Methodology
Plant-A Insights Group and Newsweek have partnered to identify America’s Top Financial Advisory Firms 2026. Over 16,000 Financial advisories registered with the SEC were analyzed to find the best of the best.
To be eligible for evaluation, a financial advisory firm had to have more than $20 million assets under management (AUM), a minimum of 3 wealth advisers, at least 5 individual clients, and at least two years of SEC registration. Firms were also screened for clean disciplinary records (as defined by the 12 disciplinary items in Form Adv Part 1) and the availability of portfolio management services to individual investors. These shortlisted firms were then analyzed and scored based on the following factors:
• Asset Performance: Growth in assets under management indicates both financial performance and the health of a firm’s client base, the cornerstones of advisory excellence. Both short-term (Sept 2024 vs Sept 2025) and long-term (CAGR Sept 2020 to Sept 2025) measures of asset growth are included in the scoring model.
• Client Performance: Great advisories retain their clients and attract new ones. Both short and long-term measures of client base growth/shrinkage for short term (Sept 2024 vs Sept 2025) and long term (CAGR Sept 2020 to Sept 2025) are included in the scoring model.
• Adviser Expertise and Client Ratio: Measures that capture the credentialed expertise of each firm (% if employees that are registered financial advisory representatives) as well as the client-to-adviser ratio are also considered in the scoring model.
• Breadth of service offerings: Great firms offer a bundle of related services for their investors. The number of wealth advisory services, including financial planning services and pension consulting services, are also included in the scoring model.
• Conflicts of interests: The best advisories work to prevent conflicts of interest; firms with conflicts of interests are penalized in the scoring model.
A percentile rank between 0 and 100 was calculated for each RIA, and the top 1,000 financial advisories
The top 1,000 Financial Advisory Firms have been recognized as America’s Top Financial Advisory Firms 2026. The performance of firms not included in the ranking is not disputed.
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