How Much Facet Wealth Costs and How Flat Fees Beat AUM

How Much Does Facet Wealth Charge Per Year?

Facet wealth pricing runs from approximately $1,800 to $6,000 annually, structured as a flat subscription rather than a percentage of assets. For anyone managing a portfolio north of $1M, that fee structure deserves serious attention. At $5M, a traditional 1% AUM advisor costs $50,000 a year. Facet's ceiling is $6,000.

That $44,000 annual difference is not a rounding error. Invested at a 7% annualized return, it compounds to over $440,000 in additional wealth over 10 years. That number is the honest starting point for evaluating whether flat-fee planning belongs in your financial architecture.

Facet Wealth Pricing Tiers: What You Actually Pay

Facet Wealth does not publish a rigid tiered menu, but its fee structure scales with the complexity of your financial situation rather than the size of your portfolio. Based on publicly available information and its SEC Form ADV filing, the annual fee range breaks down roughly as follows:

There is no AUM minimum to become a client, which is structurally different from most RIAs that require $250,000 to $1M+ in investable assets before they will take your call.

The flat fee covers unlimited access to a CFP-credentialed planner, investment management, tax planning coordination, insurance analysis, and estate planning guidance. It does not include legal fees, CPA fees, or custody costs for the underlying investments.

One disclosure worth noting: the IRS eliminated the deductibility of investment advisory fees under the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017. Per IRS Publication 550, advisory fees are no longer deductible as miscellaneous itemized deductions for individuals. The full dollar cost is your actual cost, with no tax offset.

Is Facet Wealth a Fiduciary Financial Advisor?

Yes. Facet Wealth is a registered investment adviser with the SEC, and its fiduciary status is verifiable through the SEC's Investment Adviser Public Disclosure (IAPD) database, where its Form ADV is publicly available. That document discloses exact fee schedules, services offered, assets under management, and any conflicts of interest.

Most articles on advisory pricing skip this step entirely. For a $5M+ investor, pulling the Form ADV before signing anything is basic due diligence, not optional reading.

Beyond SEC registration, Facet's planners hold CFP certification. The CFP Board's Standards of Conduct require all Certified Financial Planners to act as fiduciaries at all times when providing financial advice, making CFP credentials a meaningful proxy for fiduciary accountability, not just a marketing credential.

The practical implication: Facet is legally and professionally obligated to recommend what is in your interest, not what generates the highest fee or commission. That matters when you are comparing it against broker-dealers or dual-registered advisors who operate under a weaker "suitability" standard rather than a fiduciary one.

Flat-Fee vs. AUM: The Real Cost Comparison at $5M+

Standard 60/40 guidance and generic advisor fee comparisons are written for $500,000 portfolios. They are not written for someone holding $5M to $15M in investable assets.

According to Kitces Research surveys of financial advisory firms, the median AUM fee for accounts between $1M and $5M ranges from 0.75% to 1.0%. At $5M, that is $37,500 to $50,000 per year. At $10M, even a discounted 0.75% rate costs $75,000 annually.

Here is what that looks like against flat-fee alternatives:

Vanguard Personal Advisor Services charges approximately 0.30% of AUM annually, which on a $5M portfolio equates to roughly $15,000 per year, per Vanguard's published fee disclosure. That is still 2.5x Facet's ceiling.

Morningstar research has documented that traditional AUM-based advisory fees of 1% annually can reduce a client's terminal portfolio value by tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars over a 20 to 30 year investment horizon. The compounding effect of fee drag is not theoretical. It is arithmetic.

The breakeven point where a flat-fee model becomes cheaper than a 1% AUM model sits at roughly $180,000 to $600,000 in investable assets, depending on which fee tier applies. Above that threshold, the cost advantage of flat-fee planning grows non-linearly as portfolio size increases. At $5M+, the math is not close.

For a deeper look at different wealth management fee structures and how they interact with portfolio size, the comparison becomes even more nuanced when you factor in performance-based fees and alternative investment minimums.

What Financial Planning Services Are Included in Facet Wealth's Flat Fee?

The subscription covers a meaningful range of planning services. What follows is an honest accounting of what is included and what is not.

Included:

• Investment management (asset allocation, rebalancing, fund selection)
• Tax planning coordination (Roth conversions, tax-loss harvesting, asset location)
• Retirement income planning
• Insurance analysis (life, disability, long-term care)
• Estate planning guidance (not legal drafting)
• Equity compensation planning (RSUs, ISOs, NSOs)
• Cash flow and savings rate analysis
• Social Security optimization

Not included:

• Legal document drafting (wills, trusts, powers of attorney)
• CPA services or tax return preparation
• Alternative investment access (private equity, hedge funds, private credit)
• Direct indexing for large-scale tax-loss harvesting
• Family office-level coordination across multiple entities
• Dedicated single-advisor relationship continuity

That last point matters for the FATFIRE audience. Facet operates on a team-based model, meaning you work with a CFP but not necessarily the same CFP every time. For someone managing a straightforward $3M portfolio, that is a reasonable tradeoff. For someone navigating a business exit, a concentrated stock position, or multi-generational estate planning, the lack of a dedicated relationship advisor is a genuine structural limitation.

Cerulli Associates research identifies that households with investable assets above $5M increasingly demand comprehensive planning services, including tax optimization, estate planning, and alternative investment access, beyond basic portfolio management. Facet addresses the first two reasonably well. It does not address the third.

Does Facet Wealth Have a Minimum Asset Requirement?

No published AUM minimum exists. Facet Wealth accepts clients based on planning complexity, not portfolio size. This is structurally different from most RIAs, which use AUM minimums as a client filter.

For the $5M+ investor, the absence of a minimum is largely irrelevant as a selling point. What matters is whether the service ceiling matches your needs. A client with $8M in investable assets, a concentrated equity position, three real estate partnerships, and a charitable remainder trust in progress will likely exhaust what Facet can deliver before the year is out.

That does not make Facet a poor choice. It makes it the right tool for a specific job. If your financial situation is complex but not institutional-grade, Facet's flat fee and CFP access may be exactly what you need. If you are coordinating across a family office structure or managing a liquidity event, you are probably looking at a boutique RIA or multi-family office instead.

The honest framing: Facet is best suited for investors in the $500,000 to $5M range who want professional CFP-level planning without paying AUM rates. For portfolios above $5M with genuine complexity, it is worth evaluating whether the service scope matches the planning demands before committing. See our analysis of ultra-high net worth advisory costs for a direct comparison of what institutional-grade advisory actually costs at that level.

Is Facet Wealth Worth It for High-Net-Worth Investors?

The answer depends on what you are actually buying.

Research published in the Journal of Financial Planning indicates that flat-fee and subscription-based compensation models reduce potential conflicts of interest compared to AUM-based models, where advisors may be incentivized to grow assets rather than optimize after-tax outcomes. That structural alignment is real and worth something.

For an investor with a $3M to $5M portfolio, a clean balance sheet, and planning needs that center on tax optimization, retirement income, and equity compensation, Facet delivers genuine value at a price that is hard to argue with. You get CFP-credentialed advice, fiduciary accountability, and fee transparency, all for less than most traditional advisors charge on a $500,000 account.

For an investor above $5M with meaningful complexity, the calculus shifts. The team-based model, the absence of alternative investment access, and the lack of dedicated advisor continuity start to matter more than the fee savings. At $10M with a business exit on the horizon, the $44,000 you save versus a 1% AUM advisor may be worth spending on a boutique RIA that can actually manage the full picture.

The question worth asking before signing up: is the complexity of your situation within Facet's service scope, or are you going to hit the ceiling within 12 months and need to layer in additional advisors anyway?

If you are still working through whether to hire a wealth manager at all, that decision should come before evaluating any specific provider's pricing model.

How Does Facet Wealth Pricing Compare to Vanguard Personal Advisor Services?

These two services are frequently compared, and the comparison is useful because they represent genuinely different models.

Vanguard Personal Advisor Services charges approximately 0.30% of AUM, per Vanguard's published fee disclosure. On a $5M portfolio, that is $15,000 per year. Facet's ceiling is $6,000. The fee advantage favors Facet at any portfolio above roughly $2M.

The tradeoff is investment flexibility. Vanguard's advisory service is built around Vanguard funds, which are low-cost but narrow. Facet has more flexibility in fund selection. Neither service provides access to private markets, direct indexing at scale, or the kind of customized tax management that a full-service RIA can deliver for a $5M+ client.

For context on how traditional brokerage advisory stacks up, see our breakdown of traditional brokerage fee structures.

What Flat-Fee Planning Cannot Do at $5M+

This is the section most Facet Wealth reviews skip, and it is the most important one for this audience.

Flat-fee subscription models are built for efficiency. They deliver excellent value for planning services that are largely standardized: asset allocation, tax-loss harvesting, retirement projections, insurance analysis. They are not built for the planning problems that become dominant above $5M.

Specifically, Facet and similar services do not provide:

Alternative investment access. Private equity, hedge funds, private credit, and interval funds are not part of the offering. For a $5M+ investor building a portfolio with meaningful illiquid allocations, you need an advisor with the infrastructure to source, underwrite, and manage those positions.

Direct indexing at scale. Tax-loss harvesting through ETFs is a reasonable strategy at $500,000. At $3M+, direct indexing, owning individual securities in a separately managed account to harvest losses at the lot level, can generate materially better after-tax outcomes. Most flat-fee services do not offer this.

Concentrated position management. If you hold $4M in a single stock from a company exit, you need a specialist. Exchange funds, charitable structures, options overlays, and staged diversification strategies require expertise and infrastructure that a subscription CFP service is not designed to provide.

Multi-entity coordination. A family with a revocable trust, an irrevocable trust, a family LLC, a donor-advised fund, and a business entity needs coordination across all of those structures. That is family office work, not subscription planning.

Cerulli Associates research confirms that the demand for these services increases sharply above $5M in investable assets. Recognizing that boundary honestly is more useful than overselling what any single service can deliver. Explore strategic wealth management approaches for a fuller picture of what institutional-grade planning looks like at this level.

The AUM Model's Structural Problem (And Flat-Fee's Limits)

The critique of AUM-based pricing is well-founded. When your advisor earns more as your portfolio grows, the incentive to minimize taxes, reduce account balances through charitable giving, or recommend paying down debt is structurally misaligned with your interests. Research from the Journal of Financial Planning confirms this: flat-fee and subscription models reduce these conflicts.

But flat-fee models have their own structural issue. A fixed annual fee creates an incentive to minimize advisor time per client. The economics work for the firm when planners manage large client rosters efficiently. That efficiency is fine for standardized planning. It creates friction when your situation requires deep, ongoing, relationship-level engagement.

The AUM-based fee model is not inherently wrong. For a boutique RIA managing $20M for a single family, the AUM fee funds the depth of service that fee represents. The problem is paying AUM rates for commodity-level service, which is what most $1M to $5M investors receive from large wirehouse advisors.

The honest framework: match the fee model to the service depth you actually need. Flat-fee for standardized planning. AUM (at a negotiated rate) for genuinely complex, relationship-intensive advisory. Family office structures for institutional-grade coordination above $20M.

Wealth technology disrupting traditional advisory is reshaping where each of these models makes sense, and the boundaries are shifting faster than most advisors will admit.

Facet Wealth Pricing: The Practical Verdict

Facet Wealth pricing is straightforward, transparent, and genuinely compelling for a specific investor profile. The flat fee eliminates the compounding cost drag that quietly erodes AUM-managed portfolios over decades. The fiduciary structure and CFP credentials are real, verifiable through the SEC's IAPD database, and meaningful.

For investors with $500,000 to $3M in investable assets and planning needs that do not extend into private markets or multi-entity coordination, Facet is worth serious consideration. The fee savings versus a traditional 1% AUM advisor are substantial, and the service quality for core planning functions is competitive.

For investors above $5M, the calculus is more nuanced. The fee advantage is larger in absolute dollars, but the service ceiling becomes a real constraint faster. If your planning needs are genuinely complex, the $44,000 annual savings versus a traditional advisor may be worth spending on a service that can actually handle the full scope.

Before engaging any advisory service at this level, pull the Form ADV. Review the fee schedule, the conflict disclosures, and the scope of services. That document exists precisely for this purpose, and skipping it is the kind of oversight that costs more than any advisory fee.

For comprehensive wealth management guidance that covers the full spectrum of advisory options at the $5M+ level, the advisor selection decision deserves more than a fee comparison. It deserves a clear-eyed assessment of what you actually need.

References

• SEC Investment Adviser Public Disclosure (IAPD) -- "Facet Wealth Inc. Form ADV" (2024)
• Vanguard -- "Vanguard Personal Advisor Services Fee Disclosure" (2024)
• Morningstar -- "The True Cost of Financial Advice" (2023)
• Journal of Financial Planning -- "Fee Structures and Their Impact on Financial Advisor Objectivity" (2022)
• Kitces Research -- "How Financial Advisors Actually Charge and Get Paid" (2023)
• CFP Board -- "CFP Board Standards of Conduct: Fiduciary Duty" (2023)
• Internal Revenue Service -- "Publication 550: Investment Income and Expenses" (2023)
• Cerulli Associates -- "U.S. High-Net-Worth and Ultra-High-Net-Worth Markets Report" (2023)