Clear Money Guide
What this guide covers
A quick view of the questions and evidence developed below.
Updated July 31, 2026. Quick answer: at $500,000 you are comfortably above almost every firm’s minimum, so the question is no longer whether you can hire someone — it is whether what you get back is worth the price. In our own benchmark of published adviser fee schedules the weighted median annual cost at $500,000 is $3,750 to $5,000, which is 0.75% to 1.00%. Call it $40,000 to $50,000 over ten years before any growth on money you did not pay out. That is a real purchase, and it deserves a specific answer about what it buys.
What the fee has to be buying at this size
Three things, and none of them is stock picking. Tax sequencing: which account each contribution goes into now, and which account you draw from later, is worth more at $500,000 than any plausible difference in fund selection. Decision timing: Roth conversion windows, when to claim Social Security, when to realise gains. Behaviour: the plan you keep in a bad year. If a firm’s pitch at $500,000 is about beating the market, you are being sold the one thing the fee cannot reliably deliver. The fee-side detail at this balance: advisor fees at $500k and what a $500,000 portfolio costs to have managed.
The comparison that actually decides it
Not adviser versus no adviser — percentage versus flat fee. At $500,000 a percentage arrangement costs roughly $4,000 a year and rises automatically with the balance, whether or not the work grows. A flat-fee arrangement charges the same for the same work at $500,000 and at $900,000. The break-even calculator shows exactly where the lines cross for your numbers, and the comparison at $250k, $750k and $2M shows how fast the gap widens. Flat-fee fiduciary advisers exist at this size and are frequently the better buy.
Get a number you can compare
Comparison is harder than it should be: in our own benchmark of published adviser fee schedules, computed from Form ADV disclosures and published on the fee comparison chart, at $250,000 fewer than three firms in ten publish a fee you can price, and the same opacity carries upward. Form ADV Part 2A Item 5.A requires an adviser to provide the fee schedule and to disclose whether fees are negotiable, so ask each firm the same question in the same words — “what is the all-in annual dollar cost on $500,000, including any fund expenses and platform fees?” — and compare dollars, never percentages. Then check the answers against the benchmark and negotiate: how to negotiate advisor fees and the scripts.
$4,000 a year deserves a specific answer, not a brochure.
Ask two or three firms the same question about the same $500,000 and compare the dollar answers. The service below matches you with 2 to 3 advisors to make that comparison possible.
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 are retiring on this
Different question, different page: retiring with $500,000, where withdrawal sequencing and Social Security timing carry most of the value. Neighbouring balances: $250,000 and $1 million. The ladder by service tier: at what net worth. Whether the answer is yes at all: the complexity checklist.