There are two common answers, and they measure different things. The median SEC-registered advisory firm managed $446.9 million at the end of 2025, with a median of 8 employees, according to the Investment Adviser Association and COMPLY’s Industry Snapshot 2026, built from Form ADV filings. Per individual advisor, Cerulli’s latest public figures come out near $90 million. Fee-only planners often sit well below both, because most of what they charge for, flat and hourly planning, isn’t counted as assets under management at all.
The short version
| Source | What it measures | Figure | As of |
|---|---|---|---|
| IAA and COMPLY, from Form ADV | Median regulatory AUM of an SEC-registered firm | $446.9 million | End of 2025 |
| IAA and COMPLY, from Form ADV | Average AUM of SEC-registered firms focused on individuals (5,478 firms) | $424.0 million, 8 employees | End of 2025 |
| IAA and COMPLY, from Form ADV | State-registered advisers: total AUM divided by number of firms | About $26 million | End of 2025 |
| Cerulli | AUM per advisor at retail-focused RIAs | About $91 million | End of 2022 |
| Cerulli | AUM per advisor, all channels | $88.1 million | 2021 report |
| Kitces | Revenue and clients per advisor (no AUM) | $309,000 and 84 clients for a solo advisor | August 2026 slides |
Two rows are our own division of published totals, explained below. The rest are as published.
A firm’s AUM is not an advisor’s AUM
The SEC’s public data is firm data. When you look up an adviser on IAPD, the assets you see come from Item 5.F of the firm’s Form ADV, and they cover everyone at the firm. The $446.9 million median is a business with a median of 8 employees, some of whom are operations and compliance staff, not advisors.
The same report shows how small most of these businesses are. In 2025, 92.8% of SEC-registered advisers had 100 or fewer employees and 67.4% managed less than $1 billion. Firms that work mainly with individuals were smaller still: 5,478 of them averaged $424.0 million, 8 employees, 2 offices and 2,563 individual clients.
The figure also has a specific definition. Form ADV counts regulatory assets under management: securities portfolios for which the firm provides “continuous and regular supervisory or management services,” in the SEC’s words. Assets you advise on once, a client’s 401(k) you only comment on, or a household you plan for on a flat fee without managing its accounts don’t count. For a planning-led firm, RAUM can understate the size of the practice by a lot.
Per advisor: about $90 million, and the figures are dated
Cerulli is the most quoted source for assets per advisor, and its current reports are paid. The public figures are older:
- All channels. Cerulli’s U.S. Advisor Metrics 2021 report put the average at $88.1 million per advisor across the industry, and $198 million at wirehouses, as reported by InvestmentNews in February 2022.
- Retail RIAs. At the end of 2022, Cerulli counted 18,558 retail-focused RIA firms with 78,282 advisors managing $7.1 trillion, reported by Financial Planning in November 2023. Divided out, that’s about $91 million per advisor. That’s our arithmetic, not a Cerulli figure.
Cerulli also found independent RIAs averaged about three advisors per firm, against 8.9 at hybrid RIAs. Asset values rose a good deal after 2022, so treat these as a floor for the channel today, and remember they’re averages: a few large teams pull them up, and the typical advisor manages less than the average one.
The fee-only picture
Fee-only advisors cluster at the small end, for two reasons.
Many are below the SEC line. Advisers that manage at least $100 million are generally required to register with the SEC; most smaller ones register with their state. The 15,799 state-registered advisers managed $411.9 billion in 2025, about $26 million a firm on our division, with an average of one non-clerical employee. The same report says two-thirds of state-registered advisers offer financial planning, and almost all of those charge hourly or fixed fees. None of these firms are in the $446.9 million median.
Much of the work isn’t priced on assets. In the Wellspent fee report, 62% of the 2,574 fee-only firms whose websites say how they charge use a percentage of assets, but 48% offer an ongoing planning fee and 38% sell one-time plans or projects. Most offer more than one model. A firm with 80 flat-fee clients and $20 million under management is a full practice that looks small on Form ADV.
Where AUM is the model, the median first-tier fee among fee-only firms that publish prices is 1%. At that rate, a household pays the median ongoing planning fee of $4,500 a year at about $450,000 of assets. Below that, a flat fee earns more per client. See Flat fee vs AUM for your firm.
Revenue says more than assets
Because AUM leaves out planning fees, Kitces benchmarks practices on revenue and clients instead. In slides Michael Kitces presented to FPA of Greater Indiana in August 2026, solo advisors served about 84 client households and brought in about $309,000 of revenue per professional, or $3,640 a client. Larger ensembles served fewer households per professional (46 in the largest firms) at higher fees ($13,395 a client) and about $684,000 of revenue per professional.
To put the solo figure in asset terms: $309,000 is what a 1% fee earns on about $31 million. That’s our conversion of Kitces’ revenue figure at the median fee-only rate, not a measured AUM, but it shows how far a typical solo practice can sit from the $446.9 million firm median and still be a normal practice.
How to benchmark your own firm
- Compare per advisor, not per firm. Divide your assets and revenue by the people who hold client relationships.
- Use revenue and households alongside AUM. If a third of your revenue is planning fees, AUM alone undersells you to a buyer, a recruit or a lender.
- Compare like with like. A state-registered planner against the SEC median, or a solo RIA against a Cerulli channel average, tells you little.
- Look up real peers. IAPD shows any registered firm’s RAUM and employee counts from its Form ADV. Five firms near you with your fee model are a better benchmark than any national average.
- Check the date. Assets rise and fall with markets. A per-advisor figure from 2021 and a firm median from 2025 aren’t measuring the same market.
Where Wellspent fits
Most ways of paying for growth scale with your assets: a lead service that takes a share of a client’s fees costs more as the client’s portfolio grows. Wellspent membership is $89 a month whatever your AUM, with no share of any client’s fees. It includes a verified record in the public graph at find.wellspent.co that states your fees and fee model as you charge them, introductions from prospects with no lead fees, a monthly report on who AI assistants recommend, and quarterly press placement with media partners. See How it works.