Ritz Stevens · Practice Valuation
What Is Your Advisory Practice Worth?
Most advisors see a number for the first time when a buyer hands them one. Run it yourself first. It takes about a minute, it shows the math behind every adjustment, and it doesn’t ask for your email.
Try It Yourself
A Starting Number, If You Want One
This is the same math a buyer would run on your firm, in your hands first. Adjust what applies to you below and watch the range move.
What you enter here carries over to the other free tools, so you only type it once. None of it leaves your browser.
Tell Us About Your Practice
Drag to $500M+ for larger practices.
Used only to estimate annual recurring revenue from AUM — skip this and think in revenue terms if you prefer.
Staff, occupancy, technology, compliance — everything before owner comp and profit.
Commission, one-time planning fees, and trail-only revenue count against this.
How much of revenue sits with your top 10 households.
Net new assets and clients over the trailing 12–24 months.
Estimated Enterprise Value
$4.2M–$5.0M
Based on a 3.1x–3.7x multiple of an estimated $1.50M in annual recurring revenue.
How We Got This Number
This is an illustrative estimate, not a formal valuation or appraisal. Ritz Stevens is a trade name of RitzWerks and is not a registered investment adviser, broker-dealer, accounting, or law firm; nothing here is investment, tax, or legal advice. An actual practice value depends on a formal valuation engagement that reviews client contracts, custodial data, and firm financials directly.
Multiple range informed by CT Acquisitions’ 2026 RIA & Wealth Management M&A Multiples Report.
What Moves The Number
What actually moves the number
Recurring Revenue
Buyers price the revenue that shows up again next year without anyone selling anything. Commission and one-time planning fees get discounted hard, sometimes to nothing.
Client Concentration
If your top ten households carry most of the revenue, a buyer is really buying ten relationships. That risk comes out of the multiple.
Growth Trend
Net new assets and clients over the last two years tell a buyer whether they’re looking at a practice or a runoff book.
Operating Margin
What’s left after staff, rent, technology, and compliance. A firm running at 35 percent margin is worth more than the same revenue at 15.
Transferability
Whether the clients stay after you leave. Team-served relationships, written processes, and a real second advisor all move this up.
Deal Structure
Cash at close, seller note, earnout. The headline number and the number you actually collect get decided here.
Why Advisors Talk to Us
We’ve sat on both sides of these conversations.
Ritz Stevens is run by former Schwab employees that know from experience how to make firms more profitable, quickly. Our goal is to get you a number you understand before anyone else puts one in front of you. Next Destination℠ is the succession side of that work.
From the Library
Recent posts on valuation
- Real Growth Metrics: Why AUM Growth Is Lying to YouAssets up fourteen percent in a market that rose sixteen means the firm shrank. How to separate organic growth from market drift, and the five numbers worth watching monthly.
- How To Value A Financial Advisory Practice When Buyers Have Moved UpmarketAUM isn’t the number that matters most. A practical framework for understanding what actually drives an RIA’s valuation, from recurring revenue and client concentration to transferability and deal structure.
Common Questions
Questions Advisors Ask About Valuation
What multiple do financial advisory practices sell for?
Most fee-based RIAs trade in a range around three to seven times recurring revenue, with size, growth, and margin deciding where a firm lands. Smaller practices with concentrated books sit at the bottom of that range and sometimes below it.
Is a practice valued on AUM or on revenue?
Revenue is the base. AUM matters because it produces the revenue, but two firms with the same assets can be worth very different amounts depending on fee rate, expenses, and how much of that revenue recurs.
Does this replace a formal valuation?
No. This gives you a range to think with. A formal valuation engagement reviews the contracts and the books directly and produces a number you can take into a negotiation.
What lowers the value of an advisory practice?
Client concentration, an aging client base, revenue that doesn’t recur, thin margins, flat or declining growth, and relationships that only work because you’re the one holding them.
How much does client retention affect the price?
A lot, and usually after closing. Retention terms and earnouts tie part of the price to clients staying, so the number you collect can end up well under the number you signed.
When should I run a valuation?
Two to five years before you plan to do anything. That’s enough time to fix what the number tells you is broken.
Do you charge for this?
No. The calculator is free and the first conversation is free.
Talk Through Your Number
Bring the range this gave you, or bring the terms a buyer already handed you. Twenty minutes, no pitch.
General information for financial advisors. Not individualized tax, legal, or investment advice. See our Disclosures.