IBD Elite 2025: Top 10 IBDs in payout growth

For independent financial advisors using one of the dozens of brokerages that are perpetually competing to recruit and retain them, the basic payout is usually around 90%.

In other words, the advisors expect to receive about 90% of the revenue that they generate in a given year, after subtracting the fees they pay to the national wealth management firms that provide services to them as their brokerage and 1099 independent contractor employer, and often their registered investment advisory firm as well. 

The 10 firms where advisors netted the biggest jumps in payout last year are ranked below. Basically, payout is the percentage of revenue that they can use for compensation and other expenses after the cost of the brokerage. But the oft-cited figure of 90% represents, at best, a starting point for understanding the payout rates that advisors actually get, according to Simon Hoyle, founder of advisor recruiting and consulting firm RIA Choice. 

Ultimately, that rate depends on factors like the size of the advisory practice, the level of production, the mix of advisory, commission and other types of revenue, and the level of in-house or external asset management allocations, he noted. The payouts also go up with the range of services provided to the practice by the brokerage. And, importantly, those percentages often relate to how much an advisor receives in a transition bonus offer and a recruiting loan.

“There’s the transition package and the payout, and they kind of have to work together,” Hoyle said, describing them as “the two big levers” used by firms recruiting advisors. Higher payouts usually entail a longer-term recruiting loan of seven years or more, rather than a shorter five-year deal. And a big transition package could reduce the payout rates, he added.

READ MORE: What to expect in advisor pay this year 

One of the trends in this year’s rankings stood out to Hoyle, a veteran independent wealth management executive who now works with advisors on their moves to change or launch firms. Many of the firms where payouts expanded by the most came from the channel’s ranks of those with insurance ownership or affiliations.

Among the 38 firms in Financial Planning’s IBD Elite study of independent brokerages, the average payout per advisor surged the most at MassMutual’s MML Investors Services, Ohio National Life Insurance’s The O.N. Equity Sales Company (ONESCO) and Integrity Alliance, a midsize firm that rebranded last year from Brokers International Financial Services and is a subsidiary under common ownership with the insurance arm of conglomerate Integrity.

Years with rising stock values always boost advisor pay. And products like registered index-linked annuities that enable some investment gain with downside protection are selling well in a time of higher interest rates and concerns about slumps or volatility, Hoyle said.

“Interest rates have come up, and those insurance-friendly broker-dealers have done particularly well,” he said. “One of the big fears is there’s going to be a downturn, and you look like a hero if you’ve already positioned some of that money in a safer place.”

Scroll down the slideshow for the ranking of the 10 independent brokerages with the biggest payout growth in wealth management. Find last year’s ranking here. And see other features from this year’s edition of Financial Planning’s IBD Elite study:

Notes: The companies below are ranked by the percentage of increase in their average financial advisor payout between 2024 and the prior year, as reported by the companies themselves. FP relies on each firm to state their annual metrics accurately, and each figure is rounded (other than the percentage of average payout increase year-over-year). The industry term “producing representative” refers to the firms’ most accurate count of financial advisors with the brokerage or RIA.