How to Find a Fee-Only Financial Planner

If you’re already familiar with what a fee-only financial planner is, you’ve done your homework. If you aren’t sure of the difference between fee-only and fee-based cost structures, you can find out by reading our article: What is a Fee-Only Financial Planner? / Fee-Only vs Fee-Based Financial Planning. Once you understand the cost structures, you may want to know how you can find a fee-only financial planner.

How to Find a Fee-Only Financial Planner

To find a fee-only financial planner, we recommend you try the following methods.

Ask a Family Member, Friend, or Colleague

A great place to start is to ask someone you trust. Family members, friends, and colleagues may be able to help you find a trustworthy advisor based on their own experiences.

Turn to Trusted Professionals Such as Attorneys and CPAs

You can also ask your trusted attorney or CPA to recommend a financial advisor. You may need to contact the advisor to whom they refer you to inquire about their cost structure, or you can look online to see if they advertise a fee-only structure.

Check Third-Party Websites and Databases

In addition to your own personal network, you can leverage a few online sources that gather and list fee-only financial planners.

• NAPFA.org (The National Association of Personal Financial Advisors)
  According to their site, “The National Association of Personal Financial Advisors (NAPFA) is the country’s leading professional association of Fee-Only financial advisors—highly trained professionals who are committed to working in the best interests of those they serve.”To search the NAPFA database visit napfa.org
• FPA (The Financial Planning Association)
  The FPA also has a database of financial planners that you can search according to location and compensation type. Not all planners are fee-only, but you can easily filter the database to highlight fee-only planners. To search the FPA database visit plannersearch.org

Research and Inquire Specifically About Fee Structure

If you find a financial planner or advisor through another resource, be sure to ask them directly about their cost structure. If you’re determined to work with a fee-only financial planner, we recommend starting with an online database such as NAPFA.org, which makes it easy to limit your search by cost structure.

About Modera Financial Planners

We are proudly a fee-only, independently-owned financial planning firm that acts as a fiduciary for our clients. We have built our organization to put our customers’ interests first, as evidenced by our fee-only fee structure and fiduciary responsibility.

If you’re interested in our services, please contact us. If you would like to learn more about financial planning, wealth management, and finding a financial advisor, please visit other areas of our education section.

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