The typical advisory firm spent $2,551 to win one new client in 2026, according to Kitces Research’s survey of 506 advisors, down from $3,800 in 2024. That’s the median for all channels together. Broken out by channel, the cost runs from about $1,400 per client through online directories to almost $49,000 through social media. Here are the numbers, why they differ so much, and how to work out your own.
Two ways to measure it
Kitces uses two measures, and both count the advisor’s time as well as money.
- Client acquisition cost (CAC) is a year’s marketing cost divided by the new clients that year.
- Revenue acquisition cost (RAC) is the marketing cost for each $1 of new yearly revenue.
Counting time matters. In the 2026 study, advisor and staff time made up more than two-thirds of all marketing costs, so a channel that’s free in dollars can still be expensive.
Source: Kitces Research, The Kitces Report, Volume 2, 2026
Kitces credits the drop since 2024 to advisors cutting tactics that took a lot of time for little return, such as newsletters and webinars, and the share of the workweek spent marketing falling from 10% to 8.2%.
Cost per client, by channel
The study also measured each tactic on its own. These figures are aggregate averages: Kitces adds up everything firms spent on a tactic, including the money and hours that produced no clients, and divides by all the clients it brought in.
Two notes on reading it. First, these averages are much higher than the $2,551 median, because larger firms, whose time is worth more, weigh heavily in a sum of all spending. The average across all tactics was $16,925. Compare channels with each other, not with the median. Second, several rows rest on 5 to 9 responses, including digital solicitors, review sites, social media and newsletters, so treat their exact figures loosely.
“AI search optimization” is Kitces’ answer engine optimization: a firm’s own work to show up in AI assistants’ answers. It was measured for the first time in 2026, used by 10% of practices, and came out expensive at $3.45 per $1 of revenue. Kitces left open whether advisors will get better at it as it matures.
Cost per $1 of revenue
Cost per client can flatter channels that bring small clients. Cost per $1 of new yearly revenue corrects for that, and on this measure the order at the top barely changes.
| Channel | Cost per client | Cost per $1 of new revenue |
|---|---|---|
| Online directories | $1,366 | $0.28 |
| Client referrals | $3,198 | $0.34 |
| SEO | $3,020 | $0.45 |
| Centers of influence | $7,371 | $0.72 |
| In-person networking | $10,931 | $1.45 |
| Seminars | $15,447 | $1.76 |
| Newsletters | $40,630 | $4.14 |
| Client appreciation events | $44,191 | $4.54 |
| Social media | $48,836 | $4.88 |
The full ranking by cost per $1 is charted in How to get clients as a financial advisor.
Why the cheap channels are cheap
The cheapest channels share one trait: they take little of the advisor’s time. Advisor time was just 32% of the cost of directory listings, against roughly two-thirds across tactics. Kitces put the typical directory fee at about $500 a year, and the typical per-referral fee, where a listing charges one, at about $250. A listing is set up once and then works while you serve clients.
Review sites are similar. Firms that showed client reviews on their own website spent $0.13 per $1 of new revenue on that tactic, against $0.86 for firms that only collected them.
The expensive channels are the reverse. Newsletters, videos and social media need hours every week, mostly reach people who aren’t choosing an advisor yet, and had low success rates: only 18% of firms using social media got even one client from it in the past year.
Cost per client rises as a firm grows
The same channels cost more as a firm gets bigger, because the advisor’s hour is worth more. Kitces calls this the “anti-scaling” of marketing.
Clients who pay more cost more to win, too. Among asset-based firms, the median cost per client rose from $1,720 for firms whose clients pay under $3,000 a year to $17,500 for firms whose clients pay $20,000 or more.
The cheapest clients in the study went to small flat-fee firms. Firms under $250,000 of revenue that charge only flat fees spent a median $247 per client, against $933 for small firms charging no flat fees. Kitces ties that to their use of directories and SEO, and to consumers actively searching for flat-fee advice.
Where lead services land
Kitces counts SmartAsset’s pay-per-lead program inside its online directory group, so the directory figures above include some advisors paying per lead. About 9% of firms using listings paid that way.
Services paid by a share of the client’s fees, which Kitces calls digital solicitors (most often Harness Wealth, Datalign and Wealthramp), cost $16,804 per client and $1.96 per $1 of revenue, on a small sample. Kitces warns that a single-year figure understates them, because the fee share keeps running for years or for the life of the client.
For shared leads bought outright, the math is short. At about $250 a lead (SmartAsset’s CEO, 2023) and the 1 in 20 rate Kitces called typical for successful users (April 2024), a client costs about $5,000 in leads before any time. See Is SmartAsset worth it? and Should you buy financial advisor leads?.
How to work out your own
- Add up a year’s marketing spend: listings, software, ads, events, any lead or solicitor fees.
- Add the value of your marketing hours. Count hours spent on marketing and prospect meetings, and price them at what your time earns. At the median fee-only hourly rate of $300, five hours a week is $78,000 a year.
- Divide by new clients that year. That’s your CAC. Work it out per channel too, by asking every new client how they found you.
- Compare it with what a client pays. Divide CAC by a client’s monthly fee to get months to earn it back. A planning client at the fee-only median of $4,500 a year pays $375 a month, so the $2,551 median takes about 7 months.
Kitces suggests two more numbers worth tracking: the share of inquiries that are a real fit (under 75% means you’re spending time on people who won’t hire you) and the share of qualified prospects who become clients (50% to 80% is a good range). See Shared leads vs exclusive leads vs referrals: close rates.
What to do with the numbers
- Fund the bottom of the chart first. Directories, reviews shown on your site, SEO and referrals all came in under about $3,200 per client.
- Use your time where it’s cheap. For a small firm, hours cost less than dollars, which is why directories and SEO pay off early. As you grow, hand the hours to staff or channels that don’t need you.
- Review the top of the chart yearly. If a channel costs more than a year of a typical client’s fee, it needs a reason beyond growth.
Where Wellspent fits
Wellspent is built for the cheap end of this chart. Members get a verified record in the public graph at find.wellspent.co, which search engines and AI assistants read, so prospects who are already choosing can find and check you. Introductions arrive with no lead fees and no share of client fees, and membership includes a monthly report on who AI assistants recommend and quarterly press placement with media partners, for $89 a month. See How it works.