The Monthly Retainer Model in Financial Planning

The greatest thing about the monthly retainer model is that it allows me to help the upwardly mobile professionals achieve wealth faster. It really fills a gap and makes planning accessible for people who aren’t wealthy — yet.

If you want to really connect with next-generation clients, or you want to build a pipeline of future affluent clients, that means creating an efficient, profitable way to serve less affluent clients now and grow with them.

The monthly retainer or subscription fee model for clients is a very different, unique business model in and of itself. Being able to go to clients and say, “Wouldn’t it be nice if you could work with a financial planner in the same way that you would any other coach or trainer, where they simply charge you an on-going fee from your credit card or

When I changed the description to an annual retainer that I bill monthly, that seemed to resonate much better.

An AUM-only business model bases the revenue of a financial planning firm on something advisors cannot control: the markets.

Before you conclude your first meeting, be sure to ask if it’s okay to follow up in the future. You can say something like, “I’m going to interview several other people too, and I’d like to come back to you in a month or so to share what I’ve come up with. It would be great if you could tell me if it seems reasonable or not. Would it be okay to fol

AdvicePay, a payment processing company created specifically to help financial advisors running the monthly retainer model, offers a solution that is easy to use and compliant. Read more about AdvicePay in the next section of this chapter.

I charge a one-time onboarding fee of $1,500 which covers the first 2 months of service. I then charge an annual retainer (billed monthly or quarterly). The annual retainer is $2,400 for a single person and $3,600 for a married couple. My fees for investment management are 0.75% on the first $1M and 0.5% afterward.

I also recommend figuring out a niche as early in your process as you can and try very hard to stick to it, even if that means your growth is a bit slower in the beginning. In order to help from a cash flow perspective, offer some sort of quick start program but reserve your monthly retainer clients for your niche.