguard Advisers,Inc. Personal Advisor Select brochure (Form ADV Part 2A),March 30, 2026. Every cell recomputed from source figures.
Figure 1. The same three rows, in dollars. The measured median is what 176 firms disclose in their brochures; the reference is one published low-cost schedule, shown as a reference point rather than a recommendation, and it excludes the fund expense ratios both sides pay. The distance between them is a difference in price, not a verdict on either — what it buys is the question this page’s next section asks.

At $750,000, a tenth of a percent is $750 a year.

That is the whole argument for getting more than one quote. Take the figures above into the conversation and ask each firm what they would charge on $750,000, all in, and what that buys beyond investment management.

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.

See which advisors fit your situation

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Is private banking worth it?

The honest test is not whether a private bank is good — it is what you pay above a measured market median for the extra it provides. At $1 million the median advisory cost across 176 SEC-registered firms is $8,750–$10,000 a year, while a large low-cost platform at a published 0.30% would be $3,000. Price the surcharge.

What the surcharge actually buys

This is where we will not give you a number, because we could not verify one. Private banks generally do not publish a fee schedule the way a registered adviser must publish its brochure; pricing is negotiated, relationship-wide and frequently bundled with lending. Any specific percentage you read for a named private bank should come with the institution’s own current document behind it, and we are not going to invent one to fill the gap.

What the model does provide is reasonably consistent across institutions, and it is genuinely valuable to some people: credit (securities-based lending, jumbo and bridge mortgages, lending against concentrated or illiquid positions), custody and administration at scale, trustee services, access to private markets and structured products, and a single relationship covering banking, borrowing and investing. If you are borrowing against a portfolio or need a corporate trustee, that bundle is hard to replicate.

What it does not reliably buy is better investment returns, and that is the claim to be most sceptical about. The measured difference above is a certainty; the outperformance is not.

The same three rows as a rate, and the row that cannot be drawnEffective advisory rate at three portfolio balances against a published 0.30% reference. The measured median runs 0.88% to 1.00% on $1,000,000, 0.80% to 0.97% on $2,000,000, and 0.80% to 0.87% on $3,000,000. The reference stays flat across all three balances. A fourth row for private banking is drawn empty because no published fee schedule exists to place on the axis.The same three rows as a rate, and therow that cannot be drawnWhere figure 1’s finding comes from. The goldline is the published 0.30%, which is flat herebecause that schedule charges it on everythingbelow $5 million and all three balances sitinside that first tier.0.30%$1,000,000 · 0.88%–1.00%$2,000,000 · 0.80%–0.97%$3,000,000 · 0.80%–0.87%Private bankingno published schedule to place on this axis0.00%0.30%0.60%0.90%1.20%The band falls as the balance rises; thereference does not move. Across this range thegap stays between 0.50 and 0.70 percentagepoints — so the dollars in figure 1 growbecause the balance does.The bands overlap: 0.88%–1.00% at $1,000,000and 0.80%–0.97% at $2,000,000 share0.88%–0.97%. The balance alone does not tell areader their rate.The last row is empty on purpose. Privatebanks do not publish a fee schedule, so thispage states no figure for one rather thaninventing a plausible number.Rates recomputed from the dollar column of the table aboveand rounded to the two decimals the page prints. Reference:Vanguard Personal Advisor Select brochure (Form ADV Part 2A),March 30, 2026 — 0.30% on assets below $5 million, a $500,000service minimum, and a fee that excludes fund expense ratios.
Figure 2. The rate view, including what it cannot show. The two sides are not like for like: the reference needs a $500,000 minimum and excludes fund expense ratios, and the medians are identification intervals taken from disclosed ranges. This page’s own reading is that private banking “sits above both” — that is its judgement, stated in words, and it is not drawn here, because no institution publishes the schedule that would place it.

How to run the comparison properly

  1. Get the all-in number in dollars per year. Advisory fee, platform or wrap fee, and underlying fund expense ratios. Vanguard’s own disclosure makes the point explicitly — its advisory fee excludes expense ratios, so “your combined fees for advice and investments will vary”. Every provider has that gap; make them close it in writing.
  2. Put it against the median for your balance from the table above.
  3. Price the extras you would actually use. If the answer is a mortgage you would take anyway, compare the rate you are being offered against a standalone lender rather than treating the credit access as free.
  4. Ask what happens if you move the deposits but not the portfolio — the answer tells you how much of the pricing was really about the lending relationship.

Then judge the gap. A difference of a few thousand a year against a service you use constantly is a different decision from the same gap against a service you use twice.

The comparison most people should run first

Before comparing a private bank against a platform, check whether your current fee is competitive at all — a large share of the value in this exercise is discovered in the first five minutes. Check your fee against the measured medians, and if it is high, the negotiation scripts are the cheapest possible fix. The full report behind these medians, including how many firms will not quote a price at all: State of Advisor Fees 2026.

Related: what advice costs at $3 million · whether 1% is worth it · advisor versus wealth manager.

Comparing offers at this level

At $1 million and above the spread between the cheapest and dearest quartile is wide enough that a single comparison conversation is usually worth more than a year of fee negotiation. If you want competing proposals to put against the medians above, an introduction is a reasonable place to start.

Disclosure: the button above routes to our referral partner, WiserAdvisor. Clear Money Guide participates in the WiserAdvisor referral program and may earn compensation when a reader submits a form, at no extra cost to you. Partner compensation does not change our benchmark figures or editorial standards. No institution named on this page paid for placement. See our Affiliate Disclosure.

General information, not investment advice. Figures are dated inline; the benchmark medians are pre-final at 176 sampled firms and are documented in the report linked above.

One rung further up: is a family office worth it — the answer turns on complexity rather than the size of the balance sheet — and at what net worth a family office makes sense, where the published thresholds disagree because they are measuring different things.

If the surcharge is not buying enough to justify itself, the next number is the cost of leaving rather than the size of the gap, and what leaving costs and when it pays back returns it as months to repay.

For your own numbers, run the AUM Fee Calculator 2026: 1% Advisor Fee in Dollars.

See Read the adviser-hiring guide for more on this.

See the adviser match on this page