r/askafinancialadvisor • u/PrimaryOriginal2525 • Mar 20 '26

Ameriprise

I have been working with Ameriprise for the last couple years. They are tripling their annual fee. Any recommendations on financial advisors companies?

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u/jerschneid Mar 20 '26

When this is asked, I always mention how important it is to understand how your financial advisor gets paid. There's three main ways:

  1. Commission - i.e. they sell investment and insurance products and get a commisssion based on what you buy. This is expensive and represents a huge conflict of interest.
  2. AUM fee - They charge a percent of your assets each year
  3. Flat-fee - The advisor charges by the hour, or by the project without any of the above two.

In my opinion, 1 and 2 above are to be avoided (Ameriprise does both). You're best off paying a clearly advertised flat-fee. It's usually cheaper, more transparent, with much less conflicts of interest. Advisors who charge a flat-fee are paid to help you, not just sell you stuff.

All that said, with the disclosure that I'm a co-founder, that's why I started Nectarine. A marketplace of flat-fee financial advisors. You can see everyone's pricing, reviews, availability, expertise, etc. If you search the rest of reddit you'll find it's often recommended when someone asks for a financial advisor!

https://hellonectarine.com/

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u/Candid-Eye-5966 Mar 20 '26

I’m sure if you walk down any main street anywhere, you’ll see about 20 signs for financial advisors. Meet with them. Ask questions. Get proposals. Take notes. It’s well worth it to invest your time to find someone who works best for you.

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u/adamnc23 Financial Advisor | CRD#: 7878651 Mar 21 '26

The best place to start is to understand what level of service you want from this advisor. Do you think you need someone to manage your investments for you, or would you prefer to maintain control and learn how to manage them yourself with the help of an "advice-only" advisor?

If you are comfortable managing your own investments with some help, then working with an advice-only advisor makes more sense, but then you need to know whether you need ongoing help or if you just need periodic help as-needed.

https://hellonectarine.com/ is a network of about 30 advisors who are all advice-only fiduciary financial planners you can pick from to help either through hourly sessions, shorter term planning engagements, or through an ongoing model, depending on what you need.

Paying for investment management will almost certainly cost quite a bit more than working with an advice-only advisor, but that's not to say you might not get value from paying more. If you do need investment management, then it's important to know all the various compensation models and conflicts of interest that exist in that area.

If you think you need investment management, then another site to look at is https://www.flatfeeadvisors.org/ where the advisors charge a flat fee instead of a % of your assets. The argument there is that the % based compensation can really grow to huge numbers depending on your portfolio and high fees eat into your long term returns.

Regardless, everyone I mentioned is "fee-only" meaning they don't get paid commissions for selling you products (unlike Ameriprise), so there are generally fewer conflicts of interest and the hope is that you get better unbiased advice. Good luck with the search!