Updated September 5, 2026. Quick answer: Vanguard’s advice ladder has four published tiers, per its own site today: Digital Advisor at a $100 minimum (roughly 0.15 to 0.16% effective fee), Personal Advisor at $50,000 (roughly 0.30 to 0.31%), Personal Advisor Select at $500,000 (0.30% flat, guaranteeing a dedicated CFP), and Personal Advisor Wealth Management at $5 million and above (also roughly 0.30%). None of these published fees include the underlying funds’ own expense ratios. Whether the $50,000 Personal Advisor tier provides a dedicated, named CFP the way Select explicitly guarantees, or shared and pooled advisor access, is not distinguished on Vanguard’s own pages.
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Vanguard Personal Advisor at a glance
| Fact | What the company’s own pages say |
|---|---|
| Digital Advisor | $100 minimum; approximately $15 to $16 per $10,000 invested (0.15 to 0.16%) |
| Personal Advisor | $50,000 minimum; approximately $30 to $31 per $10,000 invested (0.30 to 0.31%) |
| Personal Advisor Select | $500,000 minimum; 0.30% flat; explicitly guarantees a dedicated CFP |
| Personal Advisor Wealth Management | $5,000,000+ minimum; approximately 0.30% |
| Not included in any tier’s fee | Underlying fund expense ratios |
The four-tier ladder
Vanguard’s tiers scale by account minimum more than by a dramatically different fee percentage: all four sit close to 0.15 to 0.31%, with the jump from Digital Advisor to Personal Advisor buying human involvement, and the jump to Select at $500,000 buying a specific, named, dedicated CFP rather than shared access.
What’s not distinguished between tiers
Vanguard’s Select page states plainly that its $500,000 tier comes with a dedicated Certified Financial Planner. The $50,000 Personal Advisor tier’s own page does not use the same specific language, and we could not confirm from Vanguard’s public materials whether that tier assigns a single named advisor or rotates you through a pooled team. If a consistent, named relationship matters to you at the $50,000 level, ask Vanguard directly rather than assuming it matches Select’s guarantee.
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- Read the figures above against the company’s own current pricing page; prices in this category change without much notice.
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Bottom line
A fee structure that’s consistent across four tiers, with the real differentiator being what kind of human access your minimum buys, not how much you pay per dollar invested.
Sources
- Vanguard advice tier overview: https://investor.vanguard.com/advice
- Vanguard Personal Advisor Select detail page: https://investor.vanguard.com/advice/personal-financial-advisor
Methodology. This page was materially reviewed on September 5, 2026. Figures came directly from the company’s own current pricing pages, Form CRS, or Form ADV brochures where noted, with sources linked inline; any figure we could not independently confirm this session is named as such above rather than presented as verified.
Independent analysis based on the reviewed company’s own published pages, pricing, and SEC filings where applicable, cited inline with the date we read them. We have not used any of these services as a client. Nothing here is personalized financial, tax, or legal advice. Companies did not pay for, review, or influence this content. See our Editorial Policy, Corrections, Affiliate Disclosure, and Disclaimer.
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