Guides › Financial Advisor Fees
Updated September 28, 2026. Quick answer: ESI Financial Advisors is registered with the SEC as an investment adviser (CRD #265, confirmed ACTIVE this session via SEC IAPD). Per its own current fee brochure, a $500,000 account would run up to $10,000 a year (the published maximum, which the firm says is negotiable) under its published fee schedule. This review covers what its own fee brochure and current SEC registration confirm today; this firm also has a fiduciary-status page and minimum-investment page on this site.
ESI Financial Advisors at a glance
| Fact | What ESI Financial Advisors’ own pages say |
|---|---|
| Legal entity | Equity Services, Inc. |
| Registration | Equity Services, Inc. is registered with the SEC as an investment adviser (CRD #265, confirmed ACTIVE this session via SEC IAPD). |
| Fee on a $500,000 account | Up to $10,000 a year (the published maximum, which the firm says is negotiable), per its own current brochure |
| Minimum to open an account | See the minimum-investment page for ESI Financial Advisors |
| Cost to leave (exit fee) | No how-to-leave page published for this firm yet |
What ESI Financial Advisors’ own fee schedule charges
CRD 265 is ACTIVE and SEC registered per a live IAPD lookup performed this session (isSECRegistered: Y, iaScope: ACTIVE). The firm’s current registered legal name is Equity Services, Inc, doing business as ESI Financial Advisors, an insurance-affiliated broker-dealer and investment adviser owned by National Life Group. The firm’s own main Form ADV Part 2A brochure states it managed approximately $1.6 billion in non-discretionary and approximately $1.1 billion in discretionary assets, for total assets under management of roughly $2.7 billion, as of December 31, 2025. The priced fee schedule comes from the firm’s separate Form ADV Part 2A, Appendix 1 wrap-fee brochure for its ESI Illuminations platform (Fidelity’s FMAX advisory platform), which the main brochure directs clients to for Illuminations fees; two other individual-facing co-advised programs named in the main brochure, AssetMark and Saratoga Advantage Trust, are both explicitly disclosed there as closed to new investors and so are not priced here.
“Investor Fees Under ABP, the total Investor Fee is comprised of: 1) the Platform Fee; 2) the Intermediary, or “Advisory”, Fee (negotiated between the client and the IAR); 3) the third-party Manager’s Fee (if using a Strategist manager). The Platform Fee to use asset-based pricing ranges between 0.08% and 0.26%, based on the assets under management and the selected program. EFA retains the Platform Fee. Accounts on the Illuminations platform are subject to a minimum annual platform fee which ranges between $15-$50, depending on the selected program. In the event an account balance falls below the initial minimum investment, the minimum annual platform fee can represent more than 2.00% (the Firm’s maximum allowable Advisory Fee) of the account’s billable assets, depending on the actual account balance at the time of billing. If the account balance falls to a level at which the annual platform fee represents more than the Firm’s maximum Advisory Fee, clients should consult with their advisory representative to consider their options.”
The Illuminations platform brochure states the Advisory Fee component can range up to a firm-wide maximum described in the brochure as the Firm’s maximum allowable Advisory Fee of 2.00%; that ceiling is applied directly to each balance shown, running from $5,000 at $250,000 to $40,000 at $2,000,000. No single dollar minimum fee is disclosed for the Advisory Fee itself, only a small minimum platform fee of $15 to $50 that applies to a separate fee component, so no floor is applied to these figures.
| Account balance | Annual fee |
|---|---|
| $250,000 | $5,000 |
| $500,000 | $10,000 |
| $1,000,000 | $20,000 |
| $2,000,000 | $40,000 |
See the full breakdown, including how the figure is calculated, on ESI Financial Advisors’ own fee page.
Registration
Equity Services, Inc. is registered with the SEC as an investment adviser (CRD #265, confirmed ACTIVE this session via SEC IAPD).
This is a registration confirmation only, not a fiduciary-standard verdict (a registered investment adviser can still be a dual registrant with a broker-dealer, which changes which standard applies in each capacity). For the fiduciary-standard question itself, see the fiduciary-status page for ESI Financial Advisors.
What it costs to leave
ESI Financial Advisors does not yet have a dedicated exit-fee page on this site. The general mechanics of switching financial advisors and a dated termination letter apply regardless of firm.
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- Form ADV Part 2A, Appendix 1 (July 1, 2026): https://files.adviserinfo.sec.gov/IAPD/Content/Common/crd_iapd_Brochure.aspx?BRCHR_VRSN_ID=1050359
- SEC IAPD firm summary (CRD #265, checked September 28, 2026): https://adviserinfo.sec.gov/firm/summary/265
Methodology. This page was built September 28, 2026, drawing directly on ESI Financial Advisors’ own current fee brochure, cited in Sources below, and a fresh SEC IAPD registration check run the same day. As of September 28, 2026, this site publishes a fiduciary-status page and a minimum-investment page for ESI Financial Advisors; where the exit-fee facts above are cited, they were independently verified against the same primary source. Any fact we could not independently confirm is named as an honest gap rather than presented as verified. Nothing here is personalized financial, tax, legal, or investment advice, and it is not a substitute for reading ESI Financial Advisors’ own Form ADV Part 2A and Form CRS. We have not used ESI Financial Advisors as a client. ESI Financial Advisors did not pay for, review, or influence this content. See our Editorial Policy, Corrections, Affiliate Disclosure, and Disclaimer.
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