How RIAs really grow, once you take out the firms they bought and the books recruited advisors brought with them. From the Form ADV filings of every SEC-registered RIA that filed in both 2024 and 2026: 7,501 firms, as of November 11, 2026.
Across 7,501 firms, assets grew by $8.3 trillion between their 2024 and 2026 filings. Markets and clients' own money account for $7.3 trillion of it. The other 13% came from buying firms (125 firms absorbed another adviser), from the books recruited advisors brought with them (1,091 firms), or from jumps the filings don't explain. A ranking by asset growth alone counts all of it as growth.
The median results score (organic clients, assets and advisors, −60 to 60) of firms that do each thing and firms that don't. Firms that do these things grow faster; that's a pattern, not proof that one causes the other.
| What the firm does | Firms that do | Firms that don't | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| Names a niche on its website | 30.5 (628) | 27 (5,101) | +3.5 |
| Publishes 12+ posts a year, or video | 29 (1,629) | 26 (4,100) | +3 |
| Shows testimonials, endorsements or ratings | 28 (2,161) | 25 (5,340) | +3 |
The median Organic Growth Score by assets under management.
Private equity backed firms have a median score of 43 (119 firms), against 34 for the rest.
The median score of the states with at least 40 scored firms.
Every number here comes from the Organic Growth Score, which reads each firm's Form ADV filings from 2024 and 2026 and takes out acquisitions and the estimated books of recruited advisors. The full method is on that page. The SEC data behind it is free and open source in the Form ADV Toolkit, so anyone can check the work. Updated weekly. Journalists: quote freely with a link, or ask for the data.