When advisors say they cannot afford to invest in marketing, Michael Kitces’ research has a straightforward answer:
They already are.
Kitces Research surveyed over 800 advisory firms and found that the average firm allocates about 10 to 11 percent of revenue to marketing once you count not just hard-dollar vendor spend, but also the cost of advisor time spent on business development. At $1 million in annual revenue, that is $100,000 to $110,000 a year.
Most of it never shows up as a line item. The question isn’t whether advisors can afford to invest in marketing for financial advisors… it’s whether the investment they are already making is producing anything.
What Does Kitces Research Say About Marketing for Financial Advisors?
Most advisory firms spend about 2 to 3 percent of revenue on hard marketing costs, but Kitces Research found that total investment, including advisor time, typically reaches 10 to 20 percent of revenue at growth-oriented firms.
The breakdown is important: Kitces Research found that roughly 70 percent of total marketing costs at the typical advisory firm are soft dollars, meaning the advisor’s own time spent on networking, business development, content, and follow-up.
That time has a real price. An advisor at a $1 million firm who prices their time at $300 to $400 per hour and spends four to five hours per week on marketing is effectively committing $60,000 to $100,000 per year in opportunity cost. None of it appears in the marketing budget.
When those soft costs are combined with hard-dollar spend, the total climbs to the 10 to 11 percent range that Kitces Research identifies as the average across the profession. For growth-oriented firms, it goes higher.
This is the benchmark that should reframe every conversation about digital marketing for financial advisors: not whether to invest in marketing, but whether the spend is being allocated to strategies that compound.
What Does the 10-20% Benchmark Look Like at Real Advisory Firm Revenue Levels?
At 10 to 20 percent of revenue, the marketing budget floor looks like serious money once you do the arithmetic at actual firm revenue levels.
Here is what the Kitces benchmark translates to in dollar terms across common advisory firm sizes:
- $1,000,000 in revenue: $100,000 to $200,000 per year
- $1,500,000 in revenue: $150,000 to $300,000 per year
- $2,000,000 in revenue: $200,000 to $400,000 per year
Most advisors read those numbers and assume they are out of range. The reality, based on the Kitces data, is that most are already inside it. They have just been spending it in hours rather than dollars.
For advisors actively evaluating their channel mix, our guide to SEO for financial advisors shows what that investment looks like when it compounds over a 12-month window.
The advisors who balk at $3,000 a month are already spending twice that. Just not in dollars. In hours.
Why Do Advisors Underestimate What They Are Already Spending on Growth?
Advisors underestimate their true marketing costs because the largest line item is never on an invoice.
Kitces Research found that advisor time accounts for roughly 71 percent of total marketing costs at the typical practice. When an advisor at a $1 million firm prices their own time, four to five hours per week on business development translates to roughly $78,000 to $104,000 per year in real cost. The P&L absorbs it. It just gets labeled as advisor time rather than marketing spend.
This creates a false sense of frugality. The advisor believes the marketing budget is nearly zero because the vendor invoices are modest. In practice, they are already deep in the Kitces benchmark range; they just have no system to show for it.
Advisors who operate this way tend to find their pipeline reflects the social calendar of their existing clients. Our guide to why referral pipelines dry up between introductions explains the structural problem and what fills the gap.
Where Do Indigo’s Tiers Fit Within the Kitces Benchmark?
For most advisory firms in the $750,000 to $2 million revenue range, our managed marketing tiers represent the hard-dollar portion of the Kitces budget, ranging from under 2 percent to less than 5 percent of annual revenue.
Here is how the numbers map across common firm sizes. The Stand Out Tier runs $1,450 per month ($17,400 per year). The Growth Tier runs $3,000 per month ($36,000 per year).
- $1,000,000 in revenue: Stand Out = 1.7% of revenue | Growth = 3.6% of revenue
- $1,500,000 in revenue: Stand Out = 1.2% of revenue | Growth = 2.4% of revenue
- $2,000,000 in revenue: Stand Out = 0.9% of revenue | Growth = 1.8% of revenue
Every one of those numbers sits comfortably below the 10 percent floor Kitces identifies as the average for the profession. An advisor at $1 million in revenue can fully fund the Growth Tier and still have room for additional investments in financial advisor website design, paid ads, or events, and remain well within the 10 to 20 percent range.
The Total Marketing Package manages SEO, content, email, and lead nurture as one system, so advisors stop coordinating vendors and start compounding results.
Not sure which tier is the right fit for your firm? Explore plans and pricing and see exactly what each level includes.
What Happens When an Advisor Puts the Right Dollars Into a Managed System?
When advisors shift from scattered time-based activity to a managed, hard-dollar system, the returns are measurable and they compound.
Jared Andreoli runs Simplicity Financial in Milwaukee, where he focuses on physicians. In 2025, his managed marketing system generated 18 new clients and approximately $108,000 in new annual revenue. He spends roughly five minutes per month on marketing.
At $36,000 per year for the Growth Tier, that is a 3-to-1 return in year one. The system continues to generate results in year two because the content that ranked in month four is still driving organic traffic in month sixteen.
The same compounding dynamic applies to webinar marketing for financial advisors, where a prospect who attends one session in January can become a closed client by October, without any additional time from the advisor between those touchpoints.
For a broader look at how these channels build on each other, our guide to growth marketing strategies for financial planners covers how SEO, content, and lead nurture fit together as a single system. More proof-of-concept results from advisors across firm sizes are on our case studies page.
If the Kitces math makes sense for your firm, book a free strategy call and we will walk through which investment level fits your revenue and goals.
FAQs: Marketing for Financial Advisors
Kitces Research puts the total marketing investment, including both hard-dollar vendor costs and the cost of advisor time, at 10 to 20 percent of revenue for growth-oriented firms. At $1 million in revenue, that is $100,000 to $200,000 per year. Most advisors are already near that range once their time is priced in. Advisors who want to understand how AI search is shifting where that budget should go can start with our AEO strategy guide for financial advisors.
Kitces Research found that roughly 70 percent of total marketing costs at the typical advisory firm are soft dollars, specifically the advisor’s own time. Hard-dollar spend averages 2 to 3 percent of revenue, but total costs reach 10 to 11 percent once time is priced in. The fastest-growing firms in the study were systematically converting time-based spend into scalable hard-dollar systems.
For advisors at or above $750,000 in revenue with a defined niche and a growth goal, yes. A managed system replaces expensive advisor time with consistent output across SEO, content, and lead nurture simultaneously. Our marketing strategy call for financial advisors is built to diagnose whether a fit exists before either party commits.
Yes. The Kitces benchmark is proportional to revenue, not fixed. As revenue grows, total marketing investment, including both time and hard dollars, should scale at the same 10 to 20 percent range. The goal as a firm matures is to convert more of that time cost into hard-dollar systems so the advisor’s hours shift back to clients and high-value work.
Kitces Research identified SEO, content, webinars, and paid web listings as the most scalable channels for advisory firms, meaning they generate higher returns relative to their cost as volume increases. The highest absolute returns come from channels that are “create once, implement repeatedly” rather than requiring constant advisor time. Advisors exploring paid channels can start with our guide to what actually drives results with Facebook ads for financial advisors.
Most advisors see initial movement within three to six months and consistent results within six to twelve months. Jared Andreoli at Simplicity Financial added 18 new clients and approximately $108,000 in new annual revenue in 2025 after a full year running a managed system. The full breakdown of what each marketing channel requires before results appear is covered in our guide to how long marketing for financial advisors actually takes.
Pricing their own time at zero. When advisor time is treated as free, the true cost of informal networking and referral dependency never appears in the books. Kitces Research found that this creates a structural underinvestment cycle: advisors who believe they spend almost nothing on marketing are often allocating 8 to 11 percent of revenue in invisible time costs, with no compounding system to show for it.
