How fast does a fee-only firm grow? Every advisory firm states the assets it manages on Form ADV, a public filing it updates at least once a year. We took the 5,293 fee-only firms in the public graph that filed a figure in both 2022 and 2026 and compared the two. The typical firm grew 44%. About 1 in 6 at least doubled, and 9% ended with less than they started with.
The 25 fastest-growing firms in each size group are on the full list. This study is about everyone else: what ordinary growth looked like, where it came from, and which kinds of firms grew more.
Source: Wellspent analysis of Form ADV filings through October 1, 2026
What ordinary growth looked like
Growth here is the change between the last assets figure a firm filed in 2022 and the last it filed in 2026. Most firms file once a year, early in the year, so this is close to four years of change.
Half of all firms grew between 21% and 79%. One in ten grew 2% or less, and one in ten grew 145% or more. A firm that grew 50% over these years was a little above the middle. A firm that doubled was in the top sixth.
Markets rose over this period, so some growth came to every firm that simply kept its clients. That is why the more useful question is where a firm stood against firms like it.
Half of the growth was new accounts
Form ADV also states how many accounts a firm manages. At the typical firm, assets grew 44% while the number of accounts grew 22%. The assets in each account grew 19%.
So roughly half of the growth came from having more accounts, and half from each account being larger. Larger accounts are mostly market gains and deposits from clients a firm already had. More accounts is closer to what an advisor means by growth: new households, or more accounts from the same ones.
The two don’t always move together. 23% of firms had fewer accounts in 2026 than in 2022, and most of those still reported more assets: 906 firms, or 17% of the total, grew their assets while their account count fell. A rising market can hide a shrinking client base for years.
At the largest firms the balance was different. Firms that started with $1 billion or more added accounts at about the same rate as everyone else (22%), but the assets in each account grew only 9%, against 23% at firms that started under $100 million.
Small firms grew fastest
In percentage terms, the smaller a firm started, the more it grew. Firms that started with $10 million to $25 million grew 58% at the median. Firms that started with $1 billion or more grew 33%.
Doubling was common only at the small end. Nearly 1 in 3 of the smallest firms doubled, against 1 in 12 of the largest. That is arithmetic as much as anything: a firm with $15 million doubles by adding $15 million, which a few good client relationships can do.
Shrinking was not a small-firm problem. 13% of firms that started with $1 billion or more ended smaller, the highest share of any group, against 9% of all firms.
This is why the list of fastest-growing firms ranks each firm against firms that started at a similar size. A single list would be made up almost entirely of firms that started small.
Firms charging only a percentage of assets grew slowest
Form ADV asks how a firm is paid. Almost every firm in the study charges a percentage of assets, and most also charge fixed or hourly fees. Three groups are large enough to compare.
Firms that charge only a percentage of assets grew 37%. Firms that also charge fixed or hourly fees grew 45%. The 135 firms that charge no percentage of assets at all grew 62%, and more than a third of them doubled.
Small firms grow faster and are more likely to charge flat fees, so we checked each size group on its own. The order held:
- Started with $10 million to $100 million: 77% for firms with no percentage fee (88 firms), 51% for firms with both kinds of fee, 41% for percentage only.
- Started with $100 million to $1 billion: 54% (45 firms), 42% and 35%.
- Started with $1 billion or more: 34% for firms with both kinds of fee and 30% for percentage only. Too few of these firms charge no percentage fee to compare.
This doesn’t show that changing how you charge makes a firm grow. Firms that offer planning for a fixed fee may attract clients earlier in life, take on clients that percentage-only firms turn away, or simply be newer. The fees are the ones on each firm’s current filing, so a firm that changed its fees during these years is counted under what it charges now.
Registration and place
Firms registered with the SEC grew 47% at the median, and state-registered firms 39%. Most of that is size and survival: 13% of state-registered firms ended smaller, against 7% of SEC-registered ones. The share that doubled was the same in both groups, 17%.
By state, growth at the typical firm ranged from 24% to 60% among the 35 states with at least 30 firms in the study.
With 30 to 50 firms in some states, these figures can move a good deal from one year to the next. Three of the four fastest states are in the Mountain West.
The fastest-growing firms
At the top of each size group, growth looks nothing like the middle. The fastest firm that started under $100 million grew 1,220%. The fastest that started with $100 million to $1 billion grew 1,236%, and the fastest that started above $1 billion grew 569%.
Growth at that pace is rarely one client at a time. Of the 75 firms on the list, 27 more than doubled their assets within a single year, which usually means a merger, an acquisition or a team of advisors joining. The list marks those firms and shows each firm’s figures year by year, so a steady climb and a single jump look different.
See the fastest-growing fee-only firms, ranked in three size groups.
What this means for a fee-only firm
- Compare yourself with firms your size. Growth of 44% over these years was the middle of the field. For a firm that started under $25 million the middle was 58%, and for a firm above $1 billion it was 33%.
- Count accounts as well as assets. One firm in six grew its assets while losing accounts. Your Form ADV shows both numbers, and so does anyone who reads it.
- Look at what you charge for. Firms with fixed or hourly fees alongside a percentage of assets grew faster than firms without them, at every size.
- Know that your growth is public. Each filing is on the record, and assistants and prospective clients can read the trend. Every firm in this study has a page in the public graph showing its assets year by year.
Methodology
The firms. The study covers fee-only firms in the Wellspent public graph that filed an assets figure on Form ADV in both 2022 and 2026, and whose 2022 figure was at least $10 million. Smaller starting figures turn ordinary changes into very large percentages. Firms that share one registration with other firms are left out, because the filing covers all of them together. That leaves 5,293 firms: 3,326 registered with the SEC and 1,967 with a state.
The figures. Assets are regulatory assets under management, Form ADV Part 1A Item 5F(2)(c), and accounts are Item 5F(2)(f). For each firm we take the last figure filed in each calendar year. Figures for SEC-registered firms come from the SEC’s Form ADV data files and monthly adviser reports. Figures for state-registered firms come from the SEC’s state adviser feed, including archived copies. Filings run through October 1, 2026.
Growth. Growth is the 2026 figure divided by the 2022 figure, less one. It includes market gains, new and departing clients, and any firms or advisors that joined or left. “Typical” means the median: half of firms grew more and half grew less. We report groups of at least 30 firms.
Limits. A firm had to exist and file in both years, so firms that closed, merged into another firm or stopped registering before 2026 are missing, which makes the picture rosier than the whole field. Firms that started under $10 million are not covered. Fee types and registration are taken from each firm’s current filing. Form ADV figures are reported by the firms themselves, usually as of the end of their last fiscal year. The differences between groups are associations, not proof of cause.