At the fee-only median of $4,500 a year for ongoing planning, a $500,000 practice is 112 clients. If you’re at $250,000 today and want to get there in four years, you need about 14 new clients a year. Using the benchmarks Kitces suggests, that’s 18 to 28 first meetings and 24 to 38 inquiries a year, two or three a month. Bought as shared leads at the typical 1-in-20 rate, the same 14 clients take about 280 leads. The chain is four numbers long, and your fee moves it more than anything else in it.
The chain, in four steps
- Clients in the book = revenue goal ÷ what a typical client pays.
- New clients a year = (clients needed − clients now) ÷ years to get there, plus the clients you expect to lose.
- First meetings = new clients ÷ the share of qualified prospects who hire you.
- Inquiries = first meetings ÷ the share of inquiries that are a real fit.
For steps 3 and 4 this guide uses Kitces’ benchmarks: 50% to 80% of qualified prospects should become clients, and at least 75% of inquiries should be a fit. We take 50% as the cautious case and 80% as the case for a firm with a tight process, and assume every qualified prospect gets a first meeting. Your own rates from last year are better than either, once you have them.
Step 1: clients, at your fee
The fee sets the size of the whole problem. The middle half of US fee-only firms that publish an ongoing planning fee charge $2,400 to $7,200 a year, with the median at $4,500 (fee report).
| Revenue goal | At $2,400 a year | At $4,500 a year | At $7,200 a year |
|---|---|---|---|
| $250,000 | 105 clients | 56 clients | 35 clients |
| $500,000 | 209 clients | 112 clients | 70 clients |
| $1 million | 417 clients | 223 clients | 139 clients |
Clients needed, rounded up, at the bottom of the middle half, the median and the top of the middle half of published ongoing planning fees.
Charging at the top of the middle half instead of the median cuts the clients you need by more than a third. If you charge a percentage of assets, convert first: at 1%, a household pays the median planning fee at about $450,000 of assets. Flat fee vs AUM shows how the model changes the client list behind the same revenue.
Check the count against your calendar, too. If a typical client takes 15 hours of your time a year, 112 clients is 1,680 hours and 223 is 3,345, more than one full-time advisor’s year.
Step 2: new clients a year
The book you need minus the book you have, spread over the years you give yourself. Then add the clients you expect to lose: retirements, deaths, moves and the occasional client who leaves. Use your own count from the past few years. A firm that loses three clients a year needs three more new clients, and the inquiries behind them, just to stand still.
Steps 3 and 4: meetings and inquiries
At Kitces’ benchmarks, each new client takes 1.25 to 2 first meetings and about 1.7 to 2.7 inquiries. That’s the planning number. Real firms see a range around it, and where the inquiry came from matters more than anything else (see below).
Three worked examples
These use the $4,500 median and round up at each step. The cost line uses Kitces Research’s 2026 median cost to win one client, counting time and money, for firms of each size.
A new firm building to $250,000
Starting from zero, reaching $250,000 in five years.
- Clients needed: 56, so about 11 new clients a year.
- First meetings: 14 to 22 a year.
- Inquiries: 19 to 30 a year, two or three a month.
- Cost: firms under $250,000 of revenue spent a median $815 per new client in the 2026 study, so about $9,000 a year, mostly your own hours.
The hours are the real budget here. Kitces estimates 10 to 20 or more hours of marketing per inquiry when advisors are starting out. At 10 hours, 30 inquiries is 300 hours a year, about six a week. How new fee-only advisors get their first 25 clients covers where they come from at this stage.
An established firm doubling to $500,000
Going from 56 clients to 112 in four years.
- New clients: 56, so 14 a year.
- First meetings: 18 to 28 a year.
- Inquiries: 24 to 38 a year, two or three a month.
- Cost: firms with $250,000 to $499,999 of revenue spent a median $2,598 per new client, so about $36,000 a year in time and money.
A firm growing to $1 million
Going from 112 clients to 223 in five years.
- New clients: 111, so about 22 a year.
- First meetings: 28 to 44 a year.
- Inquiries: 37 to 59 a year, three to five a month.
- Cost: firms with $500,000 to $999,999 of revenue spent a median $2,604 per new client, so about $57,000 a year. Above $1 million the median rose to $4,896, because the advisor’s hour is worth more.
At this size the calendar runs out before the inquiries do. The plan has to include a second advisor or a service model that serves more households per hour, and the marketing hours need to move to staff or to channels that don’t need you.
Where the inquiries come from changes the math
The benchmarks above assume inquiries from people who chose to contact you. Bought leads follow a different curve. Kitces wrote in April 2024 that 20 leads, 3 meetings and 1 client was typical even among advisors very successful with SmartAsset, which shares each prospect with about three advisors.
At about $250 a lead (SmartAsset’s CEO, 2023), 280 leads is $70,000 a year before any of your time, and 42 meetings instead of 18 to 28. That’s about twice the all-in median cost for a firm that size. Should you buy financial advisor leads? works through the trade.
Referrals sit at the other end. Advisors on r/CFP describe client referrals closing almost every time, and one fee-only firm with most of its inquiries coming from its web presence said about 60 inquiries a year became 15 to 20 clients (thread), roughly 1 in 3 or 4. Those are single firms’ results, but they show the spread: the same 14 clients can take under 20 conversations or close to 300 names. Close rates by lead source has every sourced rate.
Raise the fee before you raise the volume
Every number in the chain is divided by your fee. Moving from the median to the top of the middle half takes the $500,000 firm from 112 clients to 70, and its yearly new-client need from 14 to under 9 at the same pace. No marketing channel cuts inquiries that much.
Your close rate tells you whether there’s room. Kitces says that if more than 80% of qualified prospects say yes, an advisor is probably undercharging. If that’s you, start with how to raise your financial planning fees, then rerun the math.
Work out your own
Put in your own four numbers: what a typical client pays you, how many clients you have, how many years you’re giving yourself, and how many you lose in a normal year. Then use your own rates from last year: the share of inquiries that were a fit, and the share of first meetings that became clients. If you don’t have those yet, the Kitces benchmarks above are a reasonable start. Write down where each inquiry came from from now on, and next year’s math will be your own.
Then turn the inquiries into a plan with channels and a budget: a one-page marketing plan.
Where Wellspent fits
The inquiry math works best when the people who write to you have already read your fees and your niche. A prospect who contacts you through Wellspent found your record in the public graph at find.wellspent.co and chose to write to you, and no one else got their name. Membership is $89 a month, with no lead fees and no share of client fees, and includes a verified record that AI assistants and search read, a monthly report on who those assistants recommend in your market, and quarterly press placement with media partners. See how it works.