RIA Benchmarks: How Firms Your Size Look on File

I've built MCP access to three public data sets that matter when you benchmark an RIA:

• advmcp.ai: SEC Form ADV, the registration every RIA files, covering AUM, clients, staff, custody and disclosures.
• 5500mcp.ai: Department of Labor Form 5500, the annual filing for retirement plans.
• 13fmcp.ai: SEC Form 13F, the quarterly holdings reports institutional managers file.

MCP (Model Context Protocol) is the standard that lets an AI assistant like Claude query a data source directly. The filings show up in the conversation as filed, not from the model's memory.

Each one is useful on its own. Together they give a firm valuation its context: how the firm looks on file next to firms its size, plus plan and holdings data for the firms where that matters.

The new benchmarks page puts all three in one place. It's built to answer the question owners ask most often about a valuation: compared to whom?

If you've ever walked an owner through a practice valuation, you know the move. Nobody argues with the discounted cash flow. They argue with the peer group. Which firms? How many? As of when? And most of the time the honest answer is a number on a slide with no count behind it and no date on it.

What's on the page

• Form ADV figures for every SEC-registered RIA that serves individuals and reports AUM. That's 10,668 firms as of November 3.
• Six AUM tiers, and a page for every tier in every state.
• Published sale multiples, each with its source and date.
• Retirement-plan filings (Form 5500) and equity holdings (Form 13F) alongside, for the firms that care about either.

Everything is as filed. Nothing is estimated. Every percentile tells you how many firms filed that figure, and when a tier and state has fewer than 10 firms, the page shows the count and sends you to the national tier instead of pretending six firms make a distribution.

The typical RIA is smaller than the headlines

About one in three firms sits between $100M and $250M. That's 3,572 of the 10,668. The median firm in that tier manages $159.7M for 153 clients with three people on staff.

That's the typical SEC-registered practice. Not the $5B platform in the deal announcement. Three people and 153 clients. It's also where most succession and tuck-in conversations start.

One caveat the page states up front. Only 720 firms show up under $100M, because most firms that size register with their state, not the SEC. So the bottom rung is undercounted on purpose, and you should know that before you draw any conclusions from it.

Bigger firms serve a different client

Median AUM per client by AUM tier, from $549K under $100M to $6.81M at $5B and up

Roughly 12x from the bottom tier to the top. A $5B firm isn't a $150M firm with more of everything. It serves a different household. So when a $150M practice benchmarks itself against an "industry average," it's comparing its book to clients it doesn't have. That's why the page sorts by tier first and everything else second.

Where they are

Every tier has a page for every state. In the $100M to $250M tier, California leads with 375 firms (shocking no one), then Florida at 254, Texas at 211 and New York at 191. Another 594 firms in that tier have no state on file, sit in a territory or are abroad, so they only show up in the national numbers.

Map of $100M to $250M RIAs by state, with California, Florida, Texas and New York highlighted

When the guides disagree

The page shows the ranges the Sica Fletcher SCF Index publishes at three sizes, and the size premium is right there:

• EBITDA multiple: 4.8 to 5.7x at about $1M of EBITDA, 7.0 to 8.1x at about $25M
• Revenue multiple: 2.5 to 3.0x at about $3M of revenue, 3.2 to 4.0x at about $50M
• Share of AUM: 0.9% to 1.3% at about $100M, 1.9% to 2.3% at about $5B

Then there's CT Acquisitions' 2026 guide, which puts $100M to $250M firms at 6.5 to 8.5x adjusted EBITDA. The SCF Index's smallest size sits at 4.8 to 5.7x. Same end of the market, and the two ranges don't even touch.

Two published EBITDA multiple ranges for small RIAs that do not overlap

I went back and forth on showing both. Two sources that disagree make the page look less sure of itself, and nobody loves a benchmark that shrugs.

The fair pushback is that they aren't measuring the same thing. True. CT's range is adjusted EBITDA, with owner pay normalized to a market salary, on deals from 2024 through mid-2026. The SCF figures are averages by firm type from its 2024 tables, and it sizes firms by EBITDA, not AUM. Different definitions and different years should give you different numbers.

I kept both anyway. A multiple without its source, definition and date isn't a benchmark. It's an anchor. So the page names and dates each one. The ValuationMCP engine prices from one index and records which version every saved valuation used. Everyone else is on the page for comparison and never enters a valuation.

Plans and holdings

Two more filings sit alongside, each with its fine print.

Form 5500 covers 93,209 defined-contribution plan filings for filing year 2024. The median plan has 121 participants. Median service-provider pay is $57K, but only 45,439 of those plans reported it on Schedule C, so fewer than half. A percentile there is a position in a group of plans, never a verdict on one plan's fees.

Form 13F has 8,856 holdings filers and 1,936 notice filers for the quarter ended June 30, 2026. 13F only covers Section 13(f) securities, mostly listed stocks and ETFs. No bonds, no mutual funds, no cash, no private funds. A firm's 13F value is not its AUM. People mix those two up, and so do AI assistants.

The boring rules are the point

The page runs on four rules. Every figure as filed, with its date. A count behind every percentile. No percentiles over fewer than 10 firms. Multiples named, dated and never blended into a valuation. The data refreshes weekly from advMCP and 5500mcp.

None of that is about the model. It's the list of questions a compliance reviewer asks about any number an AI puts in front of an advisor or a client. Where did it come from? As of when? Compared to how many? An assistant that quotes a multiple and can't say whose it is won't make it through review, no matter how good the math is.

What it doesn't do yet

Published ranges aren't deal comps. The private-transaction market is still mostly opaque, and I don't have a clean answer for that yet. I have some ideas. We'll come back to that one.

So, compared to whom?

For most owners, that question now has a page behind it. Pick your tier and state and you see firms your size, with the count behind every figure and the date it was filed. When a multiple comes up, you can see whose it is and when it was published. When two guides disagree, you see both.

The three MCP servers underneath do the plumbing. advMCP, 5500mcp and 13fMCP serve the filings as the SEC and the Department of Labor publish them. The benchmarks page puts them in one place, and ValuationMCP uses them as context when it values a firm.

If you want to see where your firm sits, start with your tier and state on the benchmarks page. If you want your firm's own number, ValuationMCP runs seven valuation methods on your revenue, profit and client figures inside the assistant you already use. It's an educational estimate, not an appraisal.