Successful registered investment advisors have generally grown their employee bases just slightly under the percentage that they’ve added clients, in a sign that quality firms keep staffing up to pace with client needs, according to Wealth Management’s 2026 RIA Edge 100, released Monday.
According to the list, which seeks to surface RIAs that have grown through their operations, not just market appreciation, the average 2026 class has seen total retail client compound annual growth of 9.8% over the past five years through the end of 2024. That compares with the 7% growth in employees over the same period.
The results, of course, varied, with some firms leaning into adding more employees to serve a growing client base, while others perhaps found efficiencies in how to serve clients. Overall, however, the operational methods used by the RIA Edge 100 class of 2026, as in past years, led to above-average asset growth compared to another annual RIA survey conducted by Charles Schwab.
Among the RIA Edge 100, firms saw on average a compound annual growth rate over five years of 16%. In tracking the same time period and CAGR for 1,288 RIAs, Schwab found a growth rate of 12.6%.
Bill Gilbert, co-founder and co-CEO of the RIA Edge 100 firm The Caprock Group, said his firm’s approach over the past two decades has been to focus on adding resources and services geared toward the needs of its upper-high-net-worth family client base.
“From the very advent of the firm, Caprock has always been focused on improving the offering that we provide our clients and 100% focused on consistently improving that experience,” he said. “If you chase growth for growth’s sake and you don’t have service firmly at the center of your aperture, then you are doing something a bit more cynical, and that is not something that we are interested in.”
The result of that approach was that Caprock grew to over $7.5 billion in assets by 2021 solely through organic growth. In 2021, it sold a majority stake to private equity firm TA Associates, opening it up for targeted acquisitions, with its first coming in 2024 with another multi-family office firm called Grey Street.
Caprock, based in Boise, Idaho, saw client growth of 16% over the five-year period, above the average, and likewise above-average employee growth of 14%.
Other firms that still made the list did so with very different employee-to-client growth models.
In one example, St. Louis-based Sunpointe Investments achieved a five-year retail client growth rate of over 80%, while employee growth was just 21% over the same period. On the other extreme, Prowell Financial Management, based in Exton, Pa., actually shed more than 10% of retail clients while adding employees at a rate of 6%.
In both cases, despite differences in client additions, discretionary assets under management over the five-year period increased dramatically—with Sunpointe clocking a 39% increase in AUM and Prowell a 31% increase.
Another RIA Edge 100 firm, Ferguson Wellman Capital Management, closely monitors its client-to-employee ratios to ensure it has the right mix, said Managing Director Steve Holwerda.
“We have always watched to see if we are growing too fast, at which point we would raise our client minimum,” Holwerda said. “Over the years, we have used that in a way to manage our growth and be able to keep our client-to-employee ratio.”
Holwerda said that when he joined the Portland, Ore.-based firm in 1989, the client minimum was about $1 million, and has since gone up to $3 million, and then $4 million. (Ferguson also has a private family office unit that takes clients with $10 million in assets and up).
At a recent board meeting, the employee-owned leadership took another close look at the client-to-employee ratio in light of what Holwerda called one of the firm’s best years for client acquisition.
“It gets our attention, and we’re proud of it,” Holwerda said of adding clients. “But we also run our business to have a better service model by having fewer clients per employee.”
Holwerda added that the market an RIA operates in will likely affect the client minimums and staffing they’re after, with higher-wealth areas like Los Angeles and New York likely requiring different minimums.
The RIA Edge 100 does not reveal any single type of RIA model or geography; it includes firms of diverse origins and histories. For instance, it the list comprises of both New York-based BBR Partners, founded in 2000 and currently managing over $31 billion in assets, and Root Financial, founded in 2017 and now managing more than $1.1 billion in assets.
Despite their differences, all the firms stand out in specific growth areas, including five-year AUM growth, the employee-to-client ratio, and the percentage of employees holding CFP certification. The list is limited to SEC-registered advisors with at least $500 million in assets under management, with a focus on serving high-net-worth individuals; firms are selected based on publicly available filings, not nominations or submissions.
What most firms on this list have in common is a relatively high percentage of advisors who are Certified Financial Professionals, with the average firm having 34% of its advisors with that designation.
Caprock’s co-CEO Gilbert said his firm’s success has also been driven by continuous iteration of its technology stack, back-office setup, and overall client services to maintain relevance and adapt to client needs. That means, he said, operational overhauls every five years or so that he expects to continue going forward.
“In the evolution of this business, there have been several of those milestones,” Gilbert said. “We sort of view ourselves as a 20-year-old startup.”
His firm’s five-year AUM growth registered at 21%, well above the RIA Edge 100 average.
“Today’s top RIAs are focused on building resilient organizations—strengthening leadership teams, investing in next-generation talent and improving operational efficiency—while continuing to deliver highly personalized client experiences,” David Armstrong, editorial director at Wealth Management, said in a statement outlining this year’s list and methodology.
Wealth Management will profile some of the firms on this year’s list throughout 2026 to showcase their tactics, strategies and future planning to readers.
