How many Americans actually retire wealthy — and what does “wealthy” even mean in retirement? The answer depends on which measure of wealth you use. Total net worth includes home equity, which doesn’t pay your grocery bill. Investable net worth — the liquid and semi-liquid assets that can generate retirement income — is a more useful lens. Using Federal Reserve data on Americans aged 60–69, this article breaks down how many fall into different wealth categories, what annual income each level realistically supports (before and after tax), and what financial advisors say are the risks that most commonly derail even well-funded retirement plans.
As I approach my own “work optional” phase of life, I’m thinking more and more about what our retirement budget might look like.
More importantly, I’m looking at the (very large) investable net worth that would take.
And no, I’m not gonna spill the beans about our numbers here, but I will share some interesting tidbits about the wealthiest group of Americans.
Key Takeaways
1
About 12.8 million Americans aged 60–69 have an investable net worth of $500,000 or more — but “wealthy” in retirement depends heavily on what you need your money to do.
Using Federal Reserve Survey of Consumer Finances data, roughly 12.8 million Americans in their 60s have investable net worth of $500,000 or higher — the threshold this analysis uses as a starting definition of “wealthy.” But the difference between $500,000 and $5 million in investable assets is enormous: $500,000 may generate $77,000 in annual retirement income (including Social Security), while $5 million can generate over $320,000. The key distinction is investable net worth — excluding home equity — since home equity doesn’t pay your bills in retirement.
2
Even a high-net-worth retirement portfolio doesn’t guarantee financial security — the risks that can derail it are underestimated far more often than the returns that grow it.
Long-term care costs, sequence-of-returns risk, longevity beyond expectations, higher-than-projected inflation, lawsuits, and poor investment decisions can all erode even very large portfolios. Financial advisors consistently identify long-term care as the most underplanned risk — a multi-year care event can cost several hundred thousand dollars and is not covered by Medicare. True retirement wealth planning isn’t just about reaching a number; it’s about stress-testing that number against the risks that could eliminate it.
3
Account tax structure — how much is in tax-deferred, Roth, taxable, and rental income — can change your after-tax retirement income by tens of thousands of dollars annually, even with the same pre-tax portfolio.
A $1 million portfolio in a traditional IRA and a $1 million portfolio split between Roth accounts, taxable accounts, and rental properties can produce dramatically different after-tax income. Roth distributions are tax-free, long-term capital gains in taxable accounts may be taxed at 0% below a certain income threshold, and rental income can be sheltered by depreciation. Tax location strategy — deciding which assets live in which account types — is one of the highest-leverage retirement planning decisions available.
Investable Net Worth vs. Total Net Worth: The Distinction That Actually Matters in Retirement
The number many people concentrate on is net worth.
Stated simply, your net worth is the difference between what you own and what you owe.
The problem most Americans run into when trying to figure out if they can afford to retire is that much of their net worth is trapped in their home equity — the difference between the value of their home and what they owe on it (if they haven’t yet paid off their mortgage).
If you own a $500k home free and clear, that contributes $500k to your net worth.
It also reduces how much you need to spend each year because you don’t have to pay a monthly mortgage payment or rent.
However, you can’t (easily) use that money to pay for groceries or utilities.
That’s why I prefer to use “investable net worth” as my measure of how we’re doing in terms of approaching work-optional status.
This flavor of net worth excludes your home’s value and your mortgage balance since neither of those affects how much you can invest in income-producing assets.
If you’ve blown past that line and have at least $5M investable net worth, you’re considered a very-high net worth (VHNW) individual, and an ultra-high net worth (UHNW) individual if your investable net worth exceeds $30M.
Image Credit: Depositphotos.
How Many Americans in Their 60s Are Wealthy?
According to Statista, there are 21 million Americans aged 60–64 and about 19 million aged 65–69.
Here’s what these tools tell us (note that since UHNW individuals are fewer than 1 percent, the tools don’t enumerate them with any accuracy, so I don’t separate that category).
Americans Ages 60–69 by Investable Net Worth
Based on Federal Reserve Survey of Consumer Finances data via DQYDJ net worth calculator, excluding primary home equity. Population data from Statista (21M aged 60–64; 19M aged 65–69).
Americans aged 60 to 69 categorized by investable net worth level — well off, high net worth, very high net worth, and ultra high net worth — with estimated population counts for each category based on Federal Reserve Survey of Consumer Finances data
Investable Net Worth
Category
Americans Ages 60–69
$500K – $1M
Well Off
4.2 million
$1M – $2M
HNW
3.6 million
$2M – $5M
HNW
2.8 million
$5M – $10M
VHNW
1.0 million
$10M and up
VHNW & UHNW
1.2 million
Total
Well Off and Up
12.8 million
VHNW and UHNW individuals are combined in the $10M+ tier because UHNW individuals represent fewer than 1% of the population and cannot be enumerated accurately from available survey data. Source: Federal Reserve Survey of Consumer Finances (2022) via DQYDJ.com.
So, if we count having an investable net worth of $500k as “wealthy,” there are 12.8 million Americans ages 60–69 who fit that bill.
What Investment Returns Can You Aspire to in Retirement?
This isn’t a simple question to answer.
So much depends on how you invest your wealth.
If you’re hyper-conservative and keep everything in bonds, your long-term average, inflation-adjusted annual returns will be around 1.7 percent.
On the other hand, if you’re hyper-aggressive and invest 100 percent in equities, your long-term average annual returns will be around 7.1 percent (again, adjusted for inflation).
If you invest part of your wealth in rental properties, you’d benefit from leveraged appreciation plus rental income. This could be 25 percent or more.
If you’re wealthy and savvy enough to invest in private equity placements, you may get 30 percent or higher real returns.
For simplicity, let’s assume you allocate your wealth among these different asset classes somewhat conservatively and manage to get an inflation-adjusted annual return of 5.4 percent and that’s what you plan to live on, in addition to Social Security retirement benefits.
Regarding Social Security, the maximum monthly retirement benefit for a married couple is $9746 in 2024, which is just under $117k a year. The average is much lower, around $2700 a month or $32.4k a year.
Someone who is at least wealthy will most likely get an above-average Social Security retirement benefit. Let’s assume that’s $50k a year for our purposes here.
What Retirement Income Does That Buy You?
Putting it all together, let’s assume $50k from Social Security plus 5.4 percent from your portfolio.
If your investable net worth is $500k, that gives you a retirement income of $77k.
Invest $1M and you can live on $104k.
With a $2M portfolio, your retirement income can be $158k.
How about $5M? That gives you $320k to play with.
And with $10M? Your retirement income is an amazing $590k.
Keep in mind that these numbers are all pre-tax.
If your wealth is entirely in tax-deferred accounts, your budget has to account for everything getting taxed as regular income.
If a good portion is in taxable accounts, you might be taxed using the lower long-term capital gains rates, which up to a certain taxable income is zero!
If you managed to put half in Roth accounts (IRAs or 401k plans), that portion would be tax-free.
To get a sense of how this might play out, let’s assume your portfolio is divided 40 percent in tax-deferred accounts, 20 percent in taxable accounts, 20 percent in Roth accounts, and 20 percent in rental properties where you can shield the rental income with depreciation so that’s also effectively tax-free.
We’ll also assume an 8 percent state income tax applied to the 60 percent that isn’t Roth or shielded by depreciation.
Plausible Retirement Income by Investable Net Worth Level
Assumes $50,000/year Social Security income plus 5.4% inflation-adjusted portfolio return. Tax scenario: 40% tax-deferred / 20% taxable / 20% Roth (tax-free) / 20% rental with depreciation shelter. State income tax: 8% on non-sheltered income.
Estimated pre-tax, taxable, and after-tax annual retirement income for investable net worth portfolios of $500,000 to $10 million, incorporating $50,000 Social Security and 5.4% real portfolio return with mixed tax account structure
Investable Net Worth
Pre-Tax Income
Taxable Income
After-Tax Income
$500,000
$77,000
$3,000
$73,000
$1,000,000
$104,000
$14,000
$98,000
$2,000,000
$158,000
$67,000
$143,000
$5,000,000
$320,000
$164,000
$280,000
$10,000,000
$590,000
$326,000
$527,000
These are back-of-the-envelope estimates intended to illustrate general ranges, not financial projections. Actual income will vary based on account structure, Social Security timing, state tax rates, and investment performance. Consult a financial advisor before making retirement income decisions.
The above numbers are my back-of-the-envelope estimates, and I’m sure they aren’t accurate. But they should be good enough to get a sense of the after-tax budget you might be able to afford in retirement with these levels of wealth.
It’s important to keep in mind, however, that no level of wealth you may achieve will fully insulate you from disaster. There are a myriad of risks, many that could derail almost any retirement plan that doesn’t specifically account for them.
Omar Morillo, CFP®, Founder of Imperio Wealth Advisors says, “As an Advisor, I emphasize the crucial role of early and well-planned strategies in achieving financial comfort in retirement. It’s not just about reaching a certain wealth threshold but ensuring a sustainable and fulfilling lifestyle post-retirement. I often encourage those planning for retirement to watch out for potential landmines that can completely throw off their budget, such as the high cost of long-term care. Every retiree wants their retirement assets to last as long as needed but often fails to plan beyond the mundane and account for the unexpected.”
Anthony Ferraiolo, Partner Advisor at AdvicePeriod agrees, “Even if clients think they have enough money for retirement, we want to protect them from, e.g., multi-year long-term care events, lawsuits, or poor investment decisions, sequence-of-returns risks, greater than expected longevity, lower than expected market returns, higher than expected inflation, etc. You may have a measure of control over some of these, but others are difficult to avoid and could wipe out your funds if you didn’t plan for that possibility. The most critical part of retirement planning, in my opinion, is having the confidence and security to live a wealthy retirement, which requires insuring against such high-impact risks and planning for inevitable health issues.”
The Bottom Line: What Wealthy Retirement Actually Looks Like — and What Can Still Go Wrong
As you can see, there are vast differences between the merely well-off and those with significant wealth.
With $500k invested, you might be able to live on $73k a year. That isn’t shabby, but a “Lexus” retirement it’s not.
Even with $1M, your after-tax budget will likely be short of 6 figures.
Once you get to VHNW, your annual after-tax retirement budget will be several times higher than the median US income.
Clearly, the UHNW among us don’t have to worry about being able to afford almost anything short of mega-yachts and multiple palaces around the world.
Stephan Shipe, Owner of Scholar Financial Advising points out however, “The basic living expenses of someone with $5M vs. $15M aren’t very different. The main differences we see are travel and experiences. With $5M you could take a weeklong international trip each year, but the $15M investor can spend a month living with their family in a different country each year.”
Ultimately, however, money is just one piece of the puzzle, and once you have enough, other things should take precedence.
Ryan Goldenhar, CFA, CFP, Partner and Advisor with Wealth With Options sums it up well, “Wealth is more than simply dollars and cents, especially in retirement. Even if you’ve achieved VHNW or UHNW status, true wealth should factor in having a quality relationship with your family, spending time with friends, and being actively involved in your community, which could be volunteering and hobbies.”
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About the Author
Opher Ganel, Ph.D.
My career has had many unpredictable twists and turns. A MSc in theoretical physics, PhD in experimental high-energy physics, postdoc in particle detector R&D, research position in experimental cosmic-ray physics (including a couple of visits to Antarctica), a brief stint at a small engineering services company supporting NASA, followed by starting my own small consulting practice supporting NASA projects and programs. Along the way, I started other micro businesses and helped my wife start and grow her own Marriage and Family Therapy practice. Now, I use all these experiences to also offer financial strategy services to help independent professionals achieve their personal and business finance goals. Connect with me on my own site: OpherGanel.com and/or follow my Medium publication: medium.com/financial-strategy/.
Saving for a home down payment is one of the most common — and most daunting — financial goals Americans face. Whether you’re targeting the full 20% to avoid Private Mortgage Insurance or looking at an FHA loan, the path from renting to owning requires a clear savings target and a strategy that actually works. This guide covers nine practical, specific ways to build your down payment faster: from setting the right budget and banking your next raise, to paying off debt that’s quietly blocking your mortgage approval, and automating savings so you don’t have to rely on willpower alone.
Are you looking forward to owning your own house?
No neighbors connected to your walls, your own private backyard, a place you can paint whatever color you want (without management approval?!)
Buying a home can be one of life’s most exciting events, but saving tens of thousands of dollars for a down payment can feel overwhelming.
We get it. And we’ve put together a simple, no-frills guide on how to save for a house quickly.
Key Takeaways
1
Before you start saving, know your target — a 20% down payment eliminates PMI but an FHA loan lets you buy with as little as 3.5% down.
On a $300,000 home, a 20% conventional down payment requires $60,000 — but an FHA loan reduces that to $10,500. The tradeoff is mortgage insurance: PMI on a conventional loan can cost up to 2% of your balance annually, while FHA loans carry their own Mortgage Insurance Premium. USDA and VA loans offer 0% down for qualifying buyers. Knowing which loan type fits your situation sets the right savings target from day one.
2
The fastest path to a down payment combines expense reduction, income increases, and automation — not just cutting lattes.
Small budget cuts help, but the highest-impact strategies are behavioral and structural: banking your next raise instead of lifestyle-inflating it, skipping vacations for one or two years (Americans spend nearly $2,000 per year on summer travel alone), and adding side hustle income that goes directly to your down payment fund. Automating a transfer to a dedicated savings account the day after each paycheck removes the temptation to spend what you intended to save.
3
Paying off high-interest debt before saving for a down payment often accelerates homeownership — not delays it.
Lenders evaluate your Debt-to-Income (DTI) ratio when approving a mortgage. High DTI from credit card or auto loan balances can push you into a worse interest rate tier or disqualify you entirely. Paying down that debt first improves your loan terms, potentially saving more on mortgage interest over 30 years than the months you spent not saving for a down payment. It also frees up monthly cash flow to save faster once the debt is gone.
How Much Money Do You Need to Buy a House?
Before we dive into the details and strategies to help you save for buying a house, you need to know how much money you need to save for a down payment.
Since there are many ways to finance a home, we’ll cover the two main options for your house down payment.
Down Payment on a Conventional Loan
For most conventional home loans, saving up a 20% down payment on the home is wise. This is because most lenders require you to pay Private Mortgage Insurance (PMI) without a 20% down payment. This can be as much as 2% of your loan balance for the year, which is a significant monthly cost.
To save up to 20% for your home, you need to take the total home cost and divide it by 5.
Example:
Home cost → $300,000
20% down payment → $300,000 ÷ 5 = $60,000
As you can see, a 20% down payment can seem like a lot. Especially if this is your first home purchase. This is why many first-time homebuyers instead opt for down payment assistance loans from the Federal Housing Administration (FHA).
FHA Loans: How to Buy a Home With as Little as 3.5% Down
FHA loans are federally-backed mortgages designed to help those with lower incomes and an average credit score qualify for mortgages. Depending on your credit score and other qualifying factors, you can put as little as 3.5% down on your home purchase.
Note: There is a Mortgage Insurance Program (MIP) for this type of loan, but it does allow you to save much less to purchase a home. Always run the numbers to see what works best for your financial situation.
To save up 3.5% for your home, you need to take the total home cost and multiply it by 0.035.
Example of a 3.5% down payment on a home:
Home cost → $300,000
3.5% down payment → $300,000 x 0.035 = $10,500
As you can see, a 3.5% down payment is just a fraction of a 20% down payment and may be more attainable.
There are other loan options, including USDA and VA Loans, that have specific qualifications but may allow you to put as little as 0% down. As always, do your research to see if you may qualify.
9 Simple Ways to Save for a Home Fast
Once you figure out exactly how much you need to save for a home down payment, follow these simple strategies to boost your savings rate and buy your home faster!
1. Get on a Budget (Yes, Really)
The best way to save money is to plan for it. And there is no better way to start saving money than to get on a budget that maximizes your savings.
The best way to start is by going through your current spending. Review your bank and credit card statements in the past few months to see where your money has gone.
Then create a budget based on your spending and see how much you can save each month. If you want to save more, you can start looking at areas of excess spending (we’re looking at you, Amazon!) and see if you can cut them back a bit.
Remember, cutting expenses is not forever and you can still have some fun on a budget. But remember to focus on your big goal of buying a house and temporarily cut back on extras until you get there.
2. Live on the New Mortgage Payment
It’s always a good idea to start living as if you are already paying your new mortgage off before you actually buy the home. This lets you know how life will feel (financially) when you do buy the house. But the magic is that you can then save the extra dollars into your down payment fund.
Example: Let’s say you are currently paying $1,500 per month in rent. You want to put 3.5% down on a $300,000 home. Your total new mortgage payment would be about $1,900 per month.
Set up your budget to live with a $1,900 payment instead of $1,500, and save the extra $400 into your down payment savings account. This will help you save toward your home and help you get used to the new payment at the same time!
3. Bank Your Next Raise
When saving for a house, any and every extra dollar moves you closer to the goal. If you want to get there quicker, consider banking your next raise.
You could go ask for a raise right now or wait until your annual review. In any case, if you get a raise, put all the extra funds into your down payment savings account.
Example: Let’s say you make $70,000 per year. You get a 4% raise this year ($2,800).
After taxes, your take-home pay goes up by about $175 per month. Save that $175 per month toward your down payment.
4. Make It a “Staycation” Year
Vacations are tons of fun but can be awfully expensive. Why not skip the trip this year and enjoy a staycation instead?
There are tons of free and budget-friendly things to do in your own hometown (just Google it), and you can enjoy exploring your local city while saving thousands of dollars toward your new home.
Americans spend almost $2,000 on summer vacation per year, even more for families. If you plan a fun staycation for two years, that’s $4,000 more toward your house down payment.
Yes, travel is fun, but pausing for a few years to own a home is absolutely worth it.
5. Cut Out All Extra Spending (For a Short Time)
If you are really motivated to save up for a house fast, cut out all the extra expenses.
This is the fastest way to boost your savings. Just be careful – it could leave you feeling burnt out if you are too aggressive with your budget.
The easiest way to do this is to only pay for your necessities and nothing else. This includes food, housing, utilities, and transportation. Everything else gets cut out. Many people refer to this as a no-spend challenge.
This is a surefire way to save hundreds (or thousands) per month and start stacking cash fast. But don’t do this for too long, as you might throw your budget out the window and give up completely.
Consider this a challenge to get into your house faster and give yourself a little “fun money” each week so you don’t feel too deprived.
6. Get a Side Hustle to Save Even More
If living on a bare-bones budget isn’t too appealing, then consider getting a side hustle to help boost your income and your savings.
Here are a few ideas you can check out to get started with bringing in some extra money:
Delivery Driver. Everyone is getting groceries and take-out delivered these days, why not be the one dropping it off? You can earn money through places like Postmates, Uber Eats or Instacart on your own time and simply get paid to drop off people’s stuff.
Hang with Pets. If you’re a pet person, considering using a service like Rover to watch other people’s animals and get paid for it. Play fetch with Fido and collect a few dollars to save toward your home.
Get Crafty. Like making crafts? Consider setting up shop online and sharing your gifts with the world. Websites like Shopify and Etsy make it easy to set up shop and start selling your art.
No matter what you choose to do on the side, the extra income will get you into your dream house much quicker!
7. Pay off Your Debt
Although this may seem counterintuitive (shouldn’t you be putting the money towards the house?), in truth, paying off your debt helps you buy your home and save more money in the long run. Lenders consider your Debt-to-Income ratio (DTI) when qualifying you for a loan, and the lower your debt, the better your terms can be.
Paying off a few high-interest credit cards or loans can go a long way toward getting you into a home and saving you money on the mortgage as well.
8. Sell Your Stuff
Did you know most of us are sitting on hundreds (or even thousands) of dollars, and we don’t even realize it?
Yes, most Americans have unused items they can sell right now, quickly netting them hundreds of dollars (and decluttering their life simultaneously!)
Garage sales are out, and Facebook Marketplace is in. It’s quick and easy to snap a few pics of your items, put in descriptions and prices, and list them online.
Need some help finding what to sell? Simply open your garage and identify things you haven’t touched in a year. If you won’t need it anytime soon and it’s worth $5 or more, list it online and collect some cash for your new home!
9. Automate Your Savings
One of the best ways to save for a house is to automate things. When every paycheck comes in, have a set amount transfer to your savings account.
Example: You get paid every other Friday. The following Monday, schedule an automatic transfer of $100 to your house down payment account.
Set this up as a recurring transfer every two weeks, and you can start stacking your down payment quickly.
Start Saving Today — Your Down Payment Won’t Build Itself
No matter how you choose to save for a home, don’t wait. Rents aren’t going down, and you aren’t getting any younger!
If you follow these tips, you can quickly get yourself into a house and start enjoying your newfound freedom!
Jacob Wade
About the author:
Jacob Wade is a nationally recognized personal finance writer. Jacob has written professionally for Money.com, The Balance, Investor Junkie, LendingTree, Investopedia, Money Under 30, GOBankingRates, and other popular sites. He has also been a featured expert on CBS News, MSN Money, Forbes, Nasdaq, Yahoo! Finance, and AOL Finance. His background includes five years as an Enrolled Agent at an accredited CPA firm, where he prepared tax returns for individuals and small businesses. Learn More about Jacob
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Here are the answers to a few common questions about saving for a house.
Can I Buy a House With No Money Down?
Yes. There are a few loan options to buy a house with no money down. If you are a military veteran, consider using a VA Loan for a 0% down payment. If you want to find a rural property and have a lower income (115% of the median area income or lower), you may be able to qualify for a USDA 0% down loan.
Both of these options are government-backed programs and can be a great option to get into a home with no money down.
What Is a Good Age to Buy My First House?
There is a no “right” age to buy a home. It all depends on how ready you are.
Before you buy a home, consider the following:
Can you afford the monthly payment? And the maintenance?
Is your job secure?
Do you have a good credit score (to qualify for a good loan)
Are you planning to stay put for at least 5 years (to recoup loan costs)
Do you have any other large expenses looming?
If you are unsure about any of those questions, it is not a good time to buy, no matter what your age.
Is Now a Good Time to Buy a House?
It depends.
I know, not the answer you want, but it all depends on your financial situation and the local area where you are looking to buy. Real estate is hyper-local and finding a good agent to help you learn about your local market is a good starting point.
Can you afford the payments, taxes, insurance and cost of maintaining a home? No matter what the market does, before you buy you need to be in the position to buy a house WITHOUT destroying your financial future.
DINK — dual income, no kids — is one of the fastest-growing lifestyle categories in America, and it comes with a financial profile unlike any other household type. Two incomes, no childcare costs, and no college savings obligations mean DINK couples often accumulate wealth faster and spend it more freely than comparable couples raising children. But the lifestyle also comes with financial planning considerations that aren’t always obvious: retirement without the informal safety net of adult children, complex estate planning decisions, and long-term care needs with no family caregivers to rely on. This article covers what the DINK lifestyle actually is, why more couples are choosing it, the financial advantages and drawbacks worth understanding — and what it means for your financial plan.
You’ve seen them on Instagram. You know, those carefree couples who are always jet-setting from one exotic destination to the next. Like the guy and gal you met at work – yeah, the perpetually well-dressed ones. Where did they go recently? The Caribbean again? Or was it Paris?
You can’t keep up. But all you know for sure is that they’re taking full advantage of their DINK lifestyle. That’s right, dual income, no kids. Cash-rich and lacking the responsibilities that come from having children, these couples have a life that many people crave. But is it really as good as it sounds? Or are there downsides, too?
And, moreover, what’s the DINK lifestyle all about anyway? What are the benefits and drawbacks? Let’s find out. Read on for answers.
Key Takeaways
1
DINK couples — dual income, no kids — are a rapidly growing demographic as more couples choose childfree lives for financial, practical, and personal reasons.
A 2021 Pew Research survey found that 44% of non-parents aged 18–49 are unlikely to have children, while the percentage of adults living in child-free households has risen steadily for decades. The DINK lifestyle isn’t always a choice — fertility challenges, age, and economic uncertainty all play a role — but for the growing number of couples who do choose it, the financial and lifestyle implications are significant.
2
The financial upside of the DINK lifestyle is substantial — the average cost of raising a child to age 17 exceeds $233,000, and that’s before college.
DINK couples redirect that spending toward savings, investments, travel, and career growth — and with two incomes and no childcare costs, they’re often positioned to build wealth faster than comparable couples with children. The financial freedom extends beyond money: more time for career advancement, the flexibility to relocate for better opportunities, and a stronger ability to take on investment risk when you’re not funding a college education.
3
The DINK lifestyle comes with unique financial planning considerations — including retirement without the informal support of adult children, estate planning complexity, and long-term care needs.
DINK couples who accumulate significant wealth without children face a different set of financial planning challenges than families: who inherits their estate, who manages their affairs if both partners become incapacitated, and how they’ll fund long-term care without relying on family caregivers. Working with a financial advisor who specializes in childfree couples helps ensure the financial advantages of the DINK lifestyle are backed by a plan that accounts for its unique risks.
What Is the DINK Lifestyle?
Short for “dual income, no kids,” DINK is the term given to households where both partners in the relationship earn an income, but neither has any children.
It runs in slight contrast to the DEWK lifestyle, which stands for “dually employed with kids.” Couples in the latter category may have a similar net worth, but the responsibility of having a family impacts how they spend it.
It’s for these reasons that marketers of luxury products and services devote significant chunks of their budget to targeting so-called DINKs.
The Rise of the DINK Lifestyle: Why More Couples Are Choosing to Stay Childfree
Becoming a “dual income no kids” married or cohabiting couple is increasingly popular. For example, a recent survey from Pew Research found that 44% of non-parents aged 18 to 49 are unlikely to have kids these days and that 74% of parents in the same age range are unlikely to have any more.
Additionally, according to the US Census Bureau, the percentage of adults living without children rose from 52.5% to 71.3% between 1967 and 2016.
In the next section, we’ll look at some benefits of the DINK lifestyle that help explain these figures. But first, it’s worth noting that it isn’t always a choice. Whereas many couples enter it actively, others do so through circumstance. They might have fertility issues, for example, or they could be older, retired, and have grown-up children who have left the family home.
Furthermore, while the stereotype of child-free DINKs (i.e., those who choose the lifestyle – versus childless, who don’t) involves a young, ambitious couple prioritizing their career/personal freedom, many partners pick the lifestyle for practical reasons or because of their concern around the future.
Indeed, the rate of conception has been known to crash in the face of economic uncertainty. And there’s plenty of that in today’s world! If a couple’s combined income still seems insufficient to have a child, then it can seem like the wrong way forward.
Image Credit: Depositphotos.
The Main Benefits of the DINK Lifestyle
Specific circumstances aside, most DINKs experience advantages that both DEWKs and singletons miss out on. Here are 3 compelling incentives that help explain why more and more couples are adopting this lifestyle:
1. More Time for Career, Experiences, and Each Other
Because raising children involves such a huge investment of time and energy, DINK couples generally have much more free time. There are no PTA meetings to attend or extracurricular activities to take someone to (and from)! When they aren’t working, they can do whatever they like.
That’s a boon for anyone seeking some well-deserved R&R. Yet it’s also a major benefit if you have big dreams and ambitions. For example, someone who’s career-focused could spend longer in the office, doing whatever it takes to get a promotion.
Of course, it also means DINK couples have more time for each other. They can go on dates without having to pay a babysitter, take spontaneous trips on weekends, and give their partner their undivided attention around the dinner table. Ultimately, this extra quality time can help forge a stronger relationship.
2. More Money to Save, Invest, and Spend as You Choose
An unmarried or married couple may be financially motivated to consider the DINK lifestyle, too. Why? Because there’d be more money to go around! According to USDA, for instance, the average cost of raising a child from birth to age 17 is over $233,000. Now imagine raising a few of them…
With no childcare to worry about, DINK couples can use that cash however they see fit. From clothes, jewelry, and travel to investing in property, stocks, and bonds, financial planning without kids means DINKs are able to enjoy a degree of material success that other spouses/couples could never afford – especially if they’re both in high-paying positions.
3. The Freedom to Move, Relocate, or Travel Without Complication
Moving from one home to another is harder to justify when you enter parenthood. They might be at school and about to sit their exams, for example. Or maybe they have a tight-knit group of friends that you’re reluctant to take them away from. In either case, it can feel unfair, selfish, and/or impractical to go somewhere new.
DINKs don’t have to worry about this. They’re free to come and go! Assuming both partners are happy, they can take that job on the other side of the country, pursue their dreams of living in Europe or sell everything they own and travel the world. It goes without saying that parents can have these adventures, too. But the decision (and process) is unquestionably easier without children to take into account.
The Cons of the DINK Lifestyle
Despite having more time, money, and mobility to enjoy, the decision to enter the DINK lifestyle won’t be for everyone.
Indeed, many people see childbearing as a unique, positive life experience and a natural part of adulthood. Not everyone is willing to pass it up. And, while prioritizing personal freedom and career ambitions can feel like the right call now, some might worry about regretting the decision later in life- when it’s too late.
There are practical issues to consider, too. For instance, did you know that parents can receive a tax credit of up to $2,000 for each child younger than 17? That’s a sizeable chunk of their annual tax bill that DINKs forgo.
Is the DINK Lifestyle Right for You?
More and more couples are experimenting with the DINK lifestyle. And can you blame them? Whether you’re an exhausted parent of young children or someone considering their future, it’s hard not to swoon at the benefits involved.
Ultimately, though, there’s no right or wrong. With compelling pros and cons on either side, it’s up to each couple to decide if it’s the right way forward.
About the Author
Danny Newman is a nationally syndicated freelance writer with a focus on travel. MSN feed and Associated Press bylines. Danny is a digital nomad from the UK who’s been traveling full-time since 2018. Learn More About Danny.
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Disclaimer: This article is intended for informational purposes only, and should not be considered financial advice. You should consult a financial professional before making any major financial decisions.
What this article covers
How does your net worth stack up against others your age? It’s a question most people wonder about but rarely have the data to answer. This article uses the Federal Reserve’s most recent Survey of Consumer Finances — the most comprehensive source of U.S. household wealth data available — to show net worth percentiles and averages across 13 age groups, from 18–24 through 80 and above. You’ll find tables covering total net worth, investable net worth excluding home equity, and home equity as both a dollar figure and a percentage of wealth — along with perspective from financial advisors on when comparing yourself to peers is useful, and when it can work against you.
Looking at net worth percentiles and averages by age group…
Admit it! You can’t resist comparing yourself and your accomplishments to others, especially your peer group.
Right? I do this, too, on occasion. It’s only human.
In this article, I’m including several tables and graphs to help you compare. The data are all based on a Fed survey via DQYDJ.com.
Key Takeaways
1
The average net worth at every age is dramatically higher than the median — and that gap tells the real story about wealth in America.
For Americans in their late 50s, the average net worth is nearly $1.44 million — but the median is just $321,000. The massive gap between these two numbers reflects how heavily wealth is concentrated at the top: a small number of very wealthy households pull the average far above what most people actually have. When comparing your net worth to peers, the median is the more meaningful benchmark for most households.
2
For middle-wealth Americans, home equity makes up more than half of total net worth at most ages — which means they’re less financially secure than the headline number suggests.
At the median net worth, home equity represents 59–73% of total wealth for Americans in their 50s through 80s. That equity doesn’t generate income and can’t easily be tapped without selling or borrowing. By contrast, home equity represents less than 15% of net worth for the top 1% at most ages — a reminder that liquid, investable assets are what generate the cash flow that sustains retirement.
3
Comparing your net worth to your age group can be motivating — but financial advisors caution that your own goals matter far more than where you rank.
Benchmarking against peers can inspire better financial habits or reveal that a course correction is needed. But it can also trigger unnecessary anxiety or encourage harmful decisions like excessive risk-taking to “catch up.” The most useful comparison, as financial planners consistently advise, is between where you are today and where you need to be to fund your own specific goals — not where someone else your age happens to be.
How the Federal Reserve Defines “Families” and “Households” in This Data
First off, we want to know what we’re comparing. In this case, it’s household or family net worth.
How are families/households defined here?
According to the Fed, there were 131.3 million families or households in the US as of the most recent survey (2022), which the Fed defined: “… a household unit is divided into a primary economic unit (PEU) — the family — and everyone else in the household. The PEU is intended to be the economically dominant single person or couple (whether married or living together as partners) and all other persons in the household who are financially interdependent with that economically dominant person or couple.”
Net Worth Percentiles by Age
To kick things off, the following table presents net worth percentiles and averages by age group.
The first column shows the age groups, and the second provides the average net worth for each age group.
Next, we see six columns showing the 25th, 50th, 75th, 90th, 95th, and 99th percentiles for each age group. Notice how the average is far higher than the median, which is the 50th percentile (see also the first graph after the table).
For example, if your net worth at age 37 is $900k, you’d be between the 90th percentile ($864.3k) and 95th percentile ($1.48M) and closer to the former than the latter.
Net Worth Percentiles by Age
Age
Average
25%
50%
75%
90%
95%
Top 1%
18–24
$112,104
$88
$10,222
$33,898
$184,516
$421,700
$653,224
25–29
$120,183
$3,784
$31,470
$130,606
$296,830
$410,060
$2,121,910
30–34
$258,075
$11,016
$88,631
$186,140
$538,750
$796,256
$2,636,882
35–39
$501,295
$16,548
$138,588
$389,432
$864,340
$1,482,170
$4,741,320
40–44
$590,710
$23,812
$134,382
$436,892
$1,182,580
$1,971,456
$7,835,420
45–49
$781,936
$47,668
$213,586
$680,298
$1,428,714
$2,790,132
$8,701,500
50–54
$1,132,497
$54,414
$266,140
$913,012
$2,576,540
$4,419,488
$13,231,940
55–59
$1,441,987
$84,977
$321,074
$1,137,318
$2,672,160
$6,049,934
$15,371,684
60–64
$1,675,294
$80,372
$392,860
$1,131,122
$3,042,280
$6,366,204
$17,869,960
65–69
$1,836,884
$68,972
$393,480
$1,154,552
$2,961,060
$6,865,468
$22,102,660
70–74
$1,714,085
$124,757
$438,700
$1,234,946
$2,999,396
$6,197,642
$18,761,580
75–79
$1,629,275
$89,504
$338,180
$991,520
$2,914,188
$5,844,534
$19,868,894
80+
$1,611,984
$95,230
$327,200
$944,334
$2,540,500
$5,461,280
$16,229,800
Here is the same data in three graphs.
First, we compare the average net worth to the median (50th percentile, where you have more than half the households).
As mentioned above, the average is much higher, because it’s skewed by the immense wealth of the top few percentiles. We also see that the average peaks in one’s late 60s while the median peaks a bit later, in one’s early 70s.
Next, we compare the 25th, 50th, and 75th percentiles. All peak in the early 70s, and the 75th percentile is higher than the 50th by much more than the 50th exceeds the 25th.
This reflects the increasing inequality in our society, where wealth is concentrated near the top so the difference made by each percentage point increases as the percentile position goes higher.
Finally, we compare the 90th, 95th, and 99th percentile (that last is the infamous “1-percenters”).
Interestingly, the 90th percentile is pretty flat, around $2.5M to $3M, from one’s early 50s to one’s 80s.
The 95th is slightly less flat, with a peak slightly under $7M in one’s late 60s; while the 99th percentile rises sharply with age until peaking over $22M in one’s late 60s, from which point it mostly drops.
Investable Net Worth Percentiles by Age (Excluding Home Equity)
Next, we repeat the whole sequence but now exclude home equity from the numbers.
Strictly speaking, this isn’t as viable a measure of wealth, but it helps assess the investment returns you might expect from your portfolio. That’s because your home equity doesn’t typically provide cash flow.
Investable Net Worth Percentiles by Age (Excluding Home Equity)
Age
Average
25%
50%
75%
90%
95%
Top 1%
18–24
$83,365
$74
$9,774
$22,616
$74,184
$183,540
$553,224
25–29
$84,699
$1,218
$19,270
$71,680
$191,604
$300,730
$1,877,120
30–34
$182,198
$2,530
$36,178
$100,248
$291,262
$579,136
$2,403,902
35–39
$380,972
$8,070
$43,416
$208,930
$645,230
$1,199,640
$4,556,660
40–44
$436,408
$8,699
$57,668
$245,586
$818,830
$1,506,282
$6,702,740
45–49
$575,097
$15,144
$92,370
$408,002
$1,006,852
$2,002,670
$7,661,420
50–54
$861,235
$13,406
$94,923
$531,484
$1,971,490
$3,327,520
$11,897,166
55–59
$1,148,392
$15,108
$131,460
$709,824
$2,013,308
$4,945,610
$14,104,130
60–64
$1,364,736
$22,343
$186,450
$751,586
$2,489,080
$4,988,724
$15,620,474
65–69
$1,512,595
$11,780
$132,290
$784,100
$2,302,160
$5,650,770
$18,992,040
70–74
$1,380,172
$40,480
$237,692
$770,944
$2,452,560
$5,036,686
$16,459,620
75–79
$1,308,408
$12,818
$112,106
$527,860
$2,384,806
$4,975,080
$17,971,150
80+
$1,284,384
$17,284
$88,049
$524,526
$1,860,666
$4,136,000
$15,590,600
Here, we see a similar pattern, with some striking differences.
For the 25th percentile, total net worth increases from next to nothing for ages 18–24 up to $125k by the early 70s, whereas investable net worth peaks at a far lower $28k.
For the 50th percentile (median), there’s a similar pattern, though investable net worth peaks at $238k, about half the $439k total net worth in the early 70s age group.
As you go up to the 75th percentile and higher, home equity continues to drop in relative importance (more on that later on).
Next, we have the same three graphs as before but this time excluding home equity.
As the first graph of these three graphs shows, the average investable net worth is again far higher than the median, with the two peaking at the same age groups as total net worth.
The second graph shows that, if anything, investable net worth jumps from the 50th to the 75th percentile more than from the 25th to the 50th even more than total net worth does.
The 75th percentile peaks at $784k for ages 65 to 69, a little earlier than total net worth peaks.
For the 90th, 95th, and 99th percentiles, investable net worth behaves quite similarly to total net worth. Considering how small a part home equity plays in wealth at these levels, this isn’t surprising.
How Much Home Equity Do Americans Have at Each Net Worth Percentile and Age?
Finally, we can look at the difference between the data in the first and second tables to estimate the average home equity held by different net worth percentiles by age group.
Average Home Equity by Age and Net Worth Percentile
Age
Average
25%
50%
75%
90%
95%
Top 1%
18–24
$28,739
$14
$448
$11,282
$110,332
$238,160
$100,000
25–29
$35,484
$2,566
$12,200
$58,926
$105,226
$109,330
$244,790
30–34
$75,877
$8,486
$52,453
$85,892
$247,488
$217,120
$232,980
35–39
$120,323
$8,478
$95,172
$180,502
$219,020
$282,530
$184,660
40–44
$154,302
$15,113
$76,714
$191,306
$363,750
$465,174
$1,132,580
45–49
$206,839
$32,524
$121,216
$225,972
$427,865
$787,462
$1,040,000
50–54
$271,262
$41,008
$171,217
$381,528
$605,805
$1,091,968
$1,334,774
55–59
$293,595
$69,869
$189,614
$427,494
$658,800
$1,104,324
$1,317,584
60–64
$310,558
$68,170
$249,220
$379,536
$532,725
$1,377,480
$2,249,680
65–69
$324,289
$57,192
$261,190
$370,452
$658,900
$1,214,698
$3,110,620
70–74
$333,913
$96,317
$201,008
$464,002
$542,876
$1,160,956
$2,249,000
75–79
$320,867
$76,686
$226,074
$463,660
$529,360
$869,454
$1,897,744
80+
$327,600
$77,946
$239,151
$419,808
$679,834
$1,325,280
$639,200
We see several patterns here.
The average and median home equity levels are far closer to each other across all age groups than is the case for net worth.
For the 25th percentile, home equity starts taking off mostly after age 40, roughly doubling from the late 30s to the early 40s and continuing to go up by $8k-$9k every five years until the early 60s. There’s an odd drop in the second half of the 60s before a jump of over 50% into the early 70s followed by a drop of ~20% into the late 70s and beyond. These odd ups and downs could be due to large variances between the relatively small sample of older poor people (the life expectancy of the wealthy can exceed that of the poor by more than a decade).
For the median, home equity starts climbing earlier, in the early 30s, where it more than quadruples relative to the late 20s. It then mostly rises until the late 60s, from which it mostly falls. However, the differences from the late 60s and on are under 25% at most. This could again be the result of life expectancy being somewhat lower for this economic stratum than those above it.
The home equity of the 75th net worth percentile starts climbing earlier yet, in the late 20s, more than quintupling from the teens and early 20s. It then mostly climbs until the early 50s. From there, it dips somewhat lower for the following 10 years, before climbing again, peaking in the 70s. This pattern may be related to having college-age kids and possibly using home equity to help finance their education.
For the 90th, 95th, and 99th net worth percentiles, home equity is already $100k or higher for late teens and early 20s. For the 90th and 95th percentiles, home equity mostly rises with age, with some relatively small fluctuations. For both the 90th and 95th percentiles, the highest home equity is reached for ages 80 plus. For the top 1% however, home equity peaks sharply at over $3M in the late 60s before dropping nearly five-fold by the late 80s. This could be due to the very wealthy significantly downsizing their homes in their later years.
You can see all these patterns visually in the next three graphs.
Home Equity as a Percentage of Net Worth — and Why It Matters More Than the Dollar Amount
The final table shows home equity for various net worth percentiles as a fraction of net worth rather than in absolute dollar terms.
Here, we see the following patterns.
Home equity is more than half the net worth at the 25th percentile, reaching as high as 86% for the late 70s age group.
For the median net worth, home equity is again half or more of net worth for most age groups above age 30, peaking at a somewhat lower 73% for ages 80 and over.
For the 75th percentile, home equity typically runs from a third of net worth to slightly less than half, peaking at 47% in the late 70s.
Those in the 90th percentile have home equity starting at 60% in their late teens and early 20s before dropping to a range of 18% to 31% for ages 40 and over, with the 31% peak in the early 40s.
For the 95th percentile we see a similar pattern, with 56% for the youngest age group, dropping to a range of 15% to 28% from age 25 and up, with the 28% peak in the late 40s.
Home equity plays a small role in the net worth of the top 1%, ranging from a high of 15% for the youngest age group down to as low as 4%(!) for those in their late 30s and again for ages 80 and up.
Average Home Equity as Fraction of Net Worth by Age and Net Worth Percentile
Age
Average
25%
50%
75%
90%
95%
Top 1%
18–24
26%
16%
4%
33%
60%
56%
15%
25–29
30%
68%
39%
45%
35%
27%
12%
30–34
29%
77%
59%
46%
46%
27%
9%
35–39
24%
51%
69%
46%
25%
19%
4%
40–44
26%
63%
57%
44%
31%
24%
14%
45–49
26%
68%
57%
40%
30%
23%
12%
50–54
24%
75%
64%
42%
23%
25%
10%
55–59
20%
82%
59%
36%
25%
22%
9%
60–64
19%
85%
63%
34%
23%
18%
13%
65–69
18%
83%
66%
32%
22%
18%
14%
70–74
18%
77%
46%
33%
18%
17%
12%
75–79
20%
86%
67%
47%
18%
15%
10%
80+
20%
82%
73%
44%
27%
24%
4%
The last graph, below, shows this picture visually, where home equity plays a smaller and smaller role in net worth as one’s wealth grows. It also shows how home equity percentage peaks move from older to younger as wealth increases.
What the Data Actually Means — and What Financial Advisors Say About Comparing Net Worth
The above shows how total and investable net worth varies by age for various net worth percentiles. It also shows the impact of home equity as part of one’s net worth for those net worth percentiles for the different age groups.
Using the tables and graphs, you can compare your numbers to the overall population, to see where you come out in the wealth distribution. Depending on your perspective, this can lead to despair, complacency, or ambition. Of the three, I recommend that last…
As Omar Morillo, CFP ChFC AIF, Founder of Imperio Wealth Advisors says, “Comparing net worth, especially with one’s age cohort, can be helpful and counterproductive. On the positive side, such comparisons can provide a benchmark, motivating individuals to save and invest more wisely to achieve financial security. It can foster competition, leading to better financial decisions and habits. However, this practice can also be counterproductive, leading to feelings of inadequacy or stress if one’s financial situation lags behind peers. It might encourage unhealthy financial behaviors, such as excessive risk-taking or overspending, in an attempt to ‘keep up.’ For example, after comparing their net worth with friends, I had a client who invested in high-risk ventures to boost their wealth, only to face significant losses quickly. Individuals must focus on personal financial goals tailored to their circumstances rather than purely on comparison. A balanced approach, using comparisons as a tool for insight rather than a definitive measure of success, can help readers make informed decisions while maintaining financial well-being.”
Carman Kubanda, CFP®, ChFC®, Financial Planner at Innovative Wealth Building mostly agrees, “I don’t think comparing net worth is particularly useful. A better approach is focusing on your own situation and financial goals with real financial planning to ensure you make the right choices to accomplish those goals. However, in certain cases, comparing net worth may help encourage financial discipline or spur on change if lagging behind peers.”
Zack Swad, CFP®, CWS®, RLP®, BFA™, AWMA®, AAMS®, President of Swad Wealth Management, LLC on the other hand, falls squarely on the side of comparisons being mostly harmful, saying, “While comparing your net worth to peers may be entertaining (or disappointing), it usually isn’t very useful. Your lifestyle may be drastically different than the average and therefore your needs may be much higher or lower. People who are interested in figuring out if they are on track should start by figuring out what they need in their lives now and into the future. Then, develop good habits and make progress toward their goals. As Theodore Roosevelt once said, ‘Comparison is the thief of joy.’”
If you do choose to view wealth accumulation as a competition, it’s best to view it as a competition between your present and past selves rather than between you and everyone else.
Disclaimer: This article is intended for informational purposes only, and should not be considered financial advice. You should consult a financial professional before making any major financial decisions.
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About the Author
Opher Ganel, Ph.D.
My career has had many unpredictable twists and turns. A MSc in theoretical physics, PhD in experimental high-energy physics, postdoc in particle detector R&D, research position in experimental cosmic-ray physics (including a couple of visits to Antarctica), a brief stint at a small engineering services company supporting NASA, followed by starting my own small consulting practice supporting NASA projects and programs. Along the way, I started other micro businesses and helped my wife start and grow her own Marriage and Family Therapy practice. Now, I use all these experiences to also offer financial strategy services to help independent professionals achieve their personal and business finance goals. Connect with me on my own site: OpherGanel.com and/or follow my Medium publication: medium.com/financial-strategy/.
This guide covers everything you need to know to get started and succeed with testimonial marketing: how to prepare your policies and procedures, how to craft compliant disclosures, which platforms to use and the compliance risks of general review platforms, how to ask clients for their first reviews without it feeling awkward, and how to promote those testimonials across your website, social media, and marketing campaigns to attract new clients. Whether you’re an individual advisor or a compliance officer at a wealth management firm, this is the step-by-step framework we use at Wealthtender with hundreds of advisors — and it’s yours to use however you choose.
A quick note from Brian Thorp, Wealthtender CEO
Hi, I’m Brian Thorp, founder and CEO of Wealthtender. If you’re reading this, you know your online reputation matters and client testimonials are a powerful new tool to grow your advisory business thanks to the SEC Marketing Rule. What you may not know is how to navigate these uncharted waters.
I’m the founder of Wealthtender, the industry’s first testimonial marketing platform for financial advisors designed for regulatory compliance and the leading find-an-advisor directory website visited by 500,000 consumers annually.
I regularly speak with advisors, wealth management leaders, and compliance officers interested in getting started with testimonial marketing, and I hear questions like these:
How can I tactfully ask my clients to write a review?
Can I invite non-clients and COIs to write a review?
How can I promote testimonials to grow my business?
And how can I do all of this compliantly?
In this ultimate guide to testimonial marketing for advisors, we offer answers to these questions and many more, with step-by-step instructions to get started and compliantly grow your business with testimonials.
As a financial advisor, compliance officer, advisory firm executive, or marketing professional, we’ll guide you through the development of your online reviews strategy with valuable tips and resources to ensure your success.
In just a few weeks, your client testimonials and online reviews can become an evergreen source of digital referrals and help you rank higher in search results, positioning your firm to lead the industry in attracting new clients.
Whether you choose Wealthtender as your partner to support your testimonial marketing strategy or prefer to follow another path, we hope you find this guide useful and wish you the greatest success.
Throughout this article, look for information denoted by a gold star (⭐) with useful tips and resources to help you get started and succeed with Certified Advisor Reviews™.
Why the Next Five Years Will Determine Who Leads the Industry in Client Acquisition
Imagine you’re a consumer in need of a financial advisor. Maybe you’re leaving your long-time employer for a new job and looking for financial guidance. Or perhaps you need help with college planning for a newborn. Or you’ve just lost a parent. You’re nervous, a little afraid, and concerned.
With a couple of clicks, you’re now online reading reviews written by clients of financial advisors who were once in your shoes. Suddenly, you’re feeling much more at ease. Your anxiety begins to subside as you realize other people with circumstances similar to your own gained relief when they found the right financial advisor. And now it’s your turn.
Energized and feeling confident based on the reviews you’ve read, you discover an advisor who is clearly trusted by their clients and may be a good fit for you. With one click, you book an introductory call on their calendar.
Scenarios like the example above occur thousands of times per day among consumers preparing to hire trust-based professionals like doctors and lawyers.
The same will hold true for financial advisors as their online reviews proliferate.
Consumers rely on a combination of facts and emotional cues when choosing a financial advisor:
Facts:Your education, credentials, and years of experience are facts that help consumers judge your credibility.
Emotion:Your online reviews build trust and satisfy consumers’ emotional needs, increasing their confidence in contacting and hiring you.
Do Financial Advisor Reviews Matter?
83%of consumers want to read online reviews and look for trust indicators before hiring a financial advisor — according to Wealthtender’s 2025 study of 500 U.S. adults
Now that the SEC permits advisors to request and promote client reviews online, consumers hiring financial advisors will increasingly rely on reviews just as they do when hiring doctors and lawyers. If you decide not to make online reviews part of your marketing strategy, a nearby advisor with positive reviews is more likely to get the call. Today, you have a first-mover opportunity to build a review presence most of your competitors still haven’t started.
Before getting started with testimonial marketing, it’s important to think about the big picture (and, of course, compliance).
If you’ve already established goals and metrics for your digital marketing strategy, consider the ways that client testimonials and online reviews fit into your current plan and the new opportunities they offer you to reach even higher. Or if you’re new to digital marketing or recently launched your practice, you’ll benefit by including online reviews in your marketing plan from the start.
Thinking about these questions upfront will help you establish an effective online reviews strategy tailored to your business goals and unique needs:
What are the most important goals I want to achieve with testimonial marketing?
Attracting new clients locally
Increasing digital referrals nationwide
Reinforcing confidence among my current clients
Ranking higher in Google search results and appearing in AI-powered search tools like ChatGPT and Gemini (SEO and AEO)
Improving the effectiveness of my website to attract more prospects
Gaining recognition as a leading authority in my niche
Strengthening the reputation of my firm
Beyond my current clients, who else will I ask to write reviews and why?
Leaders of local organizations who can speak to my character
Professional acquaintances who know my work ethic
COIs in my niche who understand the specialized services I offer
How will I ensure my testimonial marketing strategy is effective and compliant?
Working with my in-house marketing and compliance teams
Partnering with a marketing consultant
Hiring a third-party compliance expert
Collecting and displaying reviews on SEC-compliant platforms
Relying upon online resources to do it myself
A combination of the methods above
How Client Testimonials Strengthen Your SEO and AI Visibility 🔍
Do online reviews impact how prominently you rank in Google search results? While Google doesn’t disclose specifically how their algorithms work, they offer helpful information to understand better how online reviews for professionals like financial advisors can help or hurt your ranking in search results.
Positive online reviews increase your E-E-A-T, a term used by Google that stands for Experience,Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. And YMYL (Your Money or Your Life) is how Google refers to websites that could significantly impact the quality of people’s lives, including their finances.
As a financial advisor, your website is already held to higher E-E-A-T and YMYL standards by Google than sites on topics of less importance to people’s lives. And now, financial advisors join other trust-based professionals like doctors and lawyers whose online reviews send powerful signals to Google’s algorithms which can influence how prominently you appear in search results.
It’s wise to include testimonials on your website. And it’s also valuable to collect and display reviews elsewhere on the internet as Google instructs its human quality raters to ‘look for outside, independent reputation information’ about you and your website.
By inviting clients to write reviews on reputable third-party websites, you’re providing Google with signals that reinforce your trustworthiness and could send more prospects to your website.
How Advisor Reviews on Wealthtender Are Indexed by AI Tools
Beyond traditional search rankings, client reviews on independent platforms are now one of the primary signals that AI-powered tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity use when generating financial advisor recommendations.
Wealthtender’s 2025 study of 500 affluent U.S. adults found that 25% are already using AI tools to start their advisor search — not as a supplement to Google, but as a primary starting point. Of those who receive a personal referral, 96% research advisors online before making contact, and AI tools are increasingly the research method they use.
Two dynamics make this directly relevant to your testimonial marketing strategy:
Independent reviews outperform self-published testimonials in AI results. AI tools are designed to weight reviews on independent, third-party platforms more heavily than testimonials hosted on an advisor’s own website — which are treated as inherently curated and therefore less credible as a recommendation signal. Reviews on platforms like Wealthtender, where the content is independently verified and the platform itself carries domain authority in financial services, are the reviews AI tools cite when generating advisor recommendations.
AI visibility compounds the same way SEO authority does. Advisors who build a consistent, review-rich profile on platforms AI tools already recognize as authoritative sources are accumulating a discovery asset that grows more valuable over time — and that competitors who haven’t started will find increasingly difficult to catch up with.
The advisors appearing in AI-generated answers today aren’t there by accident. They built structured, review-rich, schema-optimized profiles on platforms AI tools were already trained to trust. Your testimonials are the raw material. The platform and structure you publish them on determines whether AI tools find them.
How Advisor Reviews on Wealthtender Are Displayed in Google Search Results:
SEC, State, or Dually Registered? What You Need to Know Before Getting Started
While this guide is designed for SEC-registered investment advisors and investment adviser representatives, most state regulators now permit state-registered advisors to collect and promote testimonials by following the guidance on testimonials outlined in the SEC Marketing Rule.
And dually registered advisors subject to FINRA oversight when acting as registered representatives also have a clear path to get started with testimonial marketing by following the SEC Marketing Rule and guidance under FINRA Rule 2210.
Of course, no matter your registration status, you should speak with your compliance team prior to implementing any ideas featured in this guide or the accompanying resources. If you or your legal and compliance counterparts would like to dive deeper with us on a Zoom call, please schedule a time here.
Information for State Registered Advisors
As a State Registered Investment Advisor, it’s important to first confirm if your state regulator has granted approval for RIAs in your state to begin asking for testimonials. As of today, some states have not yet given the green light, but pressure from NASAA in 2025 and 2026 has resulted in more states modernizing their rules.
To support state-registered advisors interested in getting started with testimonial marketing, I regularly reach out to state regulators to ask for guidance and advocate on your behalf. (You can view the most recent feedback I’ve received in our state regulator tracking database.)
I like to remind state regulators that the SEC passed their new Marketing Rule for the benefit of consumers who rely upon online reviews to make more informed and educated hiring decisions. I also let them know how Certified Advisor Reviews from Wealthtender are designed for compliance with the SEC Marketing Rule to help put them at ease.
I’m a member of the National Society of Compliance Professionals and their SEC Marketing Rule working group. I also regularly speak with securities attorneys and industry stakeholders to advocate for State registered investment advisors in hopes we can quickly even the playing field so you’re not at a disadvantage to SEC RIAs who can get started with testimonial marketing today.
Information for Hybrid or Dually Registered Advisors (FINRA)
While this guide is designed for SEC-registered investment advisors and investment adviser representatives preparing for compliance with the SEC Marketing Rule, it’s important for hybrid or dually registered advisors to concurrently satisfy their obligations for testimonials pursuant to FINRA’s rule 2210(d)(6).
Fortunately, you’ll find FINRA’s requirements fit easily within the SEC Marketing Rule framework. Hybrid or dually registered advisors should ensure online reviews also meet the following criteria:
If the review discusses the investment advice you provide or investment performance, the review must prominently disclose the following:
The fact that the testimonial may not be representative of the experience of other customers,
The fact that the testimonial is no guarantee of future performance or success, and
If more than $100 in value is paid for the testimonial, the fact that it is a paid testimonial
If the review discusses a technical aspect of investing, the reviewer must have the knowledge and experience to form a valid opinion
FINRA requires that disclosures be provided in close proximity to the review or ‘through a clearly marked hyperlink accompanying the testimonial using language such as “important testimonial information,” provided of course that the testimonial is not false, misleading, exaggerated or promissory’.
Accordingly, FINRA required disclosures not already addressed within SEC required disclosures can simply be included alongside the SEC required disclosures.
Preparing Your Policies and Procedures
As an SEC-registered investment adviser, the policies and procedures you develop for your firm’s testimonials and endorsements to comply with the SEC Marketing Rule will need to be incorporated into your existing written policies and procedures established to prevent violation of the Advisers Act.
Fortunately, the SEC Marketing Rule offers a principles-based approach with fairly clear and straightforward guidance so you can successfully grow your business with testimonials in a compliant manner.
In this section, we’ll guide you through important topics discussed by the SEC in the Marketing Rule, including opportunities and potential risks you’ll want to consider to help you prepare your policies and procedures for supervision of your firm’s activities associated with testimonials and endorsements.
And since it’s expected the most popular way to collect, display and promote testimonials and endorsements will be on the internet, this section includes practical tips and guidance to help you determine which financial advisor online review platforms may be most appropriate for your firm, including your own firm website.
⭐ At the end of this section, you’ll find a template you can download to help you prepare policies and procedures for your firm.
What Your Policies Must Say About How You Ask for Reviews
At the very heart of the SEC Marketing Rule is permission to ask for reviews from current clients (testimonials) and non-clients (endorsements), subject to conditions. But how and where you ask matters. We cover this topic in-depth later in this guide, so we’ll just touch on three quick points here:
1. The SEC wants to ensure you’re not cherry-picking reviews from your favorite clients, so it’s important to ask all of your current clients for a review when first getting started.
2. Asking for reviews may feel uncomfortable at first, but over 60% of consumers said they are likely to write a review when a business sends an email with a link after a good experience.
3. Think twice before asking for reviews on platforms like Google and Yelp. Since reviews on these platforms are not designed to include required SEC disclosures, promoting your Google or Yelp reviews is off-limits, and there’s not yet clear guidance from the SEC advising if simply asking for reviews on these platforms violates the Marketing Rule. Yelp’s policy also prohibits businesses from asking for reviews, and Google’s policy prohibits compensating for reviews.
Learn Our Concerns with Review Platforms like Google and Yelp
Why We Include Comparisons to Google and Yelp
If Google and Yelp are not compatible with the SEC Marketing Rule, you may rightly be wondering why we’re discussing these platforms at all.
Here’s What We Know with Certainty:
Google and Yelp are well-known review platforms popular with consumers. And financial advisors may already have unsolicited reviews written about them visible on these sites. If these are favorable reviews and are truly unsolicited, that’s terrific as advisors are gaining SEO benefits and visibility among consumers visiting these sites.
But because reviews on Google and Yelp lack the required SEC disclosures to be considered advertisements (e.g., testimonials and endorsements you can promote to grow your business), advisors can’t direct prospects to check out their reviews on these platforms.
⭐ This is one of the reasons why we provide tools to help advisors import their Google Reviews to their Wealthtender profile page where appropriate disclosures can be added, unlocking the power of these reviews to become SEC-compliant testimonials advisors can use to attract new clients.
Here’s What We Don’t (Yet) Know:
Unlike unsolicited reviews published on Google or Yelp, the SEC has not formally offered guidance to clarify if solicited reviews on Google and Yelp are deemed an advertisement and, therefore, subject to the prohibitions and disclosure requirements discussed throughout the SEC Marketing Rule. So the question we need the SEC to answer is: Does the act of a financial advisor simply asking for a review to be written on specific platforms like Google or Yelp entangle an advisor in its creation and trigger the prohibitions and disclosure requirements?
While industry opinions are mixed on the guidance the SEC will ultimately provide, we believe it’s highly likely the SEC will take issue with advisors proactively soliciting reviews on platforms known to be incompatible with the Marketing Rule. With its principles-based rule intended to ensure consumers gain important information to make more informed decisions, we don’t expect the SEC to look favorably upon a rampant proliferation of advisor reviews on platforms incapable of addressing the Marketing Rule’s prohibitions and disclosure expectations.
Further, we believe the SEC could point to FINRA Regulatory Notice 17-18 which addresses this topic covering testimonials of registered representatives. In the notice, FINRA states: “FINRA does not regard unsolicited third-party opinions or comments posted on a social network to be communications of the broker-dealer or the representative for purposes of Rule 2210, including the requirements related to testimonials in paragraph (d)(6).”
Wealthtender has submitted written requests for clarification on this matter to the SEC (likely along with many other industry participants), and we monitor the SEC’s Marketing Rule FAQ page daily. We’ll update this guide as additional SEC guidance becomes known.
Compensation for Reviews: What the SEC Requires You to Disclose
While the SEC allows advisors to offer compensation for testimonials and endorsements, any published review written by a reviewer who receives compensation must clearly disclose the compensation arrangement, even if it’s non-cash (e.g., gift cards, advisory fee reduction, etc.). And if you choose to pay a reviewer more than $1,000 in value within a 12-month period, you’ll need a written agreement in place between you and the reviewer. You should also consider the policies of online review platforms.
If you plan to offer compensation in any form, consider this guidance to comply with the Marketing Rule and policies of online review platforms:
Reviewers Compensated with Cash
Disclose the amount paid, including any reimbursed expenses
Establish a written agreement if > $1,000 within a 12-month period
Reviewers Compensated with Non-Cash
If non-cash compensation is in the form of an advisory fee reduction, disclose the time period and discount percentage of the total advisory fee
If the value of non-cash compensation is quantifiable in dollar terms, the dollar value of the compensation provided should be disclosed
Establish a written agreement if > $1,000 in value is given within a 12-month period
🚦 You should be aware the SEC will consider the timing of compensation received by an individual relative to publication of their online review to judge in their eyes whether or not an individual has been compensated for their review. In other words, an incidental dinner, gift, or other consideration within an undefined window of time before or after the review, could be considered by the SEC to be compensation for the review.
Accordingly, even if your policy is to not compensate anyone for a review, the SEC might conclude otherwise if you offer cash or non-cash compensation to an individual around the time they write a review.
To comply with the SEC rule beyond the avoidance of doubt, consider erring on the side of caution and drafting your policy to disclose any cash or non-cash compensation received by a reviewer if the timing is relatively near the time of writing or publication of their review.
Anonymous Reviews: When Clients Want to Stay Private and How to Handle It Compliantly
Certain clients (and non-clients) may be interested in writing a review for you, but they prefer to remain anonymous (publicly) when their review is published. Fortunately, the SEC understands this and permits you to promote anonymous testimonials and endorsements when accompanied by proper disclosures. However, not all online review platforms allow reviewers to remain anonymous, and if the identification of the reviewer is unknown to you, you cannot promote the review as a testimonial or endorsement since you’ll be unable to add the required disclosures.
When evaluating online review platforms, take into consideration their policies and your knowledge of sensitive clients:
1Wealthtender requires all reviewers to provide a valid email address. This information is only shared with their financial advisor to ensure the ability to add proper disclosures. Reviewers may choose to publicly display their full name, abbreviated name, or simply ‘anonymous’.
Reviews from Non-Clients (Endorsements)
Beyond reviews from your current clients (testimonials), the SEC also permits you to collect and promote reviews written by your past clients and non-clients (endorsements) when accompanied by proper disclosures clearly indicating the reviewer is not a client. While client reviews often help prospects better understand the client experience, reviews from others who know you well may help prospects learn more about your areas of expertise and character.
For example, consider the potential impact of reviews written by experts and professionals in your niche who can attest to your specialist knowledge; Or reviews written by leaders of non-profit organizations where you volunteer praising your dedication to the community.
Reviews from non-clients may be especially valuable among financial advisors who recently transitioned from another industry, younger advisors with few clients, but lots of credible references, and even newer investment adviser representatives who recently departed a broker-dealer and whose former clients were unable to transition due to a non-solicitation clause.
Monitoring for New Reviews
While there are countless general online review platforms making it nearly impossible to know if you receive a review on an obscure website, it’s likely your reviews will be posted to well-known online review sites like Google, Yelp, and industry-specific platforms like Wealthtender. Each of these platforms allows you to be notified when you receive a new review.
Monitoring for new reviews on these platforms should be fairly straightforward. Regardless, you’ll want to consider which online review sites you will proactively monitor and the email address you will associate with your accounts on these platforms. Do you want review notifications sent to your primary work email address? Or do you have a shared email account regularly checked by your staff that may be preferred to streamline oversight and recordkeeping?
Monitoring for Bad Actors — and the Easiest Way to Eliminate the Concern Entirely
While unlikely to be a significant concern for most advisors, the SEC requires that your policies and procedures address how you will monitor for bad actors. (Note: Since the SEC is only concerned with paid testimonials or endorsements from individuals deemed bad actors, you can mitigate compliance concerns if you prohibit any form of cash or non-cash compensation for reviews.)
A bad actor is defined by the SEC as an ineligible person (or certain associated persons) who is subject either to a disqualifying Commission action or to any disqualifying event. The former includes any Commission opinion or order barring, suspending, or prohibiting a person from acting in any capacity under the Federal securities laws. The latter encompasses events in any of five categories, including court convictions and cease and desist orders that occurred within ten years prior to the person disseminating an endorsement or testimonial.
The SEC indicates, in addition to confirming a compensated reviewer is not a bad actor at the time their review is published, you should conduct an (at least) annual review to determine whether each compensated review is written by an individual meeting the bad actor definition. In such a case, the SEC requires that the review is updated to include clear and prominent disclosure indicating the reviewer is subject to a Commission order or disciplinary action, along with a link to the order on the Commission’s website.
Reviewing the Content of Testimonials and Endorsements
When you receive a new review, the policies and procedures you establish today can serve as a useful framework to satisfy your compliance obligations consistently and in a timely manner.
In this section, we cover three areas of utmost importance to ensure your compliance with SEC requirements.
1. Identifying and Addressing Prohibited Content
Upon receiving a new review, it’s important to review its content through a regulatory lens to determine if it includes prohibited content. Specifically, the SEC prohibits you from promoting reviews that (verbatim from the rule):
Include any untrue statement of a material fact, or omit to state a material fact necessary in order to make the statement made, in the light of the circumstances under which it was made, not misleading.
Include a material statement of fact that the adviser does not have a reasonable basis for believing it will be able to substantiate upon demand by the Commission.
Include information that would reasonably be likely to cause an untrue or misleading implication or inference to be drawn concerning a material fact relating to the investment adviser.
Discuss any potential benefits to clients or investors connected with or resulting from the investment adviser’s services or methods of operation without providing fair and balanced treatment of any material risks or material limitations associated with the potential benefits.
Include a reference to specific investment advice provided by the investment adviser where such investment advice is not presented in a manner that is fair and balanced.
Include or exclude performance results, or present performance time periods, in a manner that is not fair and balanced.
Otherwise be materially misleading.
While this list of prohibitions may feel intimidating, you’re likely to find most reviews reflect a client’s perception of your character, qualities, personality, and experience working with you, which should be straightforward to address in accompanying disclosures as unique to the reviewer and not representative of a typical client.
In situations where a prohibition is triggered, you should discuss your options with your compliance team, which may include:
Redacting or removing the prohibited language and publishing the review with accompanying disclosure to explain the redaction or revisions
Not publishing the review on your website, or if on Wealthtender, requesting the review not be published due to an SEC prohibition
🚦 Keep in mind any reviews you receive on sites like Google and Yelp, whether or not they include prohibited content, cannot be promoted as a testimonial or endorsement due to their inability to comply with SEC disclosure requirements. Also, if you link to your Google or Yelp reviews from your website and any review includes prohibited content, the SEC could view this as fraudulent or deceptive.
2. Documenting Unsubstantiated Material Statements of Fact
While many reviews you receive will entirely reflect the opinions of reviewers, others may include a statement the reviewer believes to be fact. The SEC wants to ensure these claims can be substantiated by you upon demand if they are material.
In certain circumstances, you may want to include a statement of substantiation within the review’s accompanying disclosures for quick recollection of the circumstances if asked by the SEC at a future date. Such a statement also helps demonstrate to the SEC that you had a reasonable belief the statement was factual at the time it was written.
Consider two examples:
A reviewer writes that you hold the Certified Financial Planner designation. Because this is an easily verifiable fact, no further action is necessary.
A reviewer writes that you exclusively invest their portfolio in Vanguard funds. This statement may be factual at the time of writing but is subject to change. While this fact should be easy to verify in a future SEC exam, you’ll rest easier by confirming only Vanguard funds are in their portfolio at the time of writing and documenting your confirmation in the accompanying disclosure and/or your files.
3. Handling Spam and Inappropriate Content
The SEC supports the limited editing or removal of reviews which are spam, profane, defamatory, offensive, threatening, unlawful, or to correct a factual error, as long as the edits are not designed to favor or disfavor the advisor. Your policies and procedures should document how you will handle reviews of this nature in an objective manner.
🚦 Note: Reviews published on Google are scanned by their algorithms which occasionally mistake legitimate reviews for spam and remove them from the platform. When this occurs, and you inquire with Google about the removal, you’re likely to receive this message: “Sometimes our algorithms report and remove legitimate reviews. After a review is removed, we can’t reinstate it. These removal measures help make sure that reviews on Google properties are relevant, helpful, and trustworthy.”
Responding to Reviews: The One Rule You Must Follow to Avoid Entanglement
Although the SEC doesn’t explicitly provide guidance on whether or not you can reply to an online review, you should consider establishing your policy on this topic upfront.
A general rule of thumb and consensus opinion among securities attorneys familiar with the SEC Marketing Rule is you should never reply to reviews on platforms like Google and Yelp. Doing so substantially heightens your risk of entanglement and adoption as defined by the SEC, subjecting you to the rule’s general prohibitions and disclosure requirements which are incompatible with these platforms. Accordingly, you risk violating the SEC rule with no ability to regain compliance.
Whether you plan to thank reviewers who write favorable reviews or would like to respond to a neutral or negative review, consider establishing your policy to handle these communications individually with reviewers by email or phone.
And remember, it’s ok to have some neutral or negative reviews. In fact, studies conducted among other trust-based professions like doctors and lawyers show consumers tend to be skeptical of professionals without negative reviews.
What to Do About Negative Reviews
Let’s face it. One of the biggest fears of getting started with online reviews is waking up to find a new 1-star review with your name on it. Realistically, it’s much more likely your existing clients will write favorable reviews (or, at worst, neutral) and extremely unlikely a non-client you ask to write a review will be motivated to write anything negative.
So what’s the best way to overcome a negative review? First, take a deep breath. Next, take another. Seriously. (⭐ And if your first 3-star or lower review is received on your Wealthtender profile page, email yourfriends@wealthtender.com and we’ll send you a gift certificate for a 1-year premium subscription to the Calm meditation app. Also seriously. We’ll get through this together.)
Once your emotions subside, you’ll be better prepared to determine an appropriate and rational course of action.
Consider these suggestions if you receive a negative review:
Put yourself in the shoes of the reviewer; Try to understand their motivation and what they might be feeling; You may come up with additional ideas to address their concerns.
Is there a practical remedy to the reviewer’s concerns you can offer? If so, try reaching them by phone to humanize the discussion and see if you can reach a positive outcome.
Whether or not you’re successful in resolving the concerns raised in a negative review, you can use the additional disclosures field accompanying the review to offer your own perspective on the matter. Take the high ground and avoid an emotional response.
The best way to overcome a negative review is to earn lots of positive reviews!
A quick note: No matter the online review platform, consumers own the content they write, which means they are free to delete or edit reviews they have written or write a new review. We’re sharing this insight for educational purposes only and suspect the SEC could frown upon advisors encouraging a reviewer to revisit an existing review, so be sure to ask your compliance team for guidance if this is a path you’re considering. Also, even if a reviewer deletes a review, you should be prepared to discuss the circumstances with the SEC upon request.
While the circumstances of each review will differ, consider noting in your policies and procedures how you generally plan to handle negative reviews (e.g. responding offline by phone or email, etc.).
Review Aggregation: How to Unlock Reviews Stuck on Non-Compliant Platforms
You are not permitted by the SEC to directly promote or refer prospects to your reviews on platforms like Google and Yelp, which don’t support required advertising disclosures.
Fortunately, with a reviewer’s permission, you can republish their review on SEC-compliant platforms like Wealthtender and your own website by adding appropriate disclosures. This is known as review aggregation.
By aggregating your reviews on platforms compatible with the SEC rule, you can turn reviews otherwise off-limits into powerful testimonials to proactively attract new clients.
In your online review policies and procedures, consider including a brief discussion of your approach to review aggregation. If you do choose to aggregate reviews from a platform like Google, your policy should be to aggregate every review from the platform where permission is received to mitigate SEC cherry-picking concerns.
SEC Marketing Rule and Compliance with the Advisers Act
Your policies and procedures for testimonials and endorsements should be incorporated into your existing Advisers Act policies and procedures. It’s important to review these combined policies and procedures in totality to ensure your handling of online reviews aligns with your procedures for advertisements.
For example, while the Marketing Rule does not explicitly require review and pre-approval of your online reviews, the SEC believes your existing obligations under the Advisers Act compliance rule for advertisements should: a) prevent violations from occurring, b) ensure your ability to detect violations that have occurred, and c) correct promptly any violations that have occurred.
If your existing policies and procedures already include pre-review and approval of advertisements, reviewing samples of advertisements, periodic reviews, and/or spot-checking, incorporating your online reviews into your current workflows should satisfy SEC expectations.
Because online reviews for financial advisors are new, the SEC also expects your Advisers Act policies and procedures to include training on the Marketing Rule, including its prohibitions and disclosure requirements.
SEC Marketing Rule Form ADV Update
A new section of Form ADV (subsection L under Item 5) has been added to describe your use of testimonials and/or endorsements, including online reviews (and other disclosures beyond the scope of this playbook). You’ll also need to disclose if you pay cash or non-cash compensation to reviewers. These questions are simply ‘yes’ or ‘no’.
Recordkeeping Requirements for the SEC Marketing Rule
The SEC expects you to maintain records of your advertisements, including online reviews and their accompanying disclosures, in an easily accessible place for five years (which can include cloud storage and email archives). If you already have an archiving solution, simply add any online review platforms to be archived as well.
Additionally, the SEC has updated the books and records rule to require that you make and keep any documentation that shows you have a reasonable basis to believe your online reviews are compliant with the Marketing Rule. By following a checklist for each incoming review and documenting your process, you’ll be prepared for a future SEC sweep or examination.
⭐ Template: Policies & Procedures for Testimonials
Crafting Your Disclosures
In this section, we’ll explain the specific disclosure requirements prescribed by the SEC for testimonials and endorsements to help you craft disclosures that are compliant with the SEC Marketing Rule. Beyond regulatory compliance, we’ll also discuss how thoughtfully prepared disclosures help consumers make more informed and educated decisions when evaluating financial advisors.
And since it’s expected the most popular way to collect, display and promote testimonials and endorsements will be online reviews, we focus our discussion on disclosures in the context of reviews published on the internet.
⭐ At the end of this section, you’ll find an Online Review Pre-Publication Checklist template you can download and use to ensure your testimonials and endorsements published online are compliant with SEC Marketing Rule requirements.
The Role of Clear and Prominent Disclosures for Testimonials and Endorsements
To avoid the disclosure fatigue we’ve all grown accustomed to in advertisements frequently overshadowed by paragraphs of fine print, the SEC deserves credit for its refreshing approach emphasizing the value of clear and prominent disclosures to accompany online reviews.
These clear and prominent disclosures are intended to provide consumers with important information to judge the merits of each review, including if:
The reviewer is a client or non-client
Cash or non-cash compensation was paid for the review
Any material conflicts of interest exist that may have influenced the reviewer.
The SEC also expects clear and prominent disclosures to be the same font size as the written review and visible alongside the review. In other words, clear and prominent disclosures effectively become a part of the review itself and cannot be hidden or accessible only via a link.
And if you’re worried about your clear and prominent disclosures being too brief, don’t be. The SEC acknowledges the character limits of certain online platforms and further states, ‘we expect that succinctly providing these disclosures will promote their salience and impact’.
Additional Disclosures for Testimonials and Endorsements
Rest assured, the SEC also expects you to include additional disclosures, both to expand upon any clear and prominent disclosures which warrant further explanation and other required disclosures we’ll cover below. Importantly, unlike clear and prominent disclosures, these additional disclosures may be provided ‘through hyperlinks, in a separate disclosure document or any other similar methods’.
Additional Considerations: Hybrid or Dually Registered Advisors
While this guide is written primarily for SEC-registered investment advisors and investment adviser representatives preparing for compliance with the SEC Marketing Rule, it’s important for hybrid or dually registered advisors to concurrently satisfy their obligations for testimonials pursuant to FINRA’s rule 2210(d)(6).
Fortunately, you’ll find FINRA’s requirements fit easily within the SEC Marketing Rule framework. Hybrid or dually registered advisors should ensure online reviews also meet the following requirements:
If the review discusses the investment advice you provide or investment performance, the review must prominently disclose the following:
The fact that the testimonial may not be representative of the experience of other customers,
The fact that the testimonial is no guarantee of future performance or success, and
If more than $100 in value is paid for the testimonial, the fact that it is a paid testimonial
If the review discusses a technical aspect of investing, the reviewer must have the knowledge and experience to form a valid opinion
FINRA requires that disclosures be provided in close proximity to the review or ‘through a clearlymarked hyperlink accompanying the testimonial using language such as “important testimonial information,” provided of course that the testimonial is not false, misleading, exaggerated or promissory’.
Accordingly, FINRA-required disclosures not already addressed within SEC-required disclosures can simply be included alongside the SEC-required disclosures.
Preparing Disclosures for Testimonials and Endorsements
While we distinguish clear and prominent disclosures from additional disclosures above, it’s important to consider both types of disclosures holistically when you’re preparing disclosures to accompany an online review.
Specifically, the SEC requires that you disclose the following information at the time your online review is published:
Clear and Prominent Disclosures:
Is the reviewer a current client? Or non-client? (Note: past clients are generally considered non-clients; If they were a recent client, you should disclose as such)
Was cash or non-cash compensation provided for the review?
A brief statement of material conflicts of interest based on your relationship
Additional Disclosures:
The material terms of any compensation arrangement, including a description of the compensation provided or to be provided, directly or indirectly to the reviewer for their review; If cash (or non-cash and a value is readily ascertainable), the amount should be disclosed; If a reduction in advisory fee, disclose the percentage and time period
A detailed explanation of any material conflicts of interest on the part of the person who wrote the review resulting from your relationship with the reviewer and/or any compensation arrangement; Specifically, the disclosure should explicitly state the reviewer has an incentive to recommend you due to such compensation
Beyond these disclosure expectations, we discussed prohibited content and unsubstantiated material statements of fact in the previous section that could trigger additional disclosure requirements. By consistently following an online review pre-publication checklist to determine which disclosures are necessary to accompany your reviews, you’ll be all set.
⭐ Template: Testimonial Pre-Publication Checklist
Choosing the Right Advisor Review Platforms
Where you choose to collect, display and promote testimonials and endorsements matters, especially for financial advisors subject to regulatory oversight. Today, “where” has expanded well beyond your own website and getting your reviews showing up in traditional search results.
AI-powered tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity are now actively scanning review platforms when generating advisor recommendations to consumers. The platforms you choose today will determine not just your traditional search visibility but whether your reviews surface in AI-generated answers to the growing share of consumers who start their advisor search with an AI query rather than a Google search.
In this section, we compare features and policies of general online review platforms (specifically Google and Yelp) to a dedicated industry online review platform (Wealthtender), and your own website to understand the pros and cons of each. We also share insights worth considering for compliance with the SEC Marketing Rule.
The table below highlights relevant features and policies you’ll want to consider when choosing the platforms you’ll use to collect, display and promote your online reviews. Once you decide on the platform(s) you’ll use, you should add a brief discussion explaining your choice(s) in your policies and procedures.
Features and Policies of Online Review Platforms
Comprehensive features and policies comparison of online review platforms for financial advisors — comparing Google, Yelp, Wealthtender, and advisor-owned websites across 13 dimensions including SEC Marketing Rule compatibility, disclosure capability, AI tool visibility, SEO benefits, compensation policies, anonymous reviews, review import, bad actor compliance, and ability to cancel account
GeneralGoogle
GeneralYelp
Purpose-BuiltWealthtender
Self-HostedYour Website
Compatible with SEC rule advertising requirements
No
No
Yes
Partial
Required disclosures can be added clearly and prominently
No
No
Yes
Partial
SEO benefits
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
AI tool visibility (ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity)
LimitedGemini — Google’s own AI — does not surface Google Reviews as of 2025
LimitedMinimal presence in AI-powered search environments
YesRegularly indexed and cited by ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and Claude
PartialDepends on schema markup implementation; competes against thousands of advisor sites
Profile exclusive to each advisor — no competitors shown
No
No
Yes
Yes
Asking for reviews is permitted
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
Compensation for reviews is allowed
No
No
Yes
Yes
Reviews can be displayed anonymously
No
Limited
Yes
Yes
Reviews from other platforms can be imported and promoted
No
No
Yes
Yes
Bad actor reviews can be removed or updated with required disclosures
No
No
Yes
Yes
Ability to cancel account and remove all reviews
No
No
Yes
N/A
Reviews feature can be turned off while retaining other platform benefits
No
No
Yes
N/A
Platform reviewed by an experienced securities attorney
No
No
Yes
Depends on your developer
Google and Yelp are not compatible with SEC Marketing Rule disclosure requirements. As of 2025, Gemini — Google’s own AI tool — does not surface Google Reviews in AI-generated responses, making Wealthtender the stronger choice for advisors seeking both compliance and AI visibility. Your website can be made compliant with the SEC Marketing Rule with proper development and compliance review, but requires custom work your developer must implement and maintain.
As the table suggests, general online review platforms can be problematic for financial advisors interested in complying with the Marketing Rule. On the other hand, Wealthtender is designed for SEC compliance. Your website developer can work with your compliance team to add online review functionality to your website in an SEC-compliant manner.
⭐ Display Testimonials on Your Website with Wealthtender Widgets
To avoid the hassle of costly development work, Wealthtender offers a variety of easy-to-use widgets that advisors can use to embed and display testimonials directly on their websites. These widgets incorporate the clear and prominent disclosures required by the SEC to ensure regulatory compliance.
Facebook, LinkedIn, and Other Platforms: The Same Compliance Concerns Apply
Beyond Google, Yelp, Wealthtender, and your own website, you may be wondering about popular social media platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn. There are also reputable websites like the Better Business Bureau, among others popular with consumers, where reviews can be written.
The same challenges largely exist for each of these platforms, just like Google and Yelp, as they’re not compatible with the SEC Marketing Rule. In each instance, unsolicited reviews should not pose any issues as long as you don’t direct prospects to visit these websites and read your reviews.
⭐ Unlock Your Reviews Trapped on Non-Compliant Platforms
No matter the future guidance provided by the SEC and as discussed in the policies and procedures section above, you can use review aggregation to import reviews from any online review platform to Wealthtender or your own website where appropriate disclosures can be added so you can compliantly promote your reviews to grow your business.
For social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn, we believe these platforms offer valuable opportunities to promote your reviews gathered on compliant platforms in posts on these sites with proper disclosures added. We’ll discuss how to promote your testimonials on social media platforms later in this guide.
Questions to Ask When Choosing an Online Review Platform for Testimonials and Endorsements
In your evaluation of online review platforms, we encourage you to ask questions that will help you decide if a platform is a good fit for your business. Here are a few questions to get you started:
What experience do you have in the financial services industry?
How well do you understand the SEC Marketing Rule?
Is your platform designed for compliance with the Marketing Rule?
How will you work with my compliance team to build trust and rapport?
What other features and benefits does your platform offer to help grow my business?
Why should I choose your platform over others?
Are your advisor profiles and reviews indexed by AI tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity — and do you have examples of advisors appearing in AI-generated recommendations?
Does your platform implement schema markup on reviews and profiles to maximize visibility in both traditional search and AI-powered search tools?
Asking for Testimonials and Endorsements
As a financial advisor subject to SEC oversight, how you ask for testimonials and endorsements matters.
In this section, we’ll explain how you can solicit reviews from your clients (testimonials) and non-clients (endorsements) for compliance with the SEC Marketing Rule.
⭐ At the end of this section, you’ll find an email template you can use and further customize to ask for testimonials from your clients (along with a separate email template to ask for endorsements from non-clients). The templates are intentionally brief to quickly get straight to the point.
Before you ask for your first review, it’s important to first ensure you’ve established your policies and procedures as discussed in a previous section. Once this step is completed and your firm has achieved compliance with the SEC Marketing Rule, you’re ready to begin asking for reviews on the review platform(s) you’ve chosen.
Since online reviews are new to our industry, we’re dividing this section into three important parts. First, we’ll start by suggesting a practice exercise to conduct before you ask for your first review. Then we’ll discuss best practices when asking for your first reviews from clients and non-clients, followed by ideas to help you incorporate the process of asking for reviews into your everyday business.
Before asking for your first real reviews, consider the benefits of a dress rehearsal. We suggest putting yourself or a member of your team in the shoes of 2 to 3 clients and one non-client and writing mock reviews you can then evaluate using your new policies and procedures.
This is a great way to prepare yourself for actual reviews. Take the time to determine if your mock reviews trigger any SEC prohibitions to gain experience handling such scenarios. Next, craft clear and prominent disclosures to accompany the mock reviews.
Use these disclosures to begin building a disclosure library in an easily accessible document. While many reviews you receive will require unique disclosures based on individual circumstances, your disclosure library can improve consistency in your disclosures where appropriate or serve as a helpful starting point for disclosures requiring customization.
2. It’s Showtime! Asking for Your First Testimonials
The SEC wants to ensure you’re not cherry-picking reviews from your favorite clients, so it’s important to ask all of your current clients for a review when first getting started. While we’ll discuss multiple methods of asking for reviews in your everyday business, we suggest using email at the outset as an effective way to maintain records of your outreach and demonstrate to the SEC you’re not cherry-picking favorites, if requested.
Consider these tips when drafting your email and preparing to ask for reviews:
Avoid asking for a positive review or inserting language which appears to influence a reviewer toward responding in a particular way
Prepare a single email you’ll send to all clients – This will demonstrate to the SEC that your messaging is consistent regardless of the nature of your relationship
Schedule the email for early morning delivery on a weekday (e.g., 5 am) or consider weekend delivery to avoid overlapping with time-sensitive client emails
Consider reaching out to sensitive clients by phone the afternoon prior to your outreach to provide context about the email they’ll receive the next day
Consider reaching out to brand new clients by phone in advance who might feel the email asking for a review is premature; Offer context about the SEC rule
Are there non-clients you want to ask for a review at this time? Refer to the email template for non-clients at the end of this section as a starting point
After your initial emails have been sent, don’t worry if you don’t immediately receive reviews. You’ve checked the first box to comply with SEC requirements, and future opportunities to ask for reviews will be ample and feel more natural.
3. Building Review Collection Into Your Everyday Workflows
Just as other trust-based professionals like doctors and lawyers have incorporated online reviews into their daily routines, you’re now ready to do the same. Importantly, you’ll still need to avoid SEC cherry-picking concerns, so your policies and procedures should be updated to show how your ongoing approach for review collection is consistently applied across all clients.
Consider these methods and tips for collecting reviews in your daily routine:
Update your email signature to include a link to your profile page on an online review platform or your website where clients can write a review
Add a new section to your client newsletter that includes a link to write a review on your profile page of an online review platform and/or your own website
Create a flyer with instructions on how someone can write a review for you and make it accessible to clients visiting your office; If you’re on Wealthtender, include the QR code we create that links to your Wealthtender profile page
Create an area on your website where clients can write a review and read your existing reviews; If you’re on Wealthtender, consider embedding our widget on your website to both collect and display reviews
Create a version of your business card with a QR code linking to your profile page to periodically share with non-clients; Use it to ask for a review at the right moment
If you offer one-time planning or project-based services, incorporate a request for a review into your workflow at the conclusion of each project
If you ask for reviews on general online review sites, don’t encourage clients to write a review while they’re in your office as these platforms could suspect multiple reviews from your own IP address as being fraudulent
If you plan to offer compensation in exchange for a review, consider proposing a charitable donation in the name of the reviewer; This shows your appreciation for the reviewer’s time, lessens the perception of influence, and will reflect favorably in the compensation disclosure accompanying the published review
⭐ Templates: Asking for Testimonials and Endorsements
Promoting Testimonials and Endorsements to Attract New Clients
Once you’ve begun collecting testimonials and endorsements online, you’re all set to turn your reviews into a powerful source of new referrals. And without lifting a finger, the positive reviews you’re collecting online are already sending signals to search engines like Google that you’re trustworthy and deserving of increased visibility in search results.
In this section, we’ll show you how you can promote your testimonials and endorsements online and offline to attract new clients while maintaining compliance with the SEC Marketing Rule.
And since it’s expected the most popular way to collect, display and promote testimonials and endorsements will be online reviews, we focus our discussion on promoting your testimonials and endorsements in the context of reviews published on the internet.
Join Wealthtender for testimonial marketing tools that convert more prospects into clients.
✔️ Access step-by-step guides used by hundreds of advisors and wealth management firms to collect thousands of glowing reviews on Wealthtender.
✔️ Display reviews compliantly on your website with easy-to-use Wealthtender widgets. Learn More & View Examples
✔️ Promote your testimonials in social media posts, prospect nurturing campaigns and other marketing initiatives with compliant templates created in Testimonial Marketing Studio™. Learn More & View Examples
Why Promoting Your Testimonials and Endorsements is Important to Grow Your Business
Twenty-five percent of affluent Americans are already using AI tools like ChatGPT and Gemini to start their search for a financial advisor, according to Wealthtender’s 2025 consumer study — a figure that will only grow as AI adoption broadens. When those consumers ask AI tools to recommend advisors, the reviews you’ve collected on independent, schema-optimized platforms are among the strongest signals those tools use to decide who to surface. Your testimonials aren’t just a conversion tool for prospects who have already found you. For a rapidly growing share of your best potential clients, they’re how you get found in the first place.
Consumers looking to hire professionals in trust-based industries want to know they’re making the right decision. Your online reviews offer the social proof they need to choose you over another financial advisor. In fact, a popular online review platform for lawyers found that those with at least five reviews on their platform achieved four times the engagement compared to lawyers with just one review.
If you decide to not make online reviews part of your marketing strategy, another financial advisor nearby or in your niche who has several positive reviews is more likely to get the call. But not to worry! With the tips in this guide, you’re well ahead of the curve and ready to turn your digital referrals into new clients. And remember, even a single online review can turn a prospect into a client.
Keep reading for suggestions to help you promote your online reviews compliantly, and learn several ways your reviews can be republished and repurposed to magnify their client-attracting power.
Promoting Your Testimonials and Endorsements Compliantly
When you encourage prospects to read your reviews online, you trigger the SEC Marketing Rule prohibitions and disclosure requirements described throughout this guide. Specifically, the rule states that once you have ‘explicitly or implicitly endorsed or approved the information [e.g., an online review] after its publication’, you have adopted the review, thus making it an advertisement subject to the rule’s conditions.
Keep these requirements and tips in mind to compliantly promote your testimonials and endorsements:
Only provide prospects with links to your online reviews where accompanying SEC-required disclosures are present (e.g., your website, your profile page on Wealthtender)
Be sure each review includes all necessary clear and prominent and additional disclosures
It’s ok to direct prospects to websites where your reviews can be sorted in different ways (e.g., sorting reviews from most to least favorable) as long as you don’t control the sorting
Ideas to Promote Your Testimonials and Endorsements Selectively (and Compliantly)
While the SEC permits you to create advertisements featuring only a subset of your reviews, you must not cause ‘any misleading implication or inference’. Fortunately, the SEC suggests this concern can be addressed by including a disclaimer that the excerpted review(s) are not representative and including a link to ‘all or a representative sample’ of your testimonials.
What this means is you’ll have opportunities to promote your reviews in a variety of ways, both online and offline. Below are a few ideas to get your creative juices flowing. As always, be sure to discuss your specific circumstances with your compliance team first.
Promoting Testimonials and Endorsements on Social Media
When it comes to popular social media sites like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter, you’ll have opportunities to promote your reviews, but doing so compliantly within the character count limitations and other constraints means it’s important to proceed with caution.
You’ll need to ensure you’re incorporating the required clear and prominent disclosures alongside the review, along with a link to a representative sample of your testimonials (e.g. reviews on your own website or Wealthtender profile page).
Example of a LinkedIn post promoting a client testimonial with regulatory disclosures:
Twitter may prove to be the most challenging social media platform for promoting your reviews due to their character count constraints, but you’ll find Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn to be much more accommodating.
Since Instagram doesn’t allow links in its posts, be sure to type out the link to your full list of reviews and consider including your QR code within the post image to satisfy compliance requirements.
Promoting Your Online Reviews Offline
Just because your reviews are written online, doesn’t mean they have to stay there.
Consider creating a printed flyer or brochure with a curated selection of testimonials and endorsements with appropriate disclosures; Include the QR code provided by Wealthtender linking to your profile page with all of your reviews, or type out the link to all reviews on your website. Insert this resource into your prospect kit.
The above approach also works for full-page magazine ads, mailed postcards, and, if you want to go big, perhaps even a billboard? Of course, it’s best to walk before we run, but you get the idea.
While a business card may lack sufficient space to achieve compliance with the above approach, consider adding a QR code prospects can scan with their mobile phone to quickly pull up your profile and read all your reviews online. This can turbocharge your business card’s effectiveness.
Repurposing Your Testimonials and Endorsements to be Both Seen and Heard
Your written reviews aren’t limited to just being read. The SEC permits oral testimonials and endorsements as long as you verbally include the required disclosures concurrently (including mention of the website address people can visit to read a representative sample of your reviews and their accompanying disclosures). This means if you host your own podcast, for example, you can include verbal testimonials at the start, middle, or end of your show.
Another idea is to create a YouTube ‘video’ where the audio version of the review can be listened to while the video concurrently displays the required clear and prominent and additional disclosures. You can then post this ‘video’ on your social media accounts.
It’s important to note the SEC expects you to maintain records of any audio reviews to demonstrate your compliance with the Marketing Rule upon request. While it may be easy to pull up an older podcast episode featuring audio reviews and disclosures, social media posts may prove more difficult. Either way, the SEC suggests maintaining a script of the recording, and disclosures can demonstrate your compliance.
Seminar Marketing: Use Your Testimonials to Increase Conversions of Prospects into Clients
If you conduct educational seminars online or in your community to attract new clients, your reviews can significantly increase your conversion rate of cold prospects who become warm leads and your future clients.
Many people who attend online or in-person seminars have little or no relationship with you prior to the event. Your online reviews overcome this headwind by creating an emotional connection that builds trust and offers the social proof consumers need to hire you with confidence.
Use the ideas discussed throughout this section to incorporate your testimonials and endorsements into your seminar marketing activities before, during, and after the seminar. For example, a link to your reviews included with the seminar invitation; A flyer shared at the event showcasing reviews relevant to the seminar topic with a QR code linked to your reviews online; A post-event email linking to your reviews (which could also serve as a timely opportunity to ask for reviews from seminar attendees).
Turning Your Biggest Fans into Powerful Lead Magnets
As the number of testimonials and endorsements you collect grows, you’ll discover who among your clients and other reviewers are most enthusiastic about telling the world the value you deliver and the impact you’ve made in their lives. This is the pond you’ll want to fish in to identify clients and non-clients who may be happy to play an even larger role in helping you grow your practice.
For example, if you host a podcast, consider inviting a passionate client onto the show as a guest to elaborate on their experience working with you. Or ask if they would be willing to record a video discussing their experience in a Q&A format you can use on your website and social media.
You’ll, of course, need to pay extra attention to compliance requirements given the likelihood an extended discussion may cover a lot of ground, but with thoughtful planning ahead of time, you can steer clear of topics like investment performance that could lead to a heightened risk of prohibited content and increased regulatory scrutiny.
Bonus: What Can Financial Advisors Learn About Online Reviews from Doctors and Lawyers?
For doctors and lawyers, online reviews have simply become a fact of life and a requirement for conducting business. For financial advisors preparing for the new SEC Marketing Rule, it’s worth considering the role testimonials have played across both professions.
In a BrightLocal consumer review survey, 89% of consumers said they look at reviews of medical professionals, and 81% look at lawyer reviews. Over 80% of consumers said they believe reviews are important across both categories of professionals.
In an NRC Health Market Insights Study of over 3,000 patients, 37% said they used online reviews as their very first step in searching for a new doctor.
Additional patient findings included:
83% said they trust online ratings and reviews more than personal recommendations
48% trust online ratings and reviews as much as a recommendation from their doctor
75% want to see at least 7 ratings before they trust a doctor
66% consider reviews older than 18 months to be out of date
59% said positive and negative reviews are equally valuable to them
In a Martindale-Avvo survey, 6,300 consumers were asked about the criteria that mattered most to them when choosing an attorney. When asked what information they desired before their first contact with an attorney, online reviews or client testimonials ranked 5th among 20 factors. The survey also noted consumers aged 25-35 gave greater weight to reviews and testimonials than consumers over age 54.
Additional consumer findings included:
47% used online review sites and directories to find an attorney (more than any other resource)
46% read online reviews of an attorney to conduct additional research after a personal referral
As Meranda Vieyra eloquently stated in The National Law Review, “The great thing about online reviews is that you have the power to present your law firm and yourself with dignity and class, regardless of how good or bad your online reviews are.” For financial advisors preparing for the SEC Marketing Rule, these words may prove prescient.
Your First Step Puts You Ahead of 90% of Advisors. Here’s How to Take It.
We hope you found this guide helpful.
By implementing the steps in this guide, in just a few weeks your client testimonials and online reviews can become an evergreen source of digital referrals — helping you rank higher in Google search results, appear in AI-generated advisor recommendations on ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity, and build the kind of documented credibility that 83% of consumers say they want before hiring a financial advisor. The advisors who build this infrastructure now are positioning their firms to lead the industry in attracting new clients not just through traditional search, but through the AI-powered discovery channels that are rapidly becoming the dominant way prospects find their next advisor.
Online reviews are just one important part of an effective marketing plan to strengthen your online reputation and attract new clients in today’s world. At Wealthtender, we’re dedicated to helping you get found online and convert more prospects into clients. Beyond our industry-first Certified Advisor Reviews™ designed for compliance with the SEC Marketing Rule, financial advisors and wealth management firms that join Wealthtender gain recognition for their areas of specialization and SEO benefits to rank higher in Google search results.
Whether you choose to join our growing community of financial advisors and advisory firms on Wealthtender or prefer to grow on your own, we hope the information in this guide helps you achieve exceptional results with your testimonials and online reviews for years to come.
Hundreds of Advisors and Wealth Management Firms Partner with Wealthtender to Grow with Testimonial Marketing
⭐ Instant Download: Quick Start Checklist for Wealthtender Subscribers (PDF)
About the Author
About the Author
Brian Thorp
Brian is CEO and founder of Wealthtender and Editor-in-Chief. He and his wife live in Austin, Texas. With over 25 years in the financial services industry, Brian is applying his experience and passion at Wealthtender to help more people enjoy life with less money stress. Learn More about Brian
Order Your Testimonial Marketing Playbook for Financial Advisors on Amazon:
What this article covers
With more than 300,000 financial advisors in the United States, finding the right one can feel overwhelming — especially when the directories available to consumers serve very different purposes and offer very different information. Some are designed for discovery, letting you filter by specialization, fee structure, and client reviews. Others are designed for credential verification, giving you official confirmation that an advisor is properly licensed and has a clean disciplinary record. This guide compares the nine most useful financial advisor directories side by side, explains which category each one belongs to, and walks you through the sequence that will help you go from a list of 300,000 advisors to a shortlist of three to five qualified candidates — efficiently, and with confidence.
Understanding Financial Advisor Directories
Financial advisor directories serve as essential tools to help consumers discover, research, and vet potential advisors based on their specific needs, location, specializations, and credentials. These directories fall into three main categories: government regulatory databases that verify credentials and disciplinary history, professional association directories that feature advisors meeting specific standards, and independent find-an-advisor directories not affiliated with a credentialing organization or specific wealth management firm.
Key Takeaways
1
No single directory does everything — but starting with one that includes client reviews gives you the most complete picture of an advisor before you ever reach out.
83% of consumers want to read online reviews before hiring a financial advisor, yet most of the top directories — including professional association sites and government databases — don’t include them. Using a review-enabled consumer directory as your starting point lets you narrow your options based on real client experiences, not just credentials and location, before deciding who to contact.
2
The three categories of financial advisor directories serve fundamentally different purposes — and you’ll likely need all three.
Consumer directories like Wealthtender help you discover and compare advisors based on your specific needs. Professional association directories like NAPFA and XY Planning Network surface advisors who meet specific credentialing and ethical standards. Government databases like FINRA BrokerCheck and SEC IAPD verify that every advisor on your shortlist is properly licensed and has a clean disciplinary record. Each plays a distinct role — and skipping the government verification step before hiring is one of the most common mistakes consumers make.
3
The right sequence matters: discover first, specialize second, verify last — then schedule consultations.
Starting your search in a government database like FINRA BrokerCheck is inefficient — it’s designed for verification, not discovery, and gives you no way to filter 300,000+ advisors by specialization, fee structure, or client reviews. Use consumer and professional directories to build a shortlist of 3–5 advisors who match your needs, then run each name through BrokerCheck and SEC IAPD before making contact. This sequence saves time and ensures you’re only meeting with vetted candidates.
The Top 9 Financial Advisor Directories Compared Side by Side
Top Financial Advisor Directories: Side-by-Side Comparison
Comparison of the top 9 financial advisor directories including Wealthtender, Fee Only Network, FINRA BrokerCheck, SEC IAPD, CFP Board Let’s Make a Plan, FPA PlannerSearch, NAPFA, XY Planning Network, and Garrett Planning Network — comparing directory type, cost, availability of client reviews, ability to filter by fiduciary advisors, fee-only advisors, and fee-based advisors, search by location, and search by specialization
Directory
Type
Cost
Client Reviews
Filter: Fiduciary
Filter: Fee-Only
Filter: Fee-Based
Search by Location
Search by Specialty
Wealthtender
Consumer Directory
Free
✔
✔
✔
✔
✔
✔
Fee Only Network
Consumer Directory
Free
—
✔
✔
—
✔
—
CFP Board (Let’s Make a Plan)
Professional Assoc.
Free
—
✔
—
—
✔
✔
FPA PlannerSearch
Professional Assoc.
Free
—
✔
✔
✔
✔
✔
NAPFA
Professional Assoc.
Free
—
✔
✔
—
✔
✔
XY Planning Network
Professional Assoc.
Free
—
✔
✔
—
✔
✔
Garrett Planning Network
Professional Assoc.
Free
—
✔
✔
—
✔
✔
FINRA BrokerCheck
Government Database
Free
—
—
—
—
✔
—
SEC IAPD
Government Database
Free
—
—
—
—
✔
—
Among the top 9 financial advisor directories in this guide, Wealthtender is the only platform that includes authentic client reviews — a feature 83% of consumers say they want when researching advisors. All directories are free to use. Before hiring any advisor, always verify their credentials through FINRA BrokerCheck and/or SEC IAPD.
Each of the financial advisor directories in the above table may serve a different purpose during your advisor search process.
1. Consumer directories like Wealthtender and Fee Only Network help you discover and compare advisors based on your specific needs and preferences.
2. Professional association directories including Let’s Make a Plan (sponsored by the CFP Board), FPA PlannerSearch, NAPFA, XY Planning Network, and Garrett Planning Network feature advisors who meet specific credentialing and ethical standards set by their respective organizations.
3. Government regulatory databases (FINRA BrokerCheck and SEC IAPD) provide official verification of credentials, registration status, and disciplinary history.
To help you better prepare for your own financial advisor search, let’s explore each category in detail, starting with consumer directories where many people choose to begin their search.
Consumer Directories: Search and Discovery Platforms
Independent directories help consumers search for advisors based on specific criteria, specializations, or geographic location. They offer different features and approaches to connecting consumers with financial professionals.
Why Start Here: Consumer directories like Wealthtender and Fee Only Network often provide more comprehensive search and filtering capabilities, allowing you to narrow your search based on multiple criteria before setting up introductory calls with advisors. And according to a 2025 Wealthtender study of 500 U.S. adults with plans to hire financial advisors in the coming years, 83% of consumers want to read online reviews and look for trust indicators before making their hiring decision, making review-enabled directories essential for informed decision-making. As of year-end 2025, Wealthtender is the only financial advisor directory among the top 9 featured in this guide that includes client reviews.
What it is: An independent financial advisor directory featuring 800+ individual advisors and wealth management firms with detailed profiles, authentic client reviews, local guides and directories based on advisor specializations.
Key features:
Client reviews and ratings (unique among advisor directories)
Comprehensive filtering: Search for fiduciary advisors, fee-only advisors, or fee-based advisors
Search by specialty, not just location
Detailed advisor profiles with credentials and services
No personal information required to browse
Does not sell visitor data or personal information
Filter by certifications and affiliations (e.g., CFP, NAPFA membership, etc.)
Why this is our top pick: As shown in the comparison table above, Wealthtender is the most comprehensive and inclusive consumer directory available, offering the ability to filter by all advisor types (fiduciary, fee-only, and fee-based) while also searching by location and specialization. Most importantly, it’s the only directory that includes client reviews, a critical factor that consumers rely upon to make more informed hiring decisions.
Data-Driven Rationale: A 2025 Wealthtender study found that 83% of consumers want to read online reviews and look for awards or other trust indicators before hiring a financial advisor. The same study revealed that 96% of consumers research advisors online before hiring them. (These findings are not unique; Studies conducted in other trust-based professions like doctors and lawyers show consumers feel online reviews and interviewing multiple providers is an important part of their decision-making process.) Wealthtender’s unique combination of comprehensive filtering options and client reviews makes it the ideal starting point for your advisor search, allowing you to efficiently narrow your options to advisors who match your specific needs while reading authentic feedback from their clients.
Why use it: Wealthtender pioneered the first financial advisor review platform, giving consumers access to authentic client feedback when evaluating advisors. Unlike directories that only feature one type of advisor (fee-only or fiduciary-only), Wealthtender’s comprehensive approach lets you filter to find exactly what you’re looking for, whether that’s a fee-only fiduciary, a fee-based advisor, or any other combination. The platform emphasizes finding advisors based on specialization and expertise rather than just proximity.
Best for: Everyone beginning their financial advisor search. Wealthtender’s comprehensive filtering, client reviews, and broad advisor base make it ideal for consumers who want to efficiently research multiple options, read real client experiences, and find advisors specializing in their specific situation (e.g., occupation, life stage, financial goals) regardless of location.
Pro Tip: Use Wealthtender’s specialist directories and interactive maps with filters to find advisors who work specifically with people in your situation. For example, if you’re a physician, technology professional, or federal employee, you can find advisors who specialize in the unique financial challenges of your occupation. Reading reviews from other clients in similar situations can help you identify the right fit faster.
In Full Transparency: Please keep in mind that this guide has been written and published by Wealthtender, thus we’re biased in our belief that Wealthtender is the best financial advisor directory available to consumers today. Of course, we feel this way for good reason as we designed Wealthtender to offer access to the most inclusive and diverse group of advisors possible, while addressing shortcomings of other directories that lack client reviews, offer fewer filtering options and/or access only to a narrow subset of advisors. To ensure we earn your trust, everything we do at Wealthtender is governed by our strict Editorial Policy,Integrity Standards, and Terms of Use. While we receive compensation from featured professionals (a natural conflict of interest), we always operate with integrity and transparency. Wealthtender is not a client of providers featured on our platform.
Fee Only Network — Best for Finding Pre-Vetted Fee-Only Advisors
All advisors vetted by partner associations (NAPFA, XY Planning Network, Garrett Planning Network, or Alliance of Comprehensive Planners)
Does not sell visitor data or personal information
No subjective ratings or proprietary “certifications”
Search by location and services
Why use it: Fee Only Network takes a principled stance on elevating the visibility of true fee-only advisors who work exclusively under the fiduciary standard. Less than 2% of financial advisors in the U.S. are genuine fee-only fiduciaries. The directory focuses exclusively on this small subset, making it easier to find conflict-free advice.
Best for: Consumers specifically seeking fee-only advisors who have been pre-vetted by reputable professional associations.
Professional Association Directories: Finding Qualified Advisors
Professional association directories feature financial advisors who meet specific credentialing, ethical, and operational standards. These directories help you find advisors with particular qualifications or business models. They can also be used to verify that an advisor’s credentials remain current.
CFP Board Directory — Best for Finding Verifying a CFP’s Credential Status
What it is: The official directory of Certified Financial Planner professionals maintained by the CFP Board, the certification body for financial planners.
Key features:
Search by location and services needed
Verify CFP certification status
All CFP professionals are fiduciaries when providing financial planning
Filter by specialties and credentials
Why use it: The CFP designation is widely recognized as the gold standard for financial planners. CFP professionals must complete extensive education, pass a rigorous exam, gain relevant experience, and agree to uphold ethical standards as fiduciaries.
Best for: Consumers who want comprehensive financial planning from a credentialed professional bound by fiduciary duty.
FPA PlannerSearch — Find CFP Professionals With Flexible Compensation Models
What it is: The official directory maintained by the Financial Planning Association (FPA), the largest membership organization for CFP professionals in the United States.
Key features:
All members are CFP professionals and FPA members in good standing
Search by location and filter by compensation type (fee-only, fee-based, commission)
Detailed profiles showing specialties and services
CFP professionals act as fiduciaries when providing financial planning
Includes financial services providers following high standards
Free participation for FPA members (opt-in required)
Why use it: FPA PlannerSearch provides flexibility by including advisors with different compensation structures – fee-only, fee-based (fees plus commissions), and commission-based—allowing you to choose based on your preference. The directory is transparent about compensation types, helping you identify which model each advisor uses. All members must be CFP professionals, ensuring a baseline of education and ethical standards.
Important note: Unlike directories that exclusively feature fee-only advisors, FPA PlannerSearch includes advisors with various compensation models. Always verify an advisor’s compensation structure and whether they act as a fiduciary for all services or only when providing financial planning.
Best for: Consumers specifically looking for CFP professionals who want the flexibility to choose between different compensation structures, or those who prefer working with advisors affiliated with the largest professional planning association.
NAPFA (National Association of Personal Financial Advisors)
What it is: The leading professional association of fee-only financial advisors, with over 4,500 members nationwide.
Key features:
100% fee-only advisors (no commissions or product sales)
All members are fiduciaries at all times
Must hold CFP certification or CPA with PFS credential
Rigorous peer review or comprehensive financial plan submission required
60 hours of continuing education every two years
Why use it: NAPFA has the strictest standards for membership among advisor associations. Fee-only compensation eliminates conflicts of interest from commission-based product sales. The peer review process ensures quality and competence.
Best for: Consumers who want assurance they’re working with a thoroughly vetted, fee-only fiduciary committed to the highest professional standards.
XY Planning Network — Best for Young Professionals Without Asset Minimums
What it is: A network of over 1,600 fee-only financial advisors specializing in serving Gen X and Gen Y clients.
Key features:
Fee-only advisors (no commissions)
No asset minimums required
Monthly subscription or flat-fee pricing models often available
All advisors work virtually (many offer both in-person and virtual meetings)
Specialized expertise for specific demographics and occupations
Why use it: Traditional advisors often require $500,000+ in investable assets, making their services inaccessible to younger professionals. XY Planning Network advisors serve clients regardless of asset level, making comprehensive financial planning accessible to early-career professionals.
Best for: Young professionals, those with student debt, couples planning families, or anyone seeking accessible fee-only planning without asset minimums.
Garrett Planning Network — Best for Hourly, As-Needed Financial Advice
What it is: A national network of hourly, fee-only financial planners founded in 2000.
Key features:
Hourly, fee-only compensation
As-needed financial planning services
No asset minimums or ongoing fees required
Must be CFP, CPA/PFS, or working toward certification
Accessible services for all income levels
Why use it: The hourly model allows you to get professional advice on specific questions without committing to an ongoing advisory relationship. This makes financial planning affordable and accessible for people who need help with particular issues like life insurance analysis, mortgage decisions, or budget reviews.
Best for: Consumers who need occasional advice on specific financial topics without ongoing portfolio management or who prefer to pay only for the time they use.
Government Regulatory Databases: Final Verification Step
These official databases should be your final stop before scheduling consultations or hiring an advisor. They provide verified, objective information about credentials, registration status, and disciplinary history that you should check for every advisor on your shortlist.
FINRA BrokerCheck — Essential for Verifying Credentials and Disciplinary History
What it is: A free tool from the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) that provides comprehensive background information on brokers, brokerage firms, and investment advisers.
Key features:
Employment history for the last 10 years
Professional certifications and licenses
Customer disputes and complaints
Disciplinary events and regulatory actions
Criminal and financial matters on record
Why use it: BrokerCheck is essential for vetting any financial professional. It reveals red flags like customer complaints, regulatory violations, or fraudulent activity. The information comes from the Central Registration Depository (CRD), the securities industry’s official registration database.
When to use it: After you’ve created a shortlist of 3-5 advisors from other directories and before you schedule initial consultations. Check each advisor’s BrokerCheck report, paying special attention to the disclosure section.
How to use it: Search by the advisor’s name or their Central Registration Depository (CRD) number. Review the complete report, paying special attention to the disclosure section.
SEC IAPD — For Reviewing Form ADV and Investment Adviser Registration
What it is: The Securities and Exchange Commission’s official database for researching investment adviser firms and representatives.
Key features:
Form ADV filings (required annual disclosure documents)
Business practices and fee structures
Types of clients served
Assets under management
Disciplinary disclosures
Educational background and professional history
Why use it: The IAPD provides detailed information about how investment advisers operate, including their compensation structure, potential conflicts of interest, and any disciplinary history. Form ADV is the most comprehensive official document about an advisory firm.
When to use it: After identifying potential advisors and before scheduling consultations. Use IAPD to verify registration status and review the advisor’s Form ADV for detailed information about their business practices.
How to use it: Search by firm or individual name. Review both Part 1 (registration information) and Part 2 (the advisory brochure) of Form ADV.
Pro Tip: Always cross-reference information from multiple sources. Use BrokerCheck and IAPD together to get a complete picture of any advisor’s background and credentials. If you find any disclosures or red flags, ask the advisor about them directly during your initial consultation.
How to Choose the Right Directory for Your Needs
Different directories serve different purposes. Here’s a decision framework to help you choose:
Step 1: Start Your Search with Wealthtender
Begin by visiting Wealthtender to take advantage of comprehensive filtering options and client reviews. Use the filters to narrow your search by:
Read client reviews to understand how advisors communicate, follow through on commitments, and impact their clients’ lives. This research-driven approach helps you create a qualified shortlist efficiently.
Step 2: Explore Specialized Directories Based on Your Priorities
Priority: Reading Client Reviews
Best choice: Wealthtender – The only directory with client reviews
Priority: Ensuring Fee-Only, Fiduciary Advisors
Best choices:
NAPFA – Most rigorous vetting standards
Fee Only Network – Pre-vetted by professional associations
XY Planning Network – For younger professionals without asset minimums
Garrett Planning Network – For hourly, as-needed advice
Wealthtender – Use guides and filters to view fee-only, fiduciary advisors
Priority: Finding CFP Professionals
Best choices:
CFP Board directory – Official credential verification
FPA PlannerSearch – CFP professionals with various compensation models
Also consider: XY Planning Network – Specialists in serving specific demographics
Step 3: Verify Licensing Before Contacting or Hiring
After you’ve identified 3-5 potential advisors through your initial research, and before scheduling consultations or hiring anyone, verify each candidate using government databases:
FINRA BrokerCheck and/or SEC IAPD – Check credentials, licenses, and disciplinary history
This final verification step ensures the advisors on your shortlist are properly licensed, currently registered, and have clean disciplinary records. Think of government databases like the SEC IAPD site as your final checkpoint, not your starting point.
The Right Order Matters: Starting with government databases is inefficient because they lack the filtering and review features needed to narrow down 300,000+ advisors. Instead, use consumer and professional directories first to create a qualified shortlist, then verify credentials through official channels before making contact.
Watch for These Warning Signs When Evaluating Advisors
After researching financial advisors through any directory, watch for these warning signs in your initial conversations or email communications:
Pressure to act quickly – Good advisors want you to make informed decisions; you shouldn’t feel rushed
Disciplinary actions on BrokerCheck or IAPD – Not all disclosures are disqualifying, but they warrant questions
Unable to explain compensation clearly – Legitimate advisors should easily explain how they’re paid
Promises of guaranteed returns – No one can guarantee investment performance
Refusing to clearly state if or when they act as a fiduciary – This should be an immediate answer, not a vague response
Not registered or licensed – Verify registration through official databases
Questions to Ask Before Hiring an Advisor
Once you’ve identified potential advisors through one or more directories, ask these essential questions:
Are you fee-only or fee-based? – Clarify compensation structure and determine if they will act as a fiduciary
What are your credentials and qualifications? – Verify through credentialing organization directories and government databases
How do you charge for your services? – Get specific numbers and fee schedules
Do you receive any third-party compensation? – Identify potential conflicts
What services do you provide? – Ensure alignment with your needs
How often will we meet? – Understand the ongoing relationship
What is your investment philosophy? – Ensure compatibility with your goals
Do you have online reviews? – If they don’t have client reviews online, ask them to explain why not
What happens if we disagree? – Understand the relationship dynamics
Why Client Reviews Are Now Available and Why They Matter for Your Search
For decades, financial advisor were prohibited by regulators from publishing client reviews online, making it difficult for consumers to evaluate advisors based on client experiences. Fortunately, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) modernized its rules in 2021 and overturned this prohibition, leading the way for Wealthtender to launch the first financial advisor online review directory designed for compliance with SEC regulations. Today, consumers researching financial advisors can read online reviews to make more informed and educated hiring decisions.
Client reviews matter because they:
Reveal communication style and responsiveness
Provide insight into actual client experiences
Highlight advisor strengths and specializations
Help identify potential issues or concerns
Offer perspective on working relationship quality
Currently, Wealthtender is the only financial advisor directory among the top 9 featured in this guide that includes client reviews. While reviews should never be your only consideration, they provide valuable context beyond an advisor’s credentials and experience.
The Most Important Financial Advisor Credentials to Know Before You Hire
Before you hire any professional, it’s essential to consider their qualifications to ensure they have the proper education and experience for your individual circumstances. Since financial professionals have varying degrees of formal education and experience, it’s even more important to do your homework when researching financial advisors and coaches.
A financial certification is a professional designation administered and awarded by a credentialing organization to individuals who meet particular prerequisites, complete the required coursework, pass examinations, and agree to uphold ethical standards.
Here are a few examples of professional credentials you may encounter when researching advisors:
CFP (Certified Financial Planner)
A Certified Financial Planner (CFP) is a well qualified financial professional who use a variety of strategies to help their clients. CFPs often analyze a client’s current situation and prepare a number of financial reports that show essential figures like net worth. CFPs may also assist with investment planning, insurance planning, estate planning, income tax planning, and retirement planning.
While many other professional designations concentrate in investment management, the CFP focuses on holistic financial planning. In addition, CFPs stand out because they must abide by a strict standard of fiduciary duty, meaning they are required to put their clients’ best interests ahead of their own. They can’t buy financial products for clients for the sole purpose of earning high commissions.
To earn a CFP, financial professionals must complete certain education and experience requirements as well as pass a rigorous exam that is distributed by the CFP Board.
AIF (Accredited Investment Fiduciary)
An Accredited Investment Fiduciary (AIF) is legally obligated to always act in the best interests of their clients. They offer recommendations based on each client’s unique goals rather than prioritizing commissions, kickbacks and referral fees that solely benefit them.
Designees receive the knowledge and skills they need to evaluate the fiduciary practices of investment vehicles such as 401(k) plans and defined benefit plans. They also support those who manage endowment and foundation assets.
CFA (Chartered Financial Analyst)
A Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) is a globally recognized and respected designation for financial professionals who would like to develop their expertise in investment management. It’s administered by the CFA Institute, which is an international organization that strives to promote knowledge and financial literacy in investments.
With a CFA designation, financial professionals gain the knowledge and skills needed to succeed in finance, banking, and securities. Its curriculum was specifically designed to reinforce a variety of important investment principles.
ChFC (Chartered Financial Consultant)
The Chartered Financial Consultant (ChFC) designation is administered and awarded by the American College of Financial Services in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, it’s similar to the Certified Financial Planner (CFP).
The ChFC is available to any financial professional who wishes to help clients with complex situations. Those who pursue the ChFC will be required to complete an education component, which consists of eight college-level courses. These courses include similar topics to the ones found in CFP education such as retirement, insurance, taxation, and investing.
Next Steps: Your Roadmap to Finding the Right Advisor
Your Action Plan
Identify your priorities – Do you need fee-only advice? Want to read reviews? Looking for specialists? Prefer a specific compensation model?
Start with Wealthtender – Use specialist directories and filters to narrow by advisor type, location, specialization, and credentials. Read client reviews to understand advisor communication and client experiences
Explore specialized directories if needed – Check NAPFA, XY Planning Network, Fee Only Network, or other association directories based on your specific priorities
Create a shortlist – Identify 3-5 potential advisors that seem like they could be a good fit
Verify credentials – Check EVERY candidate through BrokerCheck and/or SEC IAPD before contacting them
Schedule consultations – Most advisors offer free initial meetings
Get everything in writing – Review the advisory agreement carefully
Trust your instincts – After ensuring your shortlist of advisors pass the items above, choose someone you’ll feel comfortable working with for the foreseeable future
Finding the right financial advisor is one of the most important financial decisions you’ll make. These directories provide valuable starting points, but remember that due diligence is essential. Use multiple resources, verify all information through official channels, and take your time making this important decision.
With these tools and knowledge, you’re well-equipped to find a trusted professional who is knowledgeable in the areas unique to your circumstances and who can help you achieve your long-term goals.
Final Reminder: The most efficient approach is to start with Wealthtender’s comprehensive search and review capabilities to create your shortlist, then verify each advisor through FINRA BrokerCheck and/or SEC IAPD before scheduling consultations. This research-first, verify-second approach saves time and ensures you’re meeting with properly vetted advisors who match your needs.
About the Author
Brian Thorp
Brian is CEO and founder of Wealthtender and Editor-in-Chief. He and his wife live in Austin, Texas. With over 25 years in the financial services industry, Brian is applying his experience and passion at Wealthtender to help more people enjoy life with less money stress. Learn More about Brian
What this article covers
FMG’s acquisition of Testimonial IQ in 2026 — now rebranded as FMG Testimonials — is a meaningful upgrade for FMG clients who want a streamlined, compliance-first way to collect client reviews and publish them on their websites. If you have access to it, you’re already ahead of the roughly 90% of advisors not using testimonials at all. But collecting a testimonial and maximizing its value are two different things, and the gap between them is where most advisors leave significant marketing ROI on the table. This guide is for FMG clients who want to understand how Wealthtender works alongside FMG Testimonials as the amplification layer that ensures your hard-earned testimonials reach consumers, Google, and AI tools far beyond your existing website audience — including the thousands of prospects actively searching online right now who have never heard of you yet.
FMG’s acquisition of Testimonial IQ (now rebranded as FMG Testimonials) is a positive development for financial advisors and wealth management firms that use FMG’s platform. If you’re an FMG client, you may now have access to FMG Testimonials, a thoughtfully-designed platform to compliantly collect client testimonials and display social proof on your website, potentially at no additional cost as part of your existing FMG subscription.
FMG Testimonials is a purpose-built, compliance-first solution that handles the testimonial collection workflow well. If you’re using it today or planning to do so, you’re off to a strong start and ready to set yourself apart from the ~90% of financial advisors not using testimonials to build trust with prospects.
But here’s the question you need to ask yourself:
Once I’ve collected client testimonials, how can I be sure I’m maximizing their value to grow my business?
Collecting a testimonial and publishing it on your website is a great first step. What many advisors miss is step two: amplifying that social proof so it reaches far beyond your existing website audience into search engines, AI tools, find-an-advisor directories, and everywhere that thousands of consumers are actively searching online for a financial advisor right now.
This article is for FMG clients who want to generate the greatest ROI from the testimonials they’ve gathered. It explains how Wealthtender works alongside FMG Testimonials as the amplification layer that ensures your hard-earned testimonials achieve the broadest possible marketing impact to reach more prospects, increase lead conversions, and grow your firm faster.
Note: On February 4, 2026, FMG announced its acquisition of Testimonial IQ and rebranded the platform to “FMG Testimonials”. Much of the information on this page reflects publicly available information about Testimonial IQ prior to the acquisition. Wealthtender will update this article as new details become know about relevant changes or new features introduced by FMG. In the meantime, if you’re evaluating FMG Testimonials and Wealthtender, we encourage you to schedule a demo call with FMG and schedule a demo call with Wealthtender prior to ensure you have the most up-to-date information about both platforms and increase the likelihood you choose the right platform(s) to support your objectives.
Key Takeaway:
FMG Testimonials helps advisors compliantly collect, manage and publish client feedback on their websites and gather more Google Reviews.
Wealthtender maximizes the power of your testimonials to reach the most prospects, increase lead conversions and grow your firm faster with industry-leading SEO/AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) benefits, plus discoverability in the most popular find-an-advisor directory featuring verified client reviews.
FMG clients who pair FMG Testimonials with Wealthtender are positioned to generate the greatest ROI from testimonials to grow their business.
The Gap Between Collecting a Testimonial and Maximizing Its Impact
Think about what happens when a client submits a glowing testimonial through FMG Testimonials. The platform collects it, routes it through a compliance workflow, and, once approved, displays it on your website. That’s exactly what it’s designed to do, and it does it well.
Testimonials published on your website accelerate the trust-building process with people who have already found their way to you. And with proper schema markup offered by FMG, your published testimonials have an increased likelihood of appearing in answers generated by AI search tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, Google AI Overviews and Perplexity.
But across all types of businesses, the most impactful way to harness the real power of testimonials is to ensure they exist as online reviews published on reputable third-party review platforms with the authority, structure, and consumer traffic to ensure you’re discoverable by consumers and gain the greatest likelihood of appearing in AI search tools. Wealthtender was built specifically to bridge this gap for financial advisors and wealth management firms with an approach designed for SEC/FINRA compliance. The table below illustrates exactly where each platform focuses and where they complement each other.
Of course, the team at FMG recognizes the importance of third-party review sites as well, which is one of the reasons why FMG Testimonials provides an optional feature after clients submit a testimonial inviting them to sign into their Google account where they can also submit their testimonial as a Google Review on the advisory firm’s Google Business Profile.
For firms not comfortable with the potential regulatory risks of Google Reviews, FMG Chief Evangelist Samantha Russell recommends Wealthtender as an industry-specific third-party review platform for publishing reviews compliantly. While a direct integration from FMG Testimonials into Wealthtender doesn’t (yet) exist, Wealthtender can import testimonials collected through the FMG Testimonials platform today via a straightforward export/import process.
FMG Testimonials versus Wealthtender for financial advisors: a side-by-side comparison of primary purpose, testimonial collection workflow, where reviews are published, AI tool visibility, consumer directory access, domain authority, Google Reviews, individual advisor visibility, FAQ schema, industry recognition, and best use cases for each platform
Collection & displayFMG Testimonials
Collection, discovery & amplificationWealthtender
Primary Purpose
Collect client testimonials through a compliance-first workflow, certify them with required disclosures, and publish them on your FMG-hosted website.
Collect, certify, and publish client reviews with a compliance-first approach — and amplify them on a high-authority independent platform visited by 500,000+ consumers annually to maximize discoverability in search engines and AI tools.
Testimonial Collection Workflow
Purpose-built compliance-first collection workflow with required SEC disclosures, review approval process, and tools designed for advisors regulated by both SEC and FINRA.
Equivalent compliance-first collection workflow with required SEC disclosures and review certification process — suitable as a standalone collection platform or as a complement to FMG Testimonials for advisors who want both collection and independent third-party amplification in one subscription.
Where Reviews Live
Your FMG-hosted website — serving prospects who have already found you and are evaluating whether to reach out.
Your Wealthtender profile on an independent platform — indexed by Google, Bing, and AI tools, reaching prospects who haven’t found you yet. Reviews can also be displayed on your FMG-hosted website using Wealthtender’s embed widgets.
AI Tool Visibility
Schema markup on your FMG website improves AI visibility for prospects who search your name or firm name directly.
Reviews on Wealthtender are regularly cited by ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and other AI tools in response to consumer queries — including from prospects who don’t yet know your name.
Domain Authority
Reflects your website’s domain authority — modest for most advisors and takes years of consistent SEO investment to build.
Domain Authority 42 (Moz, February 2026) — significantly higher than most individual advisor websites, lending immediate credibility to your profile in search results.
Consumer Directory
No consumer-facing advisor directory — visibility is limited to prospects who already navigate to your website.
Consumer-facing local and specialist directories visited by 500,000+ prospective clients annually — connecting advisors with prospects searching by location, niche, and employer specialization.
Google Reviews
Optional feature invites clients who submit a testimonial to also post it as a Google Review on your firm’s Google Business Profile.
Import tool converts existing Google Reviews into Certified Advisor Reviews™ with required SEC disclosures — extending their reach into AI tools where Google Reviews currently have limited visibility.
Individual Advisor Visibility
Testimonials displayed on your firm website; individual advisor visibility depends on how your site is structured.
Separate profiles for individual advisors and firms; Review Sync™ automatically amplifies firm-level reviews across every advisor’s individual profile simultaneously.
FAQ Schema
FMG supports FAQ schema on advisor websites to improve AI and search visibility for prospects evaluating advisors they’ve already found.
Up to 10 FAQs on your Wealthtender profile with schema automatically applied — optimized for discovery-stage queries that surface your profile before prospects know your name.
Industry Recognition
No advisor awards program tied to client reviews.
Voice of the Client Awards™ for advisors achieving a 4.75+ average rating — published with award schema on Wealthtender profiles for additional AI and search visibility signals.
Best For
FMG clients who want a streamlined testimonial collection workflow natively integrated into their existing FMG platform, with an optional path to grow Google Reviews as part of their current subscription.
Advisors who want a single platform for both compliant collection and independent third-party amplification — or FMG clients who want to extend their existing testimonial strategy into AI tools, search engines, and a consumer-facing directory that reaches prospects beyond their website audience.
FMG Testimonials and Wealthtender work best as a combination for FMG clients who want maximum reach. Wealthtender also functions as a standalone collection and amplification platform for advisors who want both capabilities in a single subscription — including those using FMG-hosted websites.
How FMG Clients Can Publish Their Reviews on Wealthtender
Until a direct integration is completed between FMG Testimonials and Wealthtender, there are two easy ways that FMG clients can publish their testimonials as online reviews displayed on Wealthtender to maximize their reach and SEO/AEO effectiveness.
Option 1: Import Your Google Reviews to Wealthtender
If you’re using FMG Testimonials to collect Google Reviews, one of its signature features, you may already be sitting on a library of client reviews that can be directly imported to Wealthtender.
Why Import Google Reviews to Wealthtender:
Beyond the heightened regulatory risks of Google Reviews, their visibility and effectiveness outside the Google search ecosystem is limited.
Google Reviews provide local SEO benefits when consumers use Google to search specifically for a firm by name or proximity, but they fall flat when it comes to AI visibility. While this may change in the future, Google Reviews have limited visibility in AI-powered search tools, including Google’s own Gemini AI platform (as of early 2026).
On the other hand, reviews published on Wealthtender, including those imported from Google, are indexed by search engines that power AI tools, making them far more likely to appear in ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude, Copilot and beyond.
Wealthtender’s Google Reviews Import Tool allows you to bring in reviews from your Google Business Profile and, through Wealthtender’s certification process, convert them into Certified Advisor Reviews™ by adding the required regulatory disclosures so they can be compliantly promoted. The result is a public Wealthtender profile populated with your verified client reviews and required disclosures, optimized for maximum search visibility.
“I had no idea both ChatGPT and Gemini were overlooking my Google Reviews. Better late than never to get them imported into Wealthtender. I’m looking forward to seeing if the change helps build trust and improves how both platforms present my business. Appreciate you keeping an eye out for me!”
T.J. van Gerven, CFP®
Memento Financial Planning
This is the fastest path for FMG clients who have already collected Google Reviews directly and/or through FMG Testimonials.
A Note on Compliance:
Wealthtender has written extensively about the regulatory considerations and potential risks of soliciting Google Reviews. While FMG Testimonials is designed to help manage this process compliantly, advisors should work with their compliance teams to confirm their comfort level with Google Reviews.
Option 2: Export from FMG Testimonials and Import to Wealthtender
If you have testimonials collected through the FMG Testimonials platform that are not published to Google (or if you prefer to avoid Google Reviews for compliance reasons) there is a second path available.
When your clients submit testimonials through the FMG Testimonials platform, they grant permission for their feedback to be used in marketing efforts. This permission extends to publishing those reviews through other compliant marketing channels, including your Wealthtender profile(s). You can export reviews from FMG Testimonials into a spreadsheet and Wealthtender will import them to your Wealthtender profile(s), where they will then go through Wealthtender’s standard certification process for publication once your regulatory disclosures are added.
This path is particularly useful for advisors and wealth management firms that want the full discovery and AI visibility benefits of a Wealthtender profile without starting a separate review collection campaign from scratch.
In either case, the Wealthtender team is available to help walk you through the process. Book a Zoom Call with Wealthtender to get started.
Five Ways Wealthtender Makes Your Reviews Work Harder After You’ve Collected Them
Once your reviews are published on Wealthtender, they become powerful assets that strengthen your digital marketing strategy and boost your online reputation. Here are five ways your reviews work even harder for you by publishing them on Wealthtender:
1. Stronger Domain Authority Than Advisor Websites
It’s nothing personal, we promise! While you’ve been busy serving your clients, since 2019, we’ve been focused on optimizing Wealthtender for visibility in search engines like Google, and more recently AI search tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Copilot and Claude. And we’re happy to report that our efforts are paying off for the hundreds of advisors and wealth management firms featured on Wealthtender.
When your client testimonials live on your firm’s website, even a beautifully built FMG website, they’re constrained by that site’s domain authority and traffic which makes it harder to rank for competitive search terms.
Wealthtender is visited by more than 500,000 consumers annually and has earned a domain authority score of 42 (Source: Moz; As of February 2026), significantly higher than the vast majority of individual advisor websites. When your client reviews appear on your Wealthtender profile(s), they benefit from the SEO/AEO strength that Wealthtender has accrued over several years, with benefits that include:
Your reviews published on Wealthtender send positive trust signals to search engine algorithms
Your Wealthtender profile(s) appear in search results more frequently and prominently
Your name surfaces in AI answers you might never reach through your website alone
2. SEO and AEO Power That Your Website Can’t Replicate Alone
Wealthtender applies structured data schema markup to every advisor profile and review. In non-technical terms, “schema” is the language that tells search engines and AI tools what your content means. This also ensures your star ratings can appear directly in Google search results, and your Wealthtender profile is formatted in a way that makes it easier for AI search tools to surface you in AI-generated answers.
Example of a Google search result for an individual financial advisor with gold stars displayed as a result of ‘review schema’ applied on the advisor’s Wealthtender profile.
This matters enormously today, which is why if you have an FMG-hosted website, you’ll benefit from schema markup there, too. AI-powered tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and Google’s AI Overviews are quickly becoming the primary way consumers discover and evaluate financial advisors, and these tools draw heavily on structured third-party data from high-authority sources like Wealthtender.
Reviews on your own website are most valuable for converting prospects once they know who you are. Reviews on Wealthtender are most valuable for helping prospects, Google and AI search tools find your reviews in the first place.
“AI-powered search engines like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google’s AI Overviews are now factoring reviews into how they recommend businesses. Your reviews are more than social proof — they’re a ranking signal that determines whether AI will surface your firm to prospects or not.” — FMG Testimonials product page
FMG has made this point compellingly in its own marketing as reflected above. Wealthtender’s infrastructure is specifically designed to turn this insight into action: Your reviews, structured and published on Wealthtender, a high-authority platform with schema markup, become the third-party signals that AI tools recognize and reward.
(Left) Example of a Wealthtender profile for a financial advisor, Emily Rassam, visible to consumers. (Right) Screenshot of Schema Markup Validator tool verifying schema implementation on Emily Rassam’s profile, used by AI tools.
3. The Credibility Multiplier of Third-Party Review Platforms
There’s a psychological reality in how consumers evaluate online reviews: Testimonials displayed on business websites are inherently less credible than reviews published on independent third-party platforms. This isn’t a criticism of testimonials published on business websites (you should absolutely publish testimonials on your website), it’s simply human nature. A restaurant’s own website claiming it’s the best in the city lands differently than reviews published on a trusted, independent platform.
Wealthtender is the leading independent review platform for financial advisors, purpose-built for SEC and FINRA compliance, with editorial standards, a certification process, and a consumer-facing directory that gives every review its own context and weight. When prospects read an online review on Wealthtender, they can take comfort knowing it’s been collected and displayed through an independent platform with its own standards, not just handpicked by the advisor.
Third-party credibility is something advisor websites simply can’t replicate, and it’s why professional profiles on review platforms like Wealthtender (for financial advisors) and Zocdoc or Healthgrades (for physicians) instill greater confidence among consumers and AI search tools alike.
Examples of AI-generated answers in tools like ChatGPT (left) and Perplexity (right) that cite reviews published on a third-party platform (Wealthtender).
4. Wealthtender Voice of the Client™ Awards: Recognition That Compounds Your Visibility
Advisors who publish reviews on Wealthtender and consistently receive exceptional client feedback become eligible for Wealthtender Voice of the Client™ Awards, the industry’s only award program based entirely on verified client reviews rather than assets under management or revenue.
To qualify for a Highly Rated financial advisor or firm award, advisors/firms must achieve an average rating of 4.75 or higher (on a 1–5 scale) from a minimum number of eligible client reviews within a defined timeframe. Upon qualification and acceptance, these awards are published on Wealthtender advisor and firm profiles with “award schema”, sending additional trust signals to search engines and AI tools, and giving advisors a legitimately earned credential they can display proudly, knowing it reflects genuine client satisfaction rather than a pay-to-play recognition program.
Unlike traditional advisor award programs that reward size, Wealthtender’s Voice of the Client Awards offer advisors and firms of all sizes an equal opportunity to gain recognition for a metric that matters most to consumers – client satisfaction. A boutique solo RIA with exceptional client relationships can earn the same recognition as advisors at a national firm, and in many cases, surface more prominently in online search results because of it.
5. Review Sync™: Amplifying Every Advisor at Your Firm
For wealth management firms with multiple advisors, Wealthtender’s Review Sync™ feature extends the SEO/AEO benefits of firm-level reviews to each advisor featured on Wealthtender, recognizing the important role of individual advisors as brand ambassadors for their firm.
Here’s why this matters: Research shows that clients write reviews about their experiences with individual advisors much more often than their experiences with the “firm”. Wealthtender’s 2025 Voice of the Client Study found that when clients mention names in their reviews, they are nearly 25 times more likely to highlight an individual advisor than just the firm name.
Consumers searching for advisors are doing the same, they’re searching Google or prompting ChatGPT to research individual advisors by name, comparing profiles, and reading personal reviews to learn more about the individual advisors who they might hire to become their trusted confidant for the next decade or longer. Just as consumers don’t prioritize reviews about hospitals when choosing a new primary care physician, consumers preparing to hire financial advisors want to know firsthand what clients have to say about their experience with the professional who they’ll build a relationship with at the firm.
Review Sync™ allows firm-collected reviews to automatically add reviews to each advisor’s individual Wealthtender profile once disclosures are confirmed. This means every advisor at your firm gets the SEO/AEO benefit of the firm’s review track record, strengthening each advisor’s individual professional brand and making them more discoverable when prospects search by name.
Example of a wealth management firm utilizing Wealthtender Review Sync™ to display online reviews across individual advisor profiles on Wealthtender.
Each advisor is a brand ambassador for your firm. Wealthtender gives every advisor an SEO/AEO-optimized profile and public presence that reinforces the caliber of the client experiences your team delivers with your reviews available across all advisor profiles.
What Else Comes With Wealthtender: Digital Marketing Benefits Beyond Reviews
The online review features and testimonial amplification benefits described above are the most relevant complements when combining Wealthtender with FMG Testimonials, but they’re only part of the value proposition Wealthtender offers to advisors and wealth management firms. For FMG clients who add Wealthtender to their marketing stack, here’s a glimpse of what else comes with it.
Getting Found in Local and Specialist Directories — With Real Prospect Examples
Wealthtender publishes a diverse range of consumer-facing guides and directories, local advisor directories by city, specialist directories by niche (e.g., physicians, tech employees, divorce, business owners, corporate executives and employees), and life-stage guides, visited by the nearly 500,000 consumers who visit Wealthtender annually, and frequently cited in Google search results and AI-generated answers. Advisors featured in these guides gain visibility with prospects who are actively in the hiring decision process and who are unlikely to find them through their firm’s website alone.
Here are a few examples of actual messages received by advisors from prospects who found them on Wealthtender:
Actual messages received by advisors from prospects who found them on Wealthtender:
“We’re interested in learning more about your retirement planning services. Our portfolio is between $5-7M, we are 60 and 61, and live in…”
“My wife and I are looking for an advisor to help with equity and options. We are corporate professionals with options/RSUs in …”
“We are in Austin and retiring in a few weeks… selling our business. I would like to schedule a meeting with you and very likely proceed to …”
“I am an engineer at Google. I would appreciate the opportunity to schedule a brief introductory call …”
“I am looking for a fee based financial planner that specializes in real estate.”
“I am a physician with investments in my hospital practice, retirement accounts, real estate, and…”
“We live in CA and have a net worth around $5.5M. Please contact me if you are interested in working with us…”
“I am looking for a flat fee financial advisor. I found your contact information on Wealthtender.”
“I came across your profile and would like to explore working with you for divorce-related financial planning…”
AI-Optimized FAQs: The Feature That Helps Prospects Find You Before They Know Your Name
Wealthtender’s AI-Optimized FAQ feature allows advisors to publish up to ten frequently asked questions on their profile, with FAQ schema markup automatically applied. This structured format helps search engines and AI tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity identify and surface your expertise in response to consumer queries, positioning you as a credible, cited source in AI-generated answers.
Wealthtender’s approach to AI-Optimized FAQs aligns with guidance offered by FMG and Samantha Russell, who emphasize the value of FAQ schema on advisor websites and third-party profiles for AI visibility.
Media Visibility: Get Quoted in Top Publications
Wealthtender’s media quote feature offers PR services for advisors via weekly requests from journalists at leading consumer and industry publications seeking expert quotes from financial advisors for their articles. Advisors who respond gain citations and backlinks in nationally recognized outlets, building the kind of third-party authority that both prospects and AI tools recognize as a credibility signal.
This is a type of visibility that goes beyond testimonials. It’s not about reviews; it’s about becoming the advisor that media outlets turn to, which compounds your overall digital authority over time.
The Wealthtender Value Proposition: What You’re Getting for $79/month (or Less)
Wealthtender subscription plans start at $49 per month for a single advisor, offering the the industry’s most powerful online review benefits for maximum AI visibility and prospect discoverability at the lowest-cost of all established advisor testimonial platforms. For FMG clients taking advantage of FMG Testimonials, the question is straightforward: does the incremental $49 to $79 monthly cost of Wealthtender deliver enough additional value to be worth your investment?
The answer depends on how you think about the importance of optimizing your reputation and visibility with prospects, Google, and AI search tools. Wealthtender’s consumer-facing directory and review platform, AEO schema infrastructure, domain authority, Voice of the Client Awards, review amplification features, media quote opportunities, and specialist directories to increase your changes of getting found and contacted by prospects first are capabilities complementary to FMG Testimonials and that advisor websites cannot replicate on their own.
For individual advisors focused on inbound discovery – being found by prospects who don’t already know you – Wealthtender is the most cost-effective investment available, trusted today by more than 800 financial advisors, wealth management firms and national advisor networks. For wealth management firms, Wealthtender offers unparalleled value, with SEO/AEO-optimized firm and advisor profiles, plus impactful digital marketing benefits for a fraction of what it would cost to achieve comparable results through any other channel.
Wealthtender has been rated “Extraordinary”, the highest tier, in the T3 Advisor Software Survey in both 2023 and 2024, and was recognized as a Winner of the InvestmentNews 5-Star Technology Award in 2025. Everything about Wealthtender has been designed with a compliance-first approach to provide advisors and wealth management firms that take compliance and marketing seriously with a credible, digital marketing partner to accelerate their growth. See what financial professionals say about Wealthtender.
“Wealthtender is one of the best decisions we have made as a firm. I wish we had done it sooner.”
Gerry Barrasso
President & Founder United Financial Planning Group
FAQs: Evaluating FMG Testimonials and Wealthtender
Q: What is the history of FMG Testimonials?
FMG Testimonials began its life as Testimonial IQ, an independent platform founded in Denver, Colorado, and backed by investors including Techstars, the Frazier Group, and SWAN Ventures. Testimonial IQ was built from the ground up for financial advisors regulated by the SEC and/or FINRA, with a compliance-first approach to collecting testimonials and features to invite clients to submit testimonials as Google Reviews.
The platform earned industry recognition, including WealthManagement’s Top Compliance Tech designation in 2024. Its founder and CEO, Andrew Johnson, built the product around a single mission: “help financial advisors turn happy clients into new business without creating compliance headaches.”
FMG acquired Testimonial IQ in December 2025 and announced the rebrand to FMG Testimonials on February 4, 2026. The acquisition was designed to integrate Testimonial IQ’s review and testimonial tools into FMG’s broader marketing platform, used by more than 80,000 advisors, as part of FMG’s larger strategy around Answer Engine Optimization and organic growth for wealth management firms. The rebranded FMG Testimonials retains the same compliance-first workflows and is available both as a standalone product and as part of FMG’s integrated marketing suite.
Q: Does Wealthtender plan to launch a direct integration with FMG Testimonials?
It’s a great question, and one we get excited about to offer financial advisors and wealth management firms even more value from both platforms. Our team at Wealthtender is actively exploring integrations with complementary platforms, and an integration with FMG Testimonials is absolutely on the radar.
Our shared commitment to compliance-first solutions and conviction across the leadership teams of FMG and Wealthtender regarding the power of testimonials and online reviews uniquely positions our two firms to collaborate on industry education initiatives, cross-promotion of complementary tools and integrations that benefit our mutual clients.
As FMG clients begin to implement FMG Testimonials, they could benefit from having testimonials collected within the FMG platform systematically published on Wealthtender with the applicable regulatory disclosures. An integration like this would streamline the export/import process described earlier in this article and make it seamless for advisors to get the amplification benefits of Wealthtender without any additional effort.
We hope to have meaningful progress on an FMG Testimonials integration to share with advisors in 2026. In the meantime, the Google Reviews import option and the manual export/import approach described above are both available and our team is happy to support FMG clients through either process.
Q: Does Wealthtender offer website development and hosting for financial advisors?
No. If you need a high-quality advisor website, we’d point you back toward FMG for their highly regarded website hosting services. Wealthtender is a digital marketing platform focused on helping advisors build credibility, get discovered by prospects, and grow their business through compliant reviews, media visibility, and SEO/AEO-optimized profiles. Website design and hosting is not part of our platform.
FMG has built an excellent reputation in advisor website development and hosts thousands of advisor websites with professional design, compliance tools, content libraries, and now the fully integrated FMG Testimonials capability. If you’re looking for an all-in-one marketing platform that includes a professionally designed website along with testimonial collection tools, FMG is a strong choice, and you can layer Wealthtender on top of that foundation to amplify your reviews and strengthen your AI visibility and discovery presence everywhere consumers are looking for advisors online.
Q: I’m an FMG client using FMG Testimonials. What should I do first to combine FMG Testimonials with Wealthtender?
You’re off to a great start with FMG! Here are ideas to amplify the power of FMG Testimonials with Wealthtender:
Join Wealthtender. Sign up for Wealthtender in 2 minutes and your profile is created for you using information from your FMG-hosted website and social media profiles like LinkedIn.
Check your Google Reviews. If you’ve been using FMG Testimonials to collect Google Reviews, you may already have a library ready to import to Wealthtender. Wealthtender’s Google Reviews import tool makes this straightforward.
Import or transfer your reviews. Work with the Wealthtender team to import Google Reviews or, if you prefer not to use Google Reviews, export your FMG Testimonials reviews and import them through Wealthtender’s certification process.
Activate AI-Optimized FAQs. With the Marketing Pro plan, add up to ten FAQs to your Wealthtender profile with FAQ schema automatically applied to further strengthen your AI visibility.
Sign up for media and specialist directory opportunities. Respond to journalist requests for quotes and choose specialist directories where you’ll be featured to get found by your ideal clients.
Q: Do I need both FMG Testimonials and Wealthtender?
If you’re evaluating FMG Testimonials and Wealthtender, we encourage you to schedule a demo call with FMG and schedule a demo call with Wealthtender to make a fully informed decision and ensure you have the most up-to-date information about both platforms to increase the likelihood you choose the right platform(s) to support your objectives.
If you’re an FMG client and FMG Testimonials is included in your subscription, it’s a capable, compliant tool for collecting client testimonials and publishing them on your website, and you shouldn’t feel obligated to pay for additional tools unless they provide meaningful incremental value.
That said, FMG Testimonials and Wealthtender offer powerful complementary benefits when combined. FMG Testimonials is focused on the collection and display of testimonials within your existing marketing workflow, your website, optionally increasing the collection of Google Reviews, your email campaigns, and your compliance oversight process. Wealthtender is focused on amplification and discovery, ensuring your reviews are visible to consumers who haven’t found you yet, through an authoritative compliance-first review platform visited by 500,000 consumers annually, with SEO/AEO-optimized profiles, and additional digital marketing tools that extend well beyond reviews.
If your goal is to get testimonials published compliantly on your website, strengthen your AEO and potentially increase your Google Reviews, FMG Testimonials handles that well. If your goal is to rank higher in Google search, maximize your AI visibility and credibility in ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and beyond, attract new clients through online discovery, and gain access to additional digital marketing benefits, Wealthtender adds features complementary to FMG Testimonials. The question of whether both are worth it comes down to your growth priorities, and with Wealthtender’s most popular plan offered at $59/month, the low cost is designed to make that an easy call.
Should You Pair FMG Testimonials with Wealthtender?
FMG Testimonials is a solid, compliance-first platform for collecting and managing client testimonials, increasing Google Reviews, and strengthening AEO. But the job isn’t done when a testimonial is approved, published on your website, or submitted as a Google Review. The advisors and wealth management firms experiencing the greatest success today are the ones whose reviews are working everywhere online, on their own site, yes, but also on independent high-authority platforms that consumers and AI tools trust as credible, third-party sources.
Wealthtender was built to be that platform for financial advisors. Wealthtender turns your client testimonials, including those collected through FMG Testimonials and Google Reviews, into powerful marketing assets and trust signals that reach new prospects through search engines, AI tools, consumer-facing directories, and beyond that no single advisor website can generate on its own.
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Pair FMG Testimonials with Wealthtender if…
You want maximum reach, AI visibility, and discovery
You’re an FMG client with compliance approval to collect testimonials and want to maximize their impact
You want to get found by prospects using ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity to find and compare advisors
You want gold stars to appear next to your name when prospects look you up in Google
You want the added credibility of reviews published on a reputable, independent third-party platform
You want to be discovered by the 500,000+ prospective clients who visit Wealthtender annually
You have Google Reviews and want to extend their reach into AI tools where they’re otherwise invisible
You’re a CMO or firm leader seeking to optimize SEO and AEO for both your firm and individual advisors
You want a digital marketing partner that amplifies your FMG investment with compliant AI-optimized reviews
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You can skip Wealthtender if…
Website display is your primary goal
Your primary goal is displaying testimonials on your FMG-hosted website — FMG Testimonials handles this well on its own
Inbound discovery and AI visibility are a lower priority for your firm’s current growth strategy
Your Clients’ Words Deserve to Be Heard as Widely as Possible
Your clients who take the time to provide a testimonial genuinely care about you, the impact you’re making in their lives, and are proud to express their appreciation online for all that you do. They know the impact their words can make to prospective clients who were once in their shoes.
By combining FMG Testimonials with Wealthtender, you can ensure the voices of your clients generate the greatest potential impact to your online presence and result in you getting found and hired by the right prospects at the right time, based on fit and real client feedback.
Want to see how individual advisors and leading wealth management firms are successfully using Wealthtender to grow their business? Visit Wealthtender.com/grow or schedule a demo to learn how you can start converting more prospects into clients with the industry’s first digital marketing platform for AI-optimization and compliant online reviews.
About the Author
Brian Thorp
Brian is CEO and founder of Wealthtender and Editor-in-Chief. He and his wife live in Austin, Texas. With over 25 years in the financial services industry, Brian is applying his experience and passion at Wealthtender to help more people enjoy life with less money stress. Learn More about Brian
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The way consumers find and vet financial advisors is changing faster than most advisors realize — and the change isn’t coming. It’s already here. One in four affluent Americans is already starting their advisor search on ChatGPT or Gemini rather than Google. Among those who receive a personal referral, 96% research advisors online before making contact, and AI tools are rapidly becoming their preferred method. This guide explains the mechanics of AI-driven advisor discovery: how consumers actually use AI in their search process, what signals AI tools use to decide which advisors to recommend, why independent third-party reviews outperform self-published testimonials by a wide margin, and what advisors can do now to build the kind of structured, cross-platform presence that AI tools are designed to find.
A financial advisor in Florida recently received a call from a prospect who said: “I was searching for a U.S. expat advisor, and your name came up on ChatGPT.”
That single sentence — quoted in a November 2025 Barron’s article on AI-driven advisor discovery — captures a shift that was theoretically possible two years ago but is now actively happening in practices across the country. A consumer typed a specific, personal financial query into an AI tool, received a list of recommendations, and picked up the phone. No Google search. No browsing multiple websites. No clicking through a directory and comparing bio pages. One AI conversation, one result, one call.
The mechanics behind how that advisor’s name surfaced (and why a different advisor with equal qualifications might not have) is what this article is about.
Key Takeaways
1
25% of affluent Americans already use AI tools to find financial advisors — and 96% of referred prospects research advisors online before making contact, meaning there is no longer such a thing as a purely offline referral.
Wealthtender’s 2025 study of 500 affluent households found one in four already starts their advisor search on ChatGPT, Gemini, or Perplexity. Among those who receive a personal referral, nearly all conduct online research before deciding whether to reach out. When a client refers a prospect to you today, that prospect is almost certain to validate the referral using a search engine or AI tool before calling — and what they find (or don’t find) will determine whether you get the meeting.
2
ChatGPT has explicitly stated it downweights testimonials on advisor websites because they are curated by the advisor — independent third-party reviews carry dramatically more weight with AI algorithms.
The same pattern holds across every trust-based profession: AI tools recommend physicians from Healthgrades and ZocDoc, attorneys from Avvo, and financial advisors from independent platforms — not from individual practice websites. Self-published testimonials are treated as inherently biased regardless of their authenticity. Reviews on independent platforms with verification systems, regulatory disclosures, and structured data are what AI tools use to make confident recommendations to consumers.
3
Where your reviews and profile data exist matters as much as what they say — and the window for first-mover advantage in AI search is still open, but closing.
AI visibility compounds over time through accumulated reviews, structured specialization data, FAQ schema, and consistent cross-platform presence — all signals that take time to build. With only 9.3% of financial advisors currently using testimonials in their marketing, advisors who establish independent review profiles on platforms AI tools already trust are building a structural advantage over the 90%+ of advisors who haven’t started. That gap will be significantly harder to close once AI-driven discovery becomes the dominant channel.
How Consumers Are Now Using AI Tools in Their Advisor Search
Before getting into the mechanics of AI visibility, it’s worth grounding the conversation in what consumer behavior actually looks like right now, because it’s meaningfully different from what most advisors are assuming.
Wealthtender’s 2025 study of 500 affluent households planning to hire a financial advisor found that 25% are already using AI tools like ChatGPT and Gemini to start their advisor search – not as a supplement to Google, but as a primary starting point. That figure is expected to grow rapidly as AI tools become more capable, more trusted, and more deeply embedded in everyday research behavior.
But the more surprising finding involves referrals. Of the consumers who receive a personal or professional referral to a financial advisor, 96% conduct online research and compare multiple advisors before making contact and AI tools are increasingly the research method they use. This means there is no such thing as a purely offline referral anymore. When someone refers a prospect to your firm, that prospect is almost certain to validate the referral digitally before calling, and a growing share will do so using AI.
Two Distinct Ways Consumers Use AI in the Search Process
Understanding the two primary use cases helps advisors understand which signals matter most for each.
Discovery from scratch — when consumers don’t have a specific advisor in mind, they’re entering detailed, conversational prompts that would have been impossible to process in a traditional keyword search. Queries like “Who are the best fiduciary advisors for tech employees in Austin with RSU compensation?” or “I’m a U.S. expat living in Prague — which financial advisors specialize in helping Americans abroad?” require AI tools to synthesize specialization data, location signals, credentials, and client feedback into a personalized shortlist. The advisors who appear in those answers are the ones whose profiles, reviews, and content have given AI tools enough structured, specific information to make a confident match.
Referral validation — after receiving a referral, consumers increasingly turn to AI tools to do the comparative research that used to require visiting multiple websites. They ask questions like: “My accountant recommended [Advisor Name]. What are their credentials, and what do clients say about working with them?” or “I was referred to two advisors — [Name A] and [Name B]. Can you help me compare them for retirement planning?” Online reviews have emerged as one of the most critical inputs in this validation process. Wealthtender’s study found that 83% of consumers specifically want to read online reviews when researching a referred advisor, a figure that underscores why a strong review presence is no longer a marketing nice-to-have. It’s the infrastructure that converts referrals into clients.
Why AI Is Becoming the Preferred Research Method
The shift toward AI-assisted advisor research isn’t happening by accident. For consumers preparing to make a significant financial decision, AI tools offer genuine advantages over traditional search:
Synthesis over browsing. Instead of visiting five advisor websites and manually piecing together comparisons, consumers can get a synthesized summary of credentials, specializations, fee structures, and client sentiment in a single AI response.
Conversational refinement. Consumers can ask follow-up questions and adjust their criteria through natural dialogue — “What about advisors who offer flat-fee planning?” — rather than reformulating search queries from scratch.
Personalized matching. AI tools can weight factors based on the specific circumstances described in a prompt, producing more relevant recommendations than generic ranked search results.
Zero-click answers. Consumers increasingly get the information they need without visiting any website at all — a behavioral shift with significant implications for how advisors think about marketing attribution.
Why AI Tools Recommend Some Advisors and Not Others
This is the question that matters most practically, and it has a cleaner answer than many advisors expect. AI tools aren’t making arbitrary choices. They’re applying identifiable ranking signals and those signals are learnable.
Signal 1: Structured Data That AI Tools Can Parse
AI language models are trained on text, but they’re increasingly sophisticated at interpreting structured text — content organized in ways that signal meaning beyond the words themselves. An advisor profile that uses standardized fields for specializations, credentials, geographic data, fee structures, and service descriptions is far more parseable by an AI tool than a website with the same information scattered across unstructured paragraphs.
This is why schema markup — the structured data code that tags your content with explicit semantic meaning — matters so disproportionately for AI visibility. When your FAQ section is marked up with FAQ schema, AI tools don’t have to infer that this content contains questions and answers; it’s explicitly labeled. When your reviews include AggregateRating schema, your star ratings become machine-readable signals rather than visual elements that AI tools must interpret. When your profile includes FinancialService schema, AI tools can confidently categorize your specializations and match them to relevant consumer queries.
Advisors whose content is structured for machine interpretation consistently outperform those whose content is structured only for human reading.
(Left) Example of a Wealthtender profile for a financial advisor, Emily Rassam, visible to consumers. (Right) Screenshot of Schema Markup Validator tool verifying schema implementation on Emily Rassam’s profile, used by AI tools.
Signal 2: Independent Third-Party Reviews Carry Dramatically More Weight Than Self-Published Testimonials
This is the finding that surprises most advisors, and it comes with a notable data point: ChatGPT explicitly states that it downweights testimonials published on business websites because they represent content curated by the business — inherently positive and inherently selected. That’s not a criticism of any individual business owner of advisor website featuring testimonials which are important and should be displayed on business websites. It’s a structural recognition that self-published content has a bias AI tools are trained to account for.
When prompted, ChatGPT consistently states that it downweights testimonials on business websites versus reviews about a business published on independent third-party websites.
The pattern holds across every trust-based profession where AI tools make recommendations:
When consumers ask AI tools to recommend physicians, the results are dominated by profiles from Healthgrades, ZocDoc, and Vitals — independent platforms with verified reviews, standardized rating systems, and no financial interest in presenting any particular doctor favorably. Individual physician websites, even well-designed ones with genuine patient testimonials, rarely appear in those recommendations regardless of the site’s quality. The 2025 Patient Review Survey found 73% of patients rely on online reviews to assess doctors — and when they ask AI tools for recommendations, it’s the independent platform reviews that get cited.
The same dynamic plays out in legal services (Avvo, FindLaw), hospitality (TripAdvisor, Expedia), and now financial advice.
The implication for advisors is direct: having satisfied clients who are willing to write glowing testimonials is not enough if those testimonials only live on your own website. To maximize AI visibility, reviews must exist on independent platforms that AI tools have already assessed as authoritative, balanced, and trustworthy. The Wealthtender advisor featured in the Barron’s article — Arielle Tucker — wasn’t found by ChatGPT in this instance because of her website. She was found because her reviews, specialization data, and professional profile existed on a platform AI tools recognized as a credible, independent source for financial advisor discovery.
Signal 3: Domain Authority and Platform Recognition
AI tools weight information based on where it comes from, not just what it says. A financial advisor profile on a platform that has spent years building domain authority in financial services carries more credibility with AI systems than the same information on an individual advisor’s website, which must build its own authority from scratch and competes against thousands of similar sites.
This is the same reason a physician featured on Healthgrades benefits from Healthgrades’ established credibility rather than needing to build comparable authority on their own domain. The platform’s reputation transfers to the individual profile in ways that amplify AI visibility immediately rather than requiring years of SEO investment.
For financial advisors, this dynamic means that strategic presence on established, high-authority advisor platforms is not just additive to your own website, it provides a type of AI visibility that your website alone cannot replicate, regardless of how well-optimized your site is.
Signal 4: FAQ Schema — The Most Underutilized Technical Advantage
FAQ content optimized with schema markup is one of the highest-leverage and lowest-adoption improvements available to financial advisors today. Most advisor websites and profiles have FAQ sections; very few have FAQ schema implemented correctly.
The difference matters enormously. Without schema, your FAQ section is text. With schema, it’s a machine-readable signal that explicitly tells AI tools: “This content contains questions and corresponding answers about a specific professional’s services and expertise.” That explicit signal dramatically increases the likelihood that your FAQ content is extracted and cited in AI-generated answers to consumer queries.
The question strategy matters as much as the markup itself. FAQs written to answer the questions of prospects who have already found you (“What are your fees?”, “What is your investment philosophy?”) serve a conversion purpose but a limited discovery purpose. FAQs written to answer the questions consumers ask before they’ve found anyone (“Does [your name] work with Amazon employees in Seattle who have RSU compensation?” or “Can [your name] help a widow in Austin navigate retirement income planning?”) are the ones most likely to surface your profile in AI-generated discovery answers.
The Great Decoupling: What Happens to Attribution When Clicks Disappear
AI-powered search is creating a structural shift in how advisor marketing works — one that most advisors aren’t measuring and that may be causing them to underestimate the value of their AI-optimized presence.
In June 2025, Financial Planning magazine reported that advisors are seeing “zero-click search results, where users get answers directly in the search interface, often without ever visiting a website.” As Daniel Kopp, founder of Wise Stewardship Financial Planning in Lakewood Ranch, Florida, explained: “Using reviews from sites like Wealthtender that explicitly mention the niche expertise, like ‘my financial advisor helped me understand my military pay and benefits,’ help build the AI authority referral traffic.”
What Kopp is describing is the dissociation between AI-driven visibility and website traffic. An advisor can be cited in AI-generated answers dozens of times in a given month — building familiarity and trust with prospects who hear their name as part of a credible AI recommendation — and see no corresponding spike in website traffic because the prospect validated their confidence through the AI response itself rather than clicking through to a website.
The prospect who receives an AI recommendation for a specific advisor, reads their reviews, sees their credentials confirmed, and then calls the advisor’s office directly didn’t generate a website visit. They generated a client. Attribution systems that measure website traffic and contact form submissions will miss this conversion path entirely. Advisors who discount AI-driven visibility because they can’t trace it directly in their analytics are likely undervaluing one of the most important marketing developments in the industry.
What Advisors Can Do to Improve AI Search Visibility
The factors above translate into a clear set of actionable priorities. None of these require technical expertise beyond what most advisors already work with through their website providers and digital marketing partners.
1. Build a Complete, Structured Presence on Authoritative Third-Party Platforms
The single highest-leverage action most advisors can take is ensuring they have a complete, optimized profile on platforms that AI tools already recognize as authoritative sources for financial advisor discovery. Incomplete profiles — missing specializations, no fee structure information, no FAQs, no reviews — give AI tools too little structured information to make confident recommendations. Advisors who fill every profile field with specific, keyword-aware content are giving AI tools the data they need to match them with relevant queries.
2. Collect Client Reviews on Independent Platforms — Not Just Your Own Website
Given that AI tools explicitly downweight self-published testimonials, the strategic priority is clear: reviews need to exist where AI tools will find and trust them. With only 9.3% of financial advisors currently using testimonials in their marketing (per the 2025 Investment Adviser Industry Snapshot), this represents the most significant competitive advantage currently available to advisors willing to act.
One real-world example illustrates the stakes. An independent advisory firm, United Financial Planning Group, was competing for a client against a wirehouse advisor from a nationally recognized firm. The prospect read through UFPG’s independent reviews, searched for the wirehouse advisor’s testimonials and found none. The prospect chose the independent firm. In a head-to-head comparison where one advisor had independently verified client reviews and the other didn’t, the reviews won — not because the independent firm was objectively better, but because they had documentation and the wirehouse advisor didn’t.
3. Write FAQs That Answer the Questions Consumers Ask Before They Find You
The distinction between discovery-stage FAQs and evaluation-stage FAQs is one of the most practically important and least understood concepts in advisor AEO (Answer Engine Optimization). Most advisor FAQ sections answer questions from prospects who have already found the advisor and are evaluating whether to hire them. Discovery-stage FAQs answer the questions a prospect asks an AI tool when they have no specific advisor in mind.
Evaluation-stage FAQ (serves conversion, limited discovery value):“What are your fees for financial planning services?”
Discovery-stage FAQ (serves both discovery and conversion):“Does [Advisor Name] offer fee-only financial planning in Denver for tech professionals with equity compensation who are approaching retirement?”
The specificity that feels almost awkward in the second example is precisely what makes it effective. AI tools matching consumer queries to advisor content are looking for explicit, specific alignment between what the consumer asked and what the advisor’s content says. Generic answers to generic questions don’t create that alignment. Specific answers to specific questions do.
AI tools can only recommend an advisor for a specific type of client if the advisor’s content explicitly signals that specialization in structured, findable formats. “I work with a wide range of clients across all life stages” is a marketing position that AI tools cannot use to generate a specific recommendation. “I specialize in financial planning for widows and surviving spouses navigating estate settlement and income planning” gives AI tools a specific, matchable signal.
Specialization signals work across multiple content formats — profile fields, FAQ content, published articles, contributed media quotes — and each additional location where a specialization is clearly stated increases the probability of appearing in relevant AI queries.
5. Build Cross-Platform Consistency
AI tools increasingly cross-reference information across sources to assess credibility. An advisor whose name, credentials, specializations, and firm affiliation appear consistently across their own website, Wealthtender profile, LinkedIn, SEC IAPD, FINRA BrokerCheck, and other authoritative sources sends a coherent trust signal. Inconsistencies — outdated credentials, different service descriptions, conflicting geographic information — introduce doubt that reduces AI recommendation confidence. Regular audits of cross-platform consistency are a low-effort, high-value maintenance habit.
The Unexpected Alignment Between SEC Compliance Requirements and AI Ranking Signals
One dimension of AI-driven advisor discovery that deserves explicit attention is the regulatory compliance angle because it intersects with AI visibility in a way that most advisors haven’t considered.
AI tools weight reviews on independent platforms that implement proper regulatory disclosures more heavily than unsolicited reviews on platforms without disclosure infrastructure. This isn’t just a compliance consideration; it’s an AI visibility consideration. A platform that verifies reviewer identity, displays required SEC disclosures, and maintains attestation records sends structural trust signals that AI algorithms interpret as markers of reliability.
This is why the SEC Marketing Rule’s requirement for clear and prominent disclosures on promoted testimonials, which initially felt like a compliance burden when it took effect, has turned out to align with AI ranking signals rather than conflict with them. Platforms built for regulatory compliance where reviews include verifiable disclosures, reviewer attestations, and standardized rating criteria — are structurally more credible to AI tools than platforms built for volume without disclosure infrastructure.
Why Platform Choice Matters More Than Most Advisors Realize
Everything in this article points toward a single strategic conclusion: in the AI-driven discovery environment, where your reviews and profile data exist matters as much as what they say.
Advisors who have invested in independent review profiles on platforms with structured data architecture, schema markup, domain authority, and regulatory compliance infrastructure are not just differentiating from competitors who lack reviews. They’re building a presence that AI tools are structurally designed to find, trust, and cite.
The advisors building this presence now — while only 9.3% of their peers are using testimonials in their marketing at all — are doing so in a competitive landscape that remains wide open. That window won’t stay open indefinitely. AI-driven advisor discovery is moving from novelty to mainstream, and the gap between advisors with strong AI-visible profiles and advisors without them will widen rapidly as consumer adoption accelerates.
The Barron’s article that opened this piece ended with a telling observation: the platforms helping financial advisors get found by AI tools are “designed to help make advisors discoverable by AI chatbots.” For advisors serious about staying competitive in an AI-shaped marketplace, that discoverability isn’t a feature to evaluate for later. It’s infrastructure to build now.
Your AI Visibility Action Plan
Start this month:
Search your own name and firm name in ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity to establish your current AI baseline — what appears, what’s missing, what’s inaccurate
Audit your profile completeness on every platform where you have a presence, starting with Wealthtender and top advisor directories that AI tools most frequently cite for financial advisor discovery
Identify 8–10 discovery-stage FAQ questions that align with your ideal client profile and begin drafting answers
In the next 90 days:
Implement a systematic, compliant review collection process on an independent platform with schema markup and proper regulatory disclosures
Add FAQ schema to your own website if it’s not already present — check with your website developer or use Google’s free Rich Results Test at search.google.com/test/rich-results
Update your SEC IAPD and FINRA BrokerCheck profiles to ensure cross-platform consistency with your marketing materials
Ongoing:
Collect reviews consistently rather than in periodic bursts — AI tools weight recency as well as volume
Refresh FAQ content quarterly to reflect changes in your specializations, target markets, or service offerings
Monitor which AI tools cite you and for which queries; use the gaps to identify your next content priorities
The advisors who understand how AI discovery works — and invest in the infrastructure it requires — are building a marketing advantage that compounds rather than depreciates. That’s a fundamentally different kind of marketing ROI than what most advisors are used to measuring.
Want to see how individual advisors and leading wealth management firms are using Wealthtender to build AI-visible profiles and turn their client reviews into a discovery engine? Schedule a demo or email yourfriends@wealthtender.com.
About the Author
Brian Thorp
Brian is CEO and founder of Wealthtender and Editor-in-Chief. He and his wife live in Austin, Texas. With over 25 years in the financial services industry, Brian is applying his experience and passion at Wealthtender to help more people enjoy life with less money stress. Learn More about Brian
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The SEC Marketing Rule changed the game for financial advisors — client testimonials are now a legitimate and powerful marketing tool, and the advisors using them are converting more referred prospects into clients than those who aren’t. But “using testimonials” and “using testimonials compliantly” are meaningfully different things, and the gap between them is where most advisors run into trouble. This guide covers exactly how to display client reviews on your financial advisor website — including what the SEC requires when you show all your reviews versus just a curated few, two proven implementation approaches for different firm sizes, and step-by-step instructions for adding Wealthtender widgets to your site.
In this guide, learn how to add widgets from Wealthtender to display testimonials on advisor websites compliantly. Whether you’re creating a dedicated testimonials page or adding reviews to your homepage and bio pages, you’ll find step-by-step instructions, links to live examples, and answers to frequently asked questions to help you leverage the power of social proof while staying within regulatory guidelines.
Displaying testimonials compliantly on your website requires more than copying and pasting a review — the SEC Marketing Rule has specific disclosure requirements that vary based on how many reviews you display and where.
When displaying all reviews in a widget, the built-in disclosures on a compliant platform like Wealthtender generally satisfy the requirements. But when featuring just one or a select few reviews — in a homepage carousel, a social media post, or a prospect presentation — you must also disclose that the views shown are not representative and provide easy access to your complete review history. Getting this wrong is one of the most common compliance missteps in advisor testimonial marketing.
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83% of consumers say online reviews are the first thing they look for after receiving a referral to a financial advisor — making your website’s review display a conversion tool, not just a credibility signal.
The referred prospect who Googles your name before calling isn’t just browsing — they’re making a hiring decision. An advisor website with no visible testimonials, or with testimonials displayed without proper disclosures, loses that prospect to a competitor who made it easier to feel confident. Wealthtender’s embed widgets solve both problems simultaneously: they display your complete review history automatically and include the required regulatory disclosures by design.
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There are two proven approaches to displaying testimonials on advisor websites — and the right one depends on your firm’s size and how your website is structured.
Multi-advisor firms typically benefit from a layered approach: a curated carousel on the homepage, a dedicated testimonials page displaying all reviews, and individual advisor bio pages featuring advisor-specific reviews. Solo advisors and smaller firms often do best with a single Wealthtender widget embedded on the homepage or a dedicated testimonials page — simpler to implement, fully compliant, and immediately effective as social proof for visitors arriving from referrals or search.
Why 83% of Referred Prospects Look for Reviews Before Calling and What That Means for Your Website
Testimonial marketing is quickly becoming an integral component of effective growth strategies employed by advisors and wealth management firms for three key reasons:
1. Building Trust with Prospects: When potential clients research financial advisors online, testimonials provide the social proof they need to feel confident about scheduling an introductory call. Reviews published on third-party platforms like Wealthtender and displayed on advisor websites demonstrate the real-world experiences of clients that offer prospects a glimpse of what to expect.
An August 2025 Wealthtender consumer study reinforced the reasons why financial advisors interested in getting found and hired should incorporate online reviews and testimonials in their marketing plans. The report showed that almost all Americans preparing to hire financial advisors will research at least two advisors online before making a hiring decision, and 83% of consumers ranked online reviews as the first thing they will look for after being referred to an advisor.
With fewer than 10% of advisors currently using testimonials in their marketing activities, it’s no surprise why advisors with online reviews and testimonials published on their websites are most likely to get the first call.
2. Search Engine Optimization (SEO): Traditional search engines like Google and Bing reward advisors who publish authentic client testimonials on their websites and who have positive reviews on reputable third-party platforms. Online review platforms like Wealthtender use SEO best practices like ‘review schema’ when coding advisor profile pages to ensure search engines recognize the reviews and ingest them properly to improve their effectiveness. With proper coding, these testimonials send positive trust signals to search engine algorithms, helping advisors rank higher in search results. And consumers are drawn to search results that display gold stars.
Example of a Google search result listing displaying gold stars from reviews published on Wealthtender.
3. AI Platform Discovery: As more consumers turn to AI tools and answer engines like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews to find and research financial advisors, these platforms actively scan for credible online reviews and testimonials. Advisors with a robust collection of reviews and testimonials online are more likely to be recommended by AI tools in generated answers to consumer queries. As FMG Chief Evangelist Samantha Russell often suggests, online reviews represent one of the most important elements of an effective Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) strategy and Wealthtender offers one of the most impactful AI-optimization tools for advisors and wealth management firms.
The combination of these three factors means that advisors who embrace testimonial marketing today position themselves to capture a disproportionate share of new client opportunities in the years ahead. By combining the power of online reviews published on Wealthtender with the testimonial marketing tools provided by Wealthtender to display reviews compliantly on advisor websites, in social media posts, and other marketing materials, financial advisors and wealth management firms can stand apart from more than 90% of all advisors and expect to convert more prospects into clients.
SEC Disclosure Requirements for Financial Advisor Testimonials: What You Need to Know
While the SEC Marketing Rule now permits financial advisors to use client testimonials in advertisements, the regulations come with specific requirements that must be followed carefully. This is especially important when choosing how you will display reviews to display on your website. Before inviting clients to write reviews or publishing testimonials online, be sure to speak with your compliance officer for regulatory guidance and to ensure adherence to firm policies and procedures.
The Three Disclosures the SEC Requires on Every Promoted Testimonial
The SEC makes it clear that every promoted testimonial should ‘clearly and prominently’ disclose details intended to provide consumers with important information to judge the merits of each review, including:
Is the reviewer a client or non-client?
Was any cash (or non-cash) compensation paid for the review?
Do any conflicts of interest exist that may have influenced the reviewer?
The SEC expects these three clear and prominent disclosures to always be visible alongside the review. In other words, clear and prominent disclosures effectively become a part of the review itself and cannot be hidden or accessible only via a link.
Example of an online review published on Wealthtender with the accompanying ‘clear and prominent’ disclosures required by the SEC Marketing Rule.
When all reviews for a financial advisor are displayed in one place (e.g., on an advisor’s Wealthtender profile page or a dedicated testimonials page on an advisor’s website), then these three clear and prominent reviews may be the only disclosures required as shown in the screenshot just above extracted from an advisor’s Wealthtender profile page. But if you wish to promote a single review (e.g., in a social media post) or a handful of reviews (e.g., a carousel of 3 reviews on your homepage), additional disclosures must be added to satisfy regulatory requirements as we’ll discuss next.
What Changes When You Feature Just One or a Few Reviews — The “Not Representative” Requirement
When you display just one or a select few testimonials in your marketing activities (e.g., on your homepage), additional disclosure requirements apply. Specifically, your disclosures must also indicate that the single or selected reviews are ‘not representative’ and you must provide easy access for consumers to view all (or a representative selection) of your reviews, most often by sharing a URL or QR code.
This increases transparency and reduces the optics that you’re only showing your best testimonials while hiding less favorable feedback. Linking to your Wealthtender profile page where all reviews are accessible or to a dedicated testimonials page on your website that includes all of your reviews can satisfy this critical compliance requirement.
Let’s consider two examples.
First, in the screenshot just below, a single testimonial is featured in a social media post that satisfies the SEC Marketing Rule disclosure requirements as follows:
The three ‘clear and prominent’ disclosures are conveyed in the first sentence within the disclosure area.
The second sentence addresses the ‘views not representative’ disclosure requirement.
The ‘Read more reviews…’ statement satisfies the regulatory requirement to provide consumers with an easy ability to access and read all reviews for this advisor, available by visiting the URL: wt.reviews/josh-ross
Example of a compliant social media post displaying a single testimonial. The three ‘clear and prominent’ disclosures are conveyed in the first sentence within the disclosure area. The second sentence addresses the ‘views not representative’ disclosure requirement. And the ‘Read more reviews…’ statement satisfies the regulatory requirement to provide consumers with an easy ability to access and read all reviews for this advisor, available by visiting the URL: wt.reviews/josh-ross
Second, in the screenshots just below, you’ll see a carousel feature on the homepage of advisory firm websites that display just a handful of testimonials. This approach satisfies the SEC Marketing Rule disclosure requirements as follows:
The three ‘clear and prominent’ disclosures are conveyed in the first two sentences within the disclosure area. In these examples, the wealth management firm ensured that each testimonial displayed is from a 1) current client, who was 2) not compensated, and where 3) no conflicts of interest exist.
The first sentence also addresses the ‘views not representative’ disclosure requirement.
The last sentence lets consumers know where they can go with a link to read a complete list of all of the firm’s reviews “on our Wealthtender profile page”.
Example of a compliant carousel feature displaying a curated selection of testimonials on the homepage of an advisor’s website. The three ‘clear and prominent’ disclosures are conveyed in the first two sentences within the disclosure area. The first sentence also addresses the ‘views not representative’ disclosure requirement. And the last sentence lets consumers know where they can go with a link to read a complete list of all of the firm’s reviews “on our Wealthtender profile page”. Screenshot from soawealth.com
Example of a compliant carousel feature displaying a curated selection of testimonials on the homepage of an advisor’s website. The three ‘clear and prominent’ disclosures are conveyed in the first two sentences within the disclosure area. The first sentence also addresses the ‘views not representative’ disclosure requirement. And the last sentence lets consumers know where they can go with a link to read a complete list of all of the firm’s reviews “on our Wealthtender profile page”. Screenshot from bouchey.com
Real-World Examples: How Advisory Firms Display Compliant Homepage Carousels
Today, many wealth management firms have incorporated a carousel of a few testimonials on their homepage, including these examples:
Two Popular Ways to Promote Testimonials on Advisor Websites
Most website providers make it easy to implement testimonials in compliance-friendly ways using Wealthtender widgets and/or ensuring the flexibility for advisors to add required regulatory disclosures to testimonial carousels and lists. Based on our work at Wealthtender with financial advisors and wealth management firms using a variety of website providers, we’ve identified two popular approaches to compliantly promote testimonials that work especially well:
The Comprehensive Approach (popular among multi-advisor wealth management firms)
The Homepage Spotlight Approach (popular with solo advisors and smaller firms)
Let’s explore each approach in detail.
Approach #1: The Comprehensive Approach for Multi-Advisor Firms
Wealth management firms with multiple advisors often take a strategic, layered approach to displaying testimonials across their website. This method balances firm-wide social proof with individual advisor credibility.
Step 1: Implement a Testimonial Carousel on Your Homepage
Ask your website provider or search their help documentation for access to a carousel feature you can use to display a rotating selection of three to five standout reviews on your homepage. For maximum effectiveness, prioritize reviews with content aligned to your Ideal Client Profile (ICP) – e.g., If your ideal clients are Chevron executives nearing retirement, displaying a review that includes text like “…helped me make the most of my Chevron benefits as I transitioned into retirement…” will prove especially impactful. This immediately captures visitor attention, establishes trust, and makes it very likely you will be the first advisor a prospect chooses to contact.
Important Compliance Reminder: When using a carousel to display a curated selection of testimonials, you must also clearly display all required regulatory disclosures immediately below the carousel. Refer back to the section above for the specific disclosure requirements.
Step 2: Create a Dedicated Testimonials Page
Create a standalone testimonials page on your website where prospects can view your complete collection of client reviews. You can then link to this page (and/or your Wealthtender profile) to satisfy regulatory requirements.
To ensure this page continuously reflects all of your client reviews, we recommend using a widget from Wealthtender (also known as an ’embed code’) available from your Wealthtender dashboard.
Recommended Wealthtender Widget: The Wealthtender JavaScript widget is ideal for testimonials pages. This widget inherits formatting used elsewhere on your site and automatically displays all of your firm’s reviews in reverse chronological order (newest first), which satisfies SEC requirements about not filtering reviews to only show the highest ratings. The JavaScript widget includes built-in compliance disclosures for each review and is responsive across all devices. Your website provider’s help desk should be able to implement this widget quickly using the embed code from your Wealthtender dashboard. (Alternatively, the Wealthtender iframe HTML widget can be used.)
Here’s an example of a testimonials page on a wealth management firm’s website that used the Wealthtender JavaScript widget:
Step 3: Display Reviews on Individual Advisor Bio Pages
Take your testimonial strategy a step further by featuring advisor-specific reviews on each advisor’s bio page. Wealthtender offers widgets that display only the reviews written specifically for individual advisors for firms that collect reviews at the individual advisor level. This approach helps prospective clients see testimonials most relevant to the specific advisor they’re considering working with, while the firm-wide testimonials page and Wealthtender profile provide access to all reviews for complete transparency.
Here’s an example of an advisor bio page on a wealth management firm’s website that used the Wealthtender JavaScript widget:
Real-World Example: Seasons of Advice Wealth Partners
A homepage carousel showcasing client testimonials that immediately greet visitors
Clear, compliant disclosure language integrated naturally into their design
Links to view all reviews on their dedicated testimonials page and Wealthtender profiles
Individual advisor pages highlighting reviews specific to each team member
This multi-layered approach maximizes the impact of testimonials across the entire website while maintaining full regulatory compliance.
Approach #2: Homepage Spotlight for Solo Advisors and Smaller Firms
Solo advisors and smaller wealth management firms often prefer a more straightforward approach: prominently displaying all reviews on their website’s homepage using Wealthtender’s iframe HTML widget.
How to Add a Wealthtender Widget to Your Homepage
Many advisors in the Wealthtender community embed a Wealthtender iframe widget directly on their homepage, making testimonials one of the first things prospects see when visiting their website. This immediate social proof motivates website visitors to schedule introductory calls.
Wealthtender Widget Options: Advisors can choose either the Wealthtender JavaScript or iframe HTML embed code options to display reviews on their website.
Compliance Note: Unlike selecting just a few reviews to feature in a carousel, when you use a Wealthtender widget that displays ALL of your reviews, you’re showing a complete and representative sample. This approach automatically satisfies the SEC requirement to provide access to your full review history because visitors are already seeing it – no additional linking required.
Here’s an example of a solo advisor who displays an iframe widget on his homepage:
Ready to add a Dedicated Testimonials Page? Here’s How That Works
Alternatively, some advisors choose to create a dedicated testimonials page as the primary location for their reviews, then link to that page prominently from their homepage and throughout their site. Either approach works well from a compliance standpoint, as long as the widget displays your complete collection of reviews rather than a filtered selection.
Five Advisors and Firms Using the Homepage Spotlight Approach
Today, many advisors and wealth management firms have incorporated the homepage spotlight or testimonial page approach with the iframe HTML widget embedded on their websites, including these examples:
Whitman Wealth Management – Features client testimonials prominently, making social proof a central element of their homepage experience.
Energized Retirement – Integrates testimonials seamlessly into their website design, helping prospects immediately understand the value they deliver to clients.
Lifewater Wealth – Created a dedicated testimonials page that serves as a powerful social proof repository for prospects to explore.
Eudaimonia Wealth – Showcases how solo advisors can leverage testimonials effectively
Each of these firms demonstrates that when reviews are displayed compliantly, they become one of the most powerful trust-building elements on an advisor’s website.
How to Access Your Wealthtender Embed Codes
To access your embed codes from Wealthtender, it’s easy to do:
Sign in to your Wealthtender account and visit your dashboard
In the left sidebar menu, look for Embed Codes
Preview and then choose the embed code(s) you’d like to use and look for the Copy Code button
Once you’ve copied your preferred embed code, you can:
Share it with your website provider contact, who can implement it for you (all website providers and developers should be familiar with these industry-standard embed code formats and able to add them quickly)
Add it directly to your website if you manage your own site content
Email it to your marketing team if they handle website updates
The widget implementation typically takes just a few minutes, and once live, your testimonials will automatically update whenever you receive new reviews – no additional website updates required. (Please note: Depending upon your website cache refresh settings, your widget may take a few minutes or several hours to reflect your new reviews. Speak with your website representative to discuss your cache settings.)
Your Next Three Steps: From Embed Code to Live Testimonials
The way consumers find and compare financial advisors is shifting rapidly as AI tools like ChatGPT become a popular discovery and research platform. Consumers expect to find online reviews for financial advisors just as they do for doctors, attorneys, and other service providers. Advisors who proactively collect and promote client testimonials compliantly are positioning themselves to capture a disproportionate share of new client opportunities.
With Wealthtender as your digital marketing partner, you already have a strong foundation to generate strong growth through your powerful online presence. Now it’s time to amplify your advantage by implementing client testimonials strategically across your website.
Whether you choose the comprehensive approach with testimonials featured in a homepage carousel and advisor bio pages, or the homepage spotlight approach featuring your complete review collection in one place, both strategies shine on advisor websites and help you stay fully compliant with SEC regulations.
Ready to get started?
Log into your Wealthtender dashboard and grab your embed codes
Share them with your website contact or implement them yourself (don’t overlook disclosure requirements)
Start showcasing the testimonials you’ve worked hard to earn
Your future clients are online right now, searching for a financial advisor they can trust. Make sure they find you and that they see the proof of the exceptional service you provide through the voices of your satisfied clients.
FAQs: Review Widgets, Troubleshooting & More
Where can I view live examples of Wealthtender widgets on advisor websites?
To view examples of the Reviews List (JavaScript) widget, visit the following pages for this advisory firm: Seasons of Advice Wealth Partners
Instead of using an embed widget to display testimonials, other advisors have chosen to create a testimonial page using designs they created within Wealthtender Testimonial Marketing Studio.
Have an FMG website? Learn how FMG and Wealthtender offer ways to display testimonials on your website.
If you’re a financial advisor or wealth management firm using FMG as your website platform and Wealthtender as your digital marketing partner, you have a powerful opportunity to showcase client testimonials in ways that build trust with prospects while maintaining regulatory compliance.
Visit this guide to learn how FMG users are successfully promoting testimonials on their websites using FMG’s carousel feature and widgets from Wealthtender.
Beyond websites, how can financial advisors promote client testimonials on social media?
You’ll have opportunities to promote your reviews on popular social media sites like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and X (Twitter), but doing so compliantly within the character count limitations and other constraints means it’s important to proceed with caution. Fortunately, each of these platforms permit creating posts with image and video files which can be designed to incorporate the required disclosures.
To compliantly promote a client testimonial on social media, you’ll need to ensure you incorporate the required clear and prominent disclosures alongside the review, along with a link to a representative sample of your testimonials (e.g., all of your reviews on your own website or Wealthtender profile page).
For financial advisors in the Wealthtender community, we created Testimonial Marketing Studio to help advisors promote their online reviews compliantly in social media posts and beyond.
With Testimonial Marketing Studio, you can:
✔️ Access a growing library of professionally designed video and image templates
✔️ Import your online reviews from Wealthtender into Studio projects with just two clicks
✔️ Create scroll-stopping social media content and impactful resources for marketing campaigns in < 2 minutes
✔️ Preview and regenerate projects to optimize their design and ensure disclosures satisfy compliance requirements
Where can website developers access embed codes for Wealthtender review widgets?
Please visit the Wealthtender dev portal to preview and access embed codes for financial advisors and wealth management firms with profiles on Wealthtender. Questions? Please contact yourfriends@wealthtender.com. We’re always happy to help.
How can I troubleshoot issues with a SquareSpace website?
(October 2025) An isolated issue with the Wealthtender JavaScript embed code resulted in the display not output properly only in the Google Chrome browser. To rectify this issue, the code below was tested and provided to an advisor as a solution. The issue lies in the way google chooses to render the page on mobile.
Note: The code below will only work by relacing the id “XXXXX” with the correct provider ID for the applicable Wealthtender profile. Questions? Please contact yourfriends@wealthtender.com. We’re always happy to help.
Building a Testimonial Marketing Strategy That Compounds Over Time
We hope you found this article helpful, and we encourage you to read each of the articles in our SEC Marketing Rule Education Series for more ideas to compliantly attract new clients and grow your business with online reviews and testimonials. Financial advisors who embrace online reviews in their marketing efforts will lead the industry in attracting new clients during the historic transfer of wealth from Baby Boomers to Millennials over the next decade.
Online reviews establish a human connection with prospects, demonstrating your trustworthiness and increasing their confidence in contacting and hiring you. But online reviews are just one important part of an effective marketing plan to strengthen your online reputation and attract new clients in today’s world.
At Wealthtender, we’re dedicated to helping you grow your business compliantly with Certified Advisor Reviews™ and our Modern Advisor Marketing platform, providing you with the tools to ensure prospects can find you online and feel confident about their hiring decision.
If you have questions, feedback, or would like to discuss the SEC Marketing Rule with us, please email yourfriends@wealthtender.com or call Wealthtender Founder and CEO Brian Thorp directly at (512) 856-5406.
Brian is CEO and founder of Wealthtender and Editor-in-Chief. He and his wife live in Austin, Texas. With over 25 years in the financial services industry, Brian is applying his experience and passion at Wealthtender to help more people enjoy life with less money stress. Learn More about Brian
SEC Marketing Rule Education Series: Grow with Testimonials & Endorsements
