2025 Annual Growth Study: Key Insights from Nitrogen’s Survey of Financial Firms

Advisory firms want to know how to scale and what it takes to grow aggressively in an increasingly competitive space. If you’re wondering how your firm stacks up against some of the fastest-growing advisory firms in the industry, you’re certainly not alone. To help advisors gain a better understanding of what’s happening within the financial services industry, we recently surveyed 1,400 participants—including both individual investors and financial professionals. 

In our 2025 Advisor Growth Survey, we set out to accomplish two goals: Uncover what separates the top performers from the pack, and give every advisor the blueprint for accelerating growth. Gleaning insights from over 250 wealth management firms established across the country, we gathered some incredible and eye-opening data points on advisors’ top areas of concern including client acquisition, retention, marketing, firm-wide efficiency, and more. 

This year’s survey set out to help us answer some critical questions including:

• What dictates an advisory firms’ growth goals?
• Which methods are proving most effective in achieving year-over-year AUM growth?
• What do investors find most valuable about working with a financial advisor?

We collected answers to these questions and more from a diverse set of firms—ranging from solo advisors to teams managing billions in assets—to uncover common patterns and key differentiators. The result is a rare glimpse into the behaviors and strategies that fuel real growth in the financial services space.

Let’s take a quick peek at the results.

About the Participants

On the advisor side of the survey, around 60% of respondents identified as operating within an RIA or hybrid firm model. Average firm size hovered just under $400 million in AUM, though responses spanned everything from solo practices managing smaller books of business to large, multi-office enterprises overseeing billions.

We also captured data on team composition, technology adoption, and marketing strategies to identify how different operational models influence growth. By incorporating such a wide array of perspectives, the survey provides a more complete and realistic look at what’s working (or what isn’t, as the case may be).

With this being the first year our Advisor Growth Survey collected responses from individual investors, we were pleased to see that nearly half of respondents had worked with an advisor for at least eight years, while 23% worked with an advisor for 15 years or more.

Capturing the unbiased thoughts and opinions of long-time advisor clients felt especially insightful, as these individuals have ample experience with financial service professionals and firms.

Our Biggest Takeaway

This year, we were happy to see that the majority of advisors experienced 11% or more in organic growth (57%) over the past year (this does not include market movements). Notably, this was quite an improvement over last year’s reported results, where many respondents indicated a slow growth rate of 5% or less.

As you’re likely aware, success in attracting and retaining clients depends on your ability to deliver the services and experience investors expect. Yet, as our investor survey results indicate, there may be some disconnect between advisor assumptions and client expectations. Around 72% of investors indicated that the most valued service provided by their advisor was investment selection and portfolio management, while nearly 92% rated the importance of risk tolerance understanding as 8 or higher (on a 10-point scale).

But here’s the problem: 72% of advisors indicated that specializing in services aside from traditional investment management is the key to differentiation and growth.

This difference in perceived value is significant, especially in a time where advisors assume specialization is the key to differentiation. Naturally, this has led advisors to assume their services must expand in order to justify their fees and attract new clients. But according to the survey results, this may not be the case. 

It seems as though, despite the omnipresence in media of robo-advisors and online brokerage firms, investors (particularly high-net-worth individuals) value the advisor-client relationship—especially when their advisors are able to integrate user-friendly tech tools to better demonstrate their guidance and strategies.

Using Nitrogen to Attract and Retain Clients in 2025 and Beyond

When asked whether clients would consider actually leaving their current advisor for someone who provides more personalized communication and technology-driven insights, 68% said they would consider it—especially if the benefits were made clear.

As we shared above, risk tolerance and its alignment to investment management are top investor priorities. The most direct path to organic growth is demonstrating excellence and differentiating on the advisors’ ability to do what clients most value—investment portfolio management and retirement planning.

Today, Nitrogen is a leading growth and client engagement platform designed to transform investors into leads, leads into clients, and clients into referral champions. Through groundbreaking features like the Risk Number tool, Nitrogen delivers powerful touch point opportunities for advisors to connect with investors on what matters most to them—their investment performance and financial well-being.

Ready to explore the platform so many firms use to grow and scale effectively? We invite you to schedule a demo with our team today.