Commission Based Financial Advisors
Commission based Financial Advisors are those who get paid by selling you a product or investment. This is the oldest model for how an advisor could get paid.
If the advisor put you into mutual funds, he/she would have gotten a commission from selling you those funds. Another example of this is if the commission advisor bought shares of stock, he/she would have received a commission from the sale of those shares of stock.
Fee Based Financial Advisors
In contrast to commission based financial advisors, Fee Based Advisors are a newer way for firms to be paid. Rather than an advisor getting paid from the buying and selling of securities, the advisor will simply be paid a percentage on the amount you have in your account.
Most of the time, the client does not pay to get into stocks, mutual funds, and other investments. There are other investments that may charge a fee, but the fee based advisor usually does not collect it.
Other Financial Advisor Fees
Financial Advisors can also charge for other things such as:
- Subscription: This is a subscription to the firms research, tools, and other features that they believe may be of benefit to their clients. This subscription fee can vary and is at the discretion of the advisor.
- Meeting fees: While this is not very popular, some advisors also charge when you sit down to meet with them to go over your portfolio.
- Financial Plan Fee: Some advisors may also charge you to build out a financial plan that will detail out where you are today and your current trajectory.

How do IntelliVest Wealth Management Advisors Get Paid?
IntelliVest Wealth Management is a Fee Based Advisor. Under this structure we believe that our incentives are aligned with our clients. If your portfolio does better, then we do better.
We believe that your portfolio should be flexible to the changes of the market. The fee based structure allows us to help our clients adapt to these changes without creating commission fees.
IntelliVest Wealth Management does not charge for anything else. This means that we do not charge anything above our fee based structure for subscriptions to our research, meetings, and financial plans. We believe that those should be part of the experience for our clients
This also allows us to work with anyone with any financial background. We do not have a minimum and are happy to work with anyone who wants to start on their financial journey.
Do you know how your advisor is getting paid?
If you are unsure of how you are paying your advisor, feel free to give us a call. With your free consultation, we will breakdown and help you understand your agreement with your advisor. Sometimes the financial lingo can be a little confusing, feel free to contact us here.
* IntelliVest Wealth Management is a Registered Investment Advisor Headquartered in Spartanburg South Carolina.