Pricing
At Think Different Wealth Advisors, we have a client-first mentality. We believe clients deserve transparency and simple, easy-to-understand pricing. The idea that prospective clients must first attend a meeting before they can find out how much an advisor charges seems silly to us. We don’t hide our fees. If you spend some time to get to know us, we believe you’ll find that we earn every dollar we charge.
Clients may choose to hire our services for investment management only or for comprehensive financial planning with investment management.
Investment Management ONLY
We offer both active and passive management strategies. Our active strategy involves the selection of individual securities using fundamental analysis. We believe our deep research process and contrarian approach will outperform a broad passive index such as the S&P 500. Learn More.
Our passive strategy uses low-cost index funds and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) that track the performance of various indices. Clients may choose to use our active or passive strategies.
Our investment management fee is paid quarterly based on assets under management (AUM) at the end of each quarter. Our fee is calculated according to the following table and will vary depending on whether the active or passive option is selected. For example, if active management is elected, the first million under management will be charged an annual fee rate of 1.00%. The next million dollars will be charged a reduced rate of 0.95% and so on. The actual quarterly fee rate will be the annual fee rate divided by 4. Investment management fees are billed directly from your investment accounts.
| Assets Under Management | Annual Fee (Active) | Annual Fee (Passive) |
|---|---|---|
| $0 - $1,000,000 | 1.00% | 0.70% |
| $1,000,001 - $2,000,000 | 0.95% | 0.65% |
| $2,000,001 - $3,000,000 | 0.90% | 0.60% |
| $3,000,001 and above | 0.80% | 0.50% |
We require minimum assets under management of $200,000 for investment management-only clients. For our financial planning clients, this minimum is waived.
Comprehensive Financial Planning + Investment Management
For clients interested in both financial planning and investment management, we charge both a financial planning fee and an investment management fee. Please note we do not offer financial planning to clients who are not willing to let us manage their investments. We have found based on past experience that clients have the most success when we do both financial planning and manage their investments. Clients may choose to have us manage their investments with either an active or passive strategy.
Financial Planning Fee Component
Financial planning fees are charged based on the table below. The amounts in the table are annual fee amounts. We typically bill the fees monthly. We have designed our fees to be able to serve clients with little assets that most financial advisors would outright reject. We have also designed our fees so that you can graduate to better tiers. As the amount of assets we manage for you grows, your financial planning fee will be steadily reduced. The financial planning fee component will be billed monthly from your checking account.
| Assets Under Management | Financial Planning Fee for Single | Financial Planning Fee for Couple |
|---|---|---|
| $0 - $249,999 | $4,000 | $6,000 |
| $250,000 - $499,999 | $3,000 | $4,500 |
| $500,000 - $749,999 | $2,000 | $3,000 |
| $750,000 - $999,999 | $1,000 | $1,500 |
| $1,000,000 and above | $0 | $0 |
Financial Planning Fee Examples
1) Single individual with $50k of investments: $333 per month (calculated as $4,000 annual divided by 12)
2) Couple with $500k of investments: $250 per month (calculated as $3,000 annual divided by 12)
3) Couple with $1 million or more of investments : $0 (financial planning fees waived)
For new clients, there is also a one-time upfront payment of $2,000 to cover the costs of initial onboarding and plan creation.
At Think Different Wealth, we believe good financial planning requires an ongoing relationship between the advisor and the client. Thus, we do not perform one-time financial planning or hourly work.
For clients whose needs are more complex (such as business owners or clients who own many rental properties), we may add an incremental fee for the additional complexity and increased workload.
Investment Management Fee Component
Investment management fees are charged as a percent of assets under management. The same fee table from the Investment Management Only section above applies. For clients with under $1 million of assets under management, the fee is 1.0% for the active strategy and 0.7% for the passive strategy. The investment management fee component will be billed quarterly from your investment accounts.
Learn about what we offer
Read about the financial planning topics we cover and our unique investment philosophy and research process
