​While each client is priced individually and we can give you a quote after our introductory call, our first year fees are highly competitive by industry standards.

 

​Most financial advisors charge an asset under management fee, and although the percentage always seems low it is important to multiply that number by the amount of assets the advisor is working with.

 

In an assets under management relationship a client with a $1.3 million portfolio or a $1.7 million portfolio may be paying $13,000 in fees each year, or $130,000 in fees each decade for advice.  At other firms they might be paying $17,000 a year or $170,000 a decade for advice.

 

Financial Advice is highly valuable and highly valued, so clients are willing to pay these amounts but it is important to calculate your "all in" fee when comparing a flat fee advisor like us to the other 85% of the industry which uses the percentage of assets under management.

 

Often a low sounding fee of less than 1% ends up sounding quite high when converted to a fixed fee and the multiplied by 10 years so you know how much you'll be paying each decade,

 

Our fees in some years may mirror industry averages and in other years they may be lower, over time our fees have often been lower than most of our competitors who use an asset under management model.

 

These firms try to disguise the benefit of these fees as "simple" but simple is not really a valuable characteristic when it comes down to fees.  What is valuable is what you pay and what you get - and if you are paying $130,000 a decade or $170,000 a decade for advice, as many investors do, you may want to consider the avant garde of firms like D.R. Harris & Co. which work on flat fee models.

 

Now each person is unique and so we don't give you a price quote until after we've had a chance to talk to you - but our fees tend to be highly competitive for industry averages.

 

We're more than happy to tell you what all the major investment firms charge, to our knowledge, because our fees are often 25% cheaper than what the other major firms, and we're generally able to provide expertise too.

 

How do we do this?  We don't have a giant marketing budget and people often tell their friends about us, which means we have a much lower cost of acquiring new clients than other firms.​​​

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Why Our Fees Are a Smart Investment for You:

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1. Flat Fee Structure: Our fees are highly competitive by industry standards. For many

physicians the cost of a real human advisor to focus on their needs is $5,000 to

$15,000 a year at other firms, but our fees tend to be up to 25% lower than our standard

competitors for many clients.  And we provide the same or better quality of advice for​

that fee.  How do we do that?  We don't have any public shareholders to appease.

We see ourselves as the Costco of financial advice - equivalent or even better products

for sometimes a 25% lower price than what you might pay somewhere else given

your asset levels.

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2. Cost-Effective, Without Compromise on Service: While traditional wealth

management firms may charge 1% or more of assets under management (AUM), which

can cost $5,000 - $15,000 and sometimes $20,000 per year, we are committed

to providing you with the same level of high-touch, personalized service at a fraction of

the cost. As assets goes up our fees get relatively cheaper than our competitors without

a serious compromise in advice or service.

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3. Investing in Your Future, at often a 25% lower price tag: At D.R. Harris & Co., we

believe in financial transparency and putting your best interests first. You won’t find any

“hidden fees” or inflated charges here—just a straightforward, honest approach to

helping you manage and grow your wealth with integrity.

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For Perspective on Fees for busy physicians and other busy professionals this can be a useful read: https://www.whitecoatinvestor.com/cost-of-financial-advice/

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It can help you get a feel for what people really pay for financial advice (since many people don't actually know).

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Advisory fees are a little bit like realtor fees, they take some time to get used to because homes are expensive so a 2% or 2.5% can feel like a big number, but literally 2 million plus people pay that fee every year to buy and sell a house and even thought those fees are negotiable, what I tell me own clients is that you are going to have a hard time getting a good realtor to work for you if you don't pay the industry standard and most For Sale by Owner homes languish forever, don't sell that well, and sit on the market for a lot longer than for homeowners that just bite the bullet and pay the industry standard fees that everyone else pays to get the transaction done in a reasonable period of time.

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In my position, as a financial advisor,  I've gotten to see a ton of my clients do real estate transactions taking different approaches.  I've seen some of my clients go with the 1% listing agent route (which is about 1/3 of normal industry standard fees) and the normal commission route (which is at least 2.5% to listing agent and something for the buyer's agent as well if they are represented).  My clients who did the 1% listing agent route had nothing good to say about it after the fact and they said they pretty much had to do all the work themselves and it felt like they were doing a for sale by owner.  My clients who just paid the normal industry standard realtor fees when selling or buying had much better experience and were happier with their choice after the fact.  Given that the clients who paid the industry standard were happier with outcomes than those who went the discount route taught me that while the discount route is fine for those who want to do that - in the end there was so much skimping on service that it didn't really seem like it was worth the savings.

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The same is true for quality financial advice.  While you can go the low price route and skimp on the quality of the advisor or the service you should just know that just like realtor commissions are about 5% today 2.5% to the seller and 2.5% to the buyer if you choose to pay that, financial advisor fees are basically about 1% and they are actually closer 1.5%-2% of your investment assets if you have under $200k in assets. That is just what people pay and literally millions of people people pay these fees each year so that is kind of the standard and that is what you should expect to pay for a typical financial advisor.  

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Some people don't like the assets under management model even though it is totally standard and has not changed at all really, just like realtor commissions haven't actually changed post the National Association of Realtors settlement, but you should just understand that if you want a financial advisor and you take an approach that is really different than what millions of people do (what the vast majority of customers do), it can just be harder to get a good financial advisor to work with you.  To give you an analogy of this idea, if you move far from the 1% of assets model for financial advice, it is kind of like selling your home through a for sale by owner process - it is a ton or work and if you are not really good at the skills of selling a home you'll probably net out less.

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There are discount financial advisors and they may offer a 0.25% fee or a 0.30% fee but you should understand these are the Redfins of the financial advisor world (Redfin offers 1% commission to sell or help you buy the house).  The 1% listing agent or buying agent, from my own clients reviews and feedback do almost nothing sell your house until the other side starts writing offers and for a lot of 1% commission realtors or brokers, the reviews I get back from my own clients is that if they could give their realtor one out of 5 starts they would.  

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So when it comes to fees, you should just understand that there is no free lunch.  If you are paying around a 1% assets under management fee 

or the equivalent on a flat fee or hourly rate, you should know this is regarded as normal and hundreds of thousands if not millions of people pay this each year for financial advice so you'll have no trouble getting a quality advisor at that rate.  If you pay within 75% or 80% of the normal fee you still will probably get a pretty good advisor although you might have to work harder to find one.  If you want to pay 0.30% the financial advisory firm has to cut corners somewhere - this could be that you advice is going to non-customized and cookie cutter, you can't actually speak to a person very much or your advisor isn't that knowledgeable or can't handle the same range of questions that a typical advisor could

(i.e. you financial advice is getting rationed in proportion to the lower fees you pay).  This is kind of what happens with the 1% listing agents in real estate - they are cheaper but they do about 10%-30% of the work of a normal realtor and so they are cheaper because they are rationing the service in proportion to the fee, so you are getting what you pay for, really).  And I can say this from a position of absolute experience having watched multiple transactions with 1% listing agents and the normal 2.5% listing agent.

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For my own clients I've seen this over and over again.  Industries have standard rates and if you want to get quality you have to pay that rate.  So if lawyers are $350 an hour which is what the standard rate where we're located, you are not going to get a decent lawyer for $100 an hour. There is always some skimping that happening there to sell a product or service for 1/3 of what everyone else pays.  You also don't have to pay $700 an hour unless you are using a real special category of lawyer who works mainly for businesses not individuals (because businesses do pay that amount).  But if you choose to pay $300-$400 an hour you have a very high chance of getting someone competent, who can actually do the job, and will actually give you decent service and be available to you.  If you are at either of the other extremes (paying double the normal rate of paying half the normal rate) you either don't have to do that to get someone good or there is some skimping or corner cutting taking place and you are likely to not get the same product or service as someone who is paying the normal industry rate.

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In your mind when consider what you want to do - just know that 1% or assets is actually the standard fee for a human financial advisor which is why most people who have substantial portfolios pay $5k-$15k a year for fees - because a lot of people end up with $500,000 to $1.5 million portfolio by the time they get to retirement if they had a good job and they were good savers.  And as you can see from an independent source, this matches with the true fees charges by advisors in the White Coat Investor article. 

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We can pretty much tell you what you are likely to pay out other firms if you go there just like Progressive can tell you what other firms will charge you for insurance.  We can do this and are willing to do this because while our fees are close to industry standards, they are a little bit lower than many competitors.

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Basically we're the Costco of investment advisors - high quality but often a little less expensive (often 20-30% less expensive) than some of our major competitors that you might be considering.

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Why Choose Us Over Larger Firms?

 

When you choose D.R. Harris & Co. as your physician specific fiduciary financial advisor you are able to access customized advice at a highly competitive rate.  We are highly competitive on pricing (like Costco) and we don't skimp on quality either (also like Costco).  

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But we do a few things to help our clients save money and we feel confident that we can deliver for you our service at a competitive price.​​

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If you want to work with a big firm, you should definitely do that, but what our clients about working with us instead of some giant corporation is that we're able to help with a broader range of issues and the clients know that we're going to take care of them and work for them and not just line then pockets of our shareholders.  So for clients who don't like the Big Box Store approach to financial advice, our boutique firm can provide a great alternative at often a lower price for many clients.

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And the best part of this is we often utilize the best resources of the big box advisors for free so you get the best of both worlds - the best products and advice that is really modern, ethical and focused on you.