Schwab Survey Reports Surging RIA Growth, But Capacity Challenges Emerge


The registered investment advisor space saw strong growth in 2024, but success may also be causing capacity and service strains, according to Charles Schwab’s annual RIA benchmarking survey.

For its annual study, Schwab surveyed 1,288 RIAs representing $2.4 trillion in AUM from January to March 2025. This year’s survey reflected the relatively strong markets and client demand.

As a result, Schwab found average compound annual growth rates from 2019 through 2024 of 12.6% for assets under management to $615 million, 12.4% in revenue to $3.8 million, and 6% in client growth to 345. In addition, the firms hit five-year highs on average regarding new client growth. Even organic growth, one of the hardest needles to move, ticked up on average.

“We’re seeing a lot of growth,” said Lisa Salvi, Schwab’s vice president of advisor services, consulting and education. “Seventy-eight percent of firms are hiring, which has been pretty consistent for this industry through the years and shows the demand in the sector.”

The study also found, however, that managing that growth is not always easy. RIAs are looking for solutions to keep up with client demand and the need to offer more services.

“There is signaling of a little bit of capacity constraints,” Salvi said. “We saw among advisors’ top priorities becoming more productive through technology, and improving productivity was their seventh top priority.”

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According to the survey, 68% of firms use artificial intelligence to improve efficiency. The top uses for AI were for administrative support (43%), generating marketing content (38%) and developing client correspondence (31%).

Meanwhile, advisors offered more services to clients overall in 2024 than in the previous year. RIAs working in financial planning, charitable planning, tax planning and strategy, estate planning and bill payment have all risen since 2021.

Salvi said it’s essential for RIAs to be smart and strategic about adding services to avoid overreach.

“When you keep adding services and strategies, it manifests in margin compression,” she said. You are adding more for the same fee, and that can be a real challenge when you want to give clients the highest-quality, gold-standard service.”

Hiring and keeping talent to meet these needs was a top priority for RIAs. Recruiting staff to increase skill sets and capacity ranked No. 2 in terms of strategic priorities, and acquiring talent was the second-most cited reason for firms pursuing inorganic strategies at 67%. (Increasing AUM, revenue, and clients was the top reason at 92%).

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RIAs also saw growth through inorganic and organic means in 2024.

Regarding acquisitions, 19% of firms engaged in M&A in 2024, and 23% brought on one or more advisors with a book of business.

Net organic growth was a little tamer, showing slight upticks. Firms of under $250 million reported growth of 9.2%, up from 7.8% in 2023. Firms over $250 million were up just 5% from a 4.9% rate in 2023.

Schwab’s survey also includes its top-performing RIAs, which are the 20% that rank highest across areas including net asset flows, revenue, client attrition and staff attrition.

Salvi said those firms had higher organic growth at 12.5%, a jump from 11.6% in 2023.

She said that is partly due to them outperforming other RIAs in various areas of operations and practice management.

For instance, top performers have higher rates of creating an “ideal client persona and value proposition” to hone outreach programs and client service models. These firms are also more likely to have an integrated marketing plan, collect client feedback and document their referral plans, which are consistently a major driver of organic growth.

“Referrals continue to be the backbone of growth for the industry,” Salvi said. “But fewer than half of firms still don’t have a written strategy [for referrals].”

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Salvi also said centers of influence, though they take time to set up, can be fruitful. She said the top-performing firms lean into those relationships, even though, on average, it takes about a year to get the first referral.

Salvi did stress that RIAs don’t have to do everything, particularly regarding marketing and social media. She recommended that firms identify their ideal clients and focus on the best channels to reach them.

“The single most important thing you can do in your business is to be crystal clear in your ideal client persona,” she said. “We really don’t want [advisors] to spend time and precious resources just because other people are doing it.”

This month, Schwab launched a new membership program for independent RIAs called Schwab Advisor ProDirect. The subscription model builds on Schwab’s custodial and advisor business and targets advisors who want to break away from captive models and launch their own RIAs.




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