Revenue pressure is structural, not cyclical
Wealth management firms today are operating in an environment of sustained fee pressure, rising operating costs, increasing regulatory scrutiny, and accelerating product and technology complexity.  

Advisory fees have declined steadily over the past decade, even as client expectations, compliance obligations, and operational demands continue increasing. What was once a high-margin, operationally forgiving industry has become one where precision, transparency, and discipline increasingly determine success. 

In this context, revenue management has evolved from a back office function focused primarily on billing accuracy into a strategic capability that directly influences profitability, growth, compliance, and firm-wide value. Firms that treat revenue management as an operational afterthought struggle to convert asset growth into earnings growth. Those that see it as a strategic priority are better positioned to sustain margins, scale, and build long-term trust with clients and regulators. 

Despite this shift, many firms continue to experience significant, often invisible revenue loss. This loss manifests through two closely related dynamics: spillage and leakage.  

Spillage occurs when firms under-price or over-discount their services, leaving earned value unrealised before it ever enters the revenue pipeline.  

Leakage occurs when fees that should be collected are not – typically due to operational inefficiencies, fragmented systems, data issues, or overly manual processes.  

Together, spillage and leakage form an invisible tax on growth, quietly eroding margins and weakening confidence in revenue outcomes. Far from being challenged, it becomes normalised. Many executives interviewed for this report implicitly accepted both as simply a matter of “business as usual”. 

“Revenue leakage isn’t one big failure – it’s the accumulation of lots of small misses.”
Chief Operating Officer, National Wealth Manager 

This paper examines the causes of revenue loss in wealth management, explores why complexity is accelerating, and argues that pricing discipline – supported by end-to-end revenue management – is both the industry’s greatest challenge and its greatest opportunity. Firms that manage pricing, billing, and compensation holistically are better positioned to protect margins, reduce risk, and build lasting enterprise value in an increasingly competitive and regulated industry.

Drawing on interviews with a range of wealth management executives, this report argues that: 

• Revenue loss in wealth management is driven by factors that are structural, predictable, and accelerating. These factors are driven by scale, complexity, fee compression, and fragmentation. 

• Traditional approaches to revenue management, that treat it as a back office operational function, are no longer sufficient. 

• Firms that embrace pricing discipline, integrated data, and end-to-end revenue lifecycle management will enjoy significant competitive advantage. 

• Firms that proactively build revenue integrity can convert growth and complexity into sustainable profitability, compliance strength, and enterprise value. Those that do not will see their margins erode, even as their AUM continues to grow. 

Revenue loss is not a problem of effort or intent, but of infrastructure, governance, and mindset. Revenue integrity – enabled by pricing discipline and an integrated revenue lifecycle – is now a core competitive advantage, that determines whether the consequence of scale and complexity is sustainable profitability or structural margin erosion.  

The changing face of revenue management
As revenue management shifts from an operational necessity to a strategic capability, firms that invest early in discipline, visibility, and integration are far better positioned to turn growth into durable profitability rather than hidden revenue loss. 

The scale of the opportunity – and the associated risk
A massive market, but with wafer-thin margins:
The wealth management industry is one of the largest segments of global financial services and continues to expand in absolute terms, even as margins compress. Global assets under management reached approximately US$135 trillion in 2024, according to McKinsey, with broader industry surveys estimating global assets closer to US$159 trillion. This growth reflects long-term demographic trends, increasing financial complexity, and sustained demand for professional advice. 

Within this total, North American managers – overwhelmingly US-based – account for roughly US$88 trillion, or about 63 percent of the assets managed by the world’s largest 500 firms, underscoring the outsized scale of the US market within global wealth and asset management. This growth reflects long-term demographic trends, increasing financial complexity, and sustained demand for professional advice.  

As of the end of 2024, SEC-registered investment advisers in the United States oversaw US$144.6 trillion in client assets and served approximately 68.4 million clients, while the number of SEC-registered advisory firms – a large majority of which are RIAs – rose to about 15,870.  

Yet scale does not equate directly to simplicity. As firms grow – organically or through acquisition – operating models become more fragmented, technology environments more heterogeneous, and pricing practices harder to standardise. Each additional platform, custodian, product type, or pricing exception runs the risk of increasing the distance between theoretical revenue and realised revenue.

Scale amplifies both opportunity and exposure. Without integrated revenue controls and pricing governance, growth increases the gap between theoretical and realised revenue – making revenue integrity essential to sustaining margins at scale.

Deal momentum reshaping the RIA market
In the US wealth management industry, mergers and acquisitions (M&A) have become a central strategic response to intensifying competition, margin pressure, and succession planning challenges. 2025 marked a record-setting pace of deal activity among RIAs and wealth firms in the US, with more than 130 transactions completed in the first half alone – the most active start to a calendar year since Fidelity began tracking the market. This surge underscores a strong industry appetite for scale, broader capabilities, and more resilient revenue models.  

M&A activity spans both large platform builds and targeted strategic add-ons. Together, these transactions reflect a shift from ‘growth-for-growth’s-sake’ toward capability-driven consolidation. Firms are not simply accumulating AUM; they are also extending core competencies in areas such as financial planning, tax services, investment management, and alternative solutions to strengthen their competitive position in an increasingly consolidated market. 

As consolidation accelerates, the real differentiator is no longer deal volume, but the ability to integrate pricing, billing, and data into a coherent revenue lifecycle that protects value post-acquisition. 

Why consolidation is about stopping revenue spillage
A major catalyst behind this wave of consolidation is the need to reduce ‘revenue spillage’ – the loss of potential income caused by inconsistent pricing, unmanaged adviser discretion, and fragmented operational processes across onboarding, billing, and client lifecycle management. Without scalable governance and platform efficiencies, firms can grow assets while still losing revenue. 

By integrating acquisitions into unified technology, data, and process frameworks, wealth managers can tighten revenue capture. This typically involves more disciplined pricing policies, automated billing systems, and standardised client segmentation, enabling firms to capture fees more fully and consistently across a larger adviser base. 

Consolidation only succeeds when it strengthens pricing discipline and operational consistency – transforming scale into revenue integrity rather than compounding fragmentation. 

Integration as the real value driver
Although precise estimates of revenue spillage vary widely by firm and business model, industry analysts consistently point to post-merger integration as the decisive factor in whether M&A creates real economic value. Harmonised pricing, consolidated back-office operations, and centralised performance reporting are critical to converting scale into revenue protection rather than merely a larger balance sheet. 

In a highly competitive US market, operational inefficiencies can materially erode profitability. Firms that treat integration as a core strategic priority – rather than an administrative afterthought – are better positioned to sustain recurring fee income and strengthen long-term margins. 

Integration is where revenue integrity is either realised or lost, determining whether M&A delivers true economic value or simply magnifies existing inefficiencies. 

Client segmentation is a revenue multiplier – and a risk amplifier
More clients, more complexity, less margin for error: 

The modern wealth management client base spans multiple segments, each introducing distinct operational, pricing, and governance challenges:

• Mass affluent clients: drive new requirements of scale, automation, and efficiency. 

• High-net-worth (HNW) and ultra-high-net-worth (UHNW) clients: introduce expectations of bespoke pricing, alternative investments, multi-entity structures, and customised service. 

Overlaying these segments is the rapid expansion of the independent advisory channel. Industry research projects that RIAs will manage approximately one-third of all professionally advised US assets by 2026. Consolidation within this channel continues to accelerate as firms look to increase their scale and geographic reach. 

Each additional client segment or service tier increases the number of pricing schedules, breakpoints, exceptions, and approval workflows that must be accurately managed. Without integrated revenue infrastructure, complexity multiplies faster than controls can keep pace. 

But segmentation creates opportunities, too. With more granular segmentation comes the opportunity to align fees more explicitly with value delivered. For segments like UHNW and complex family structures, firms are more confident in defending premium pricing because service intensity, bespoke advice, and specialist expertise are clearly differentiated. At the other end of the scale, segmentation enables firms to introduce standardised pricing and scalable service models for less complex segments – protecting margins that were previously eroded by over-servicing. 

Client segmentation is no longer a descriptive exercise; it is a core revenue management capability. Segmentation magnifies the importance of disciplined pricing and integrated execution, enabling firms to monetise differentiated service models without allowing complexity to erode revenue outcomes. 

Firms that use segmentation to align pricing, service intensity, and growth strategies are achieving more predictable revenues, stronger margins, and more scalable business models. Those that lag behind are risking continued revenue leakage and strategic drift. 

The economics have shifted – permanently
Fee compression is no longer contained:

Historically, wealth management benefited from relatively stable margins, predictable fee structures, and slow-moving technology environments. Billing and adviser compensation systems were designed primarily for efficiency at scale rather than flexibility, transparency, or insight. Revenue management was a largely operational concern. 

That model has changed, fundamentally. 

Low-cost passive products, digital competitors, and heightened fee transparency have placed sustained downward pressure on pricing across nearly all client segments. Research shows that more than 80 percent of advisers expect to charge less than 1 percent on portfolios above US$5 million, with effective fees often falling below 0.7 percent.  

Revenue management increasingly requires close monitoring of discounting behaviour across advisers and client segments, identifying where concessions are becoming structural rather than tactical, and determining when repricing conversations are justified by enhanced capabilities or service improvements. 

The changing product mix is introducing new complexities to billing, valuation, and timing. New types of assets offer less predictable revenue, that is harder to reconcile and more prone to delays or manual intervention. That means the role of revenue management has changed, expanding beyond fee calculation to encompass product-level visibility and control. 

At the same time, firms face rising costs driven by regulation, cybersecurity, data management, and technology modernisation. Advisers are more mobile and entrepreneurial, placing greater emphasis on transparent and timely compensation. Regulators continue to increase scrutiny of fee calculation, disclosure, and conflicts of interest. 

But revenue optimisation is rarely a true C-suite concern. Although dashboards, month-over-month reporting, and intra-quarter updates exist, executives interviewed for this report suggested that firm leadership accept sub-optimal revenue outcomes: “It just is what it is, and we throw our hands up in the air.”

Visibility exists without accountability. Information does not translate into operational change.  

More tranquil times allowed firms’ inefficiencies in pricing, billing, and revenue capture to go unaddressed, as organic AUM growth could offset fee compression. But with more pronounced revenue fluctuations, the how and why of revenue are facing extra scrutiny.  

Many firms are moving to “run the business on revenue, not AUM”, in the words of one CFO. In a world of compressed fees and heighted scrutiny, firms that follow this path are better equipped to preserve margins through disciplined, transparent revenue practices. 

“You don’t feel revenue leakage day to day. It only becomes obvious when growth accelerates, complexity increases, or scrutiny arrives.”
Chief Financial Officer, advisory-led wealth Firm 

Firms that adapt by improving pricing discipline, revenue visibility, and operational resilience are better positioned to navigate economic uncertainty. Those do not risk margin erosion precisely when resilience matters most. 

Interested in reading ‘Optimising revenue management: spillage, leakage, and pricing discipline’? You can read the white paper online here.

About the WealthTech Insight Series (WTIS)
This research is part of The Wealth Mosaic’s WealthTech Insight Series (WTIS), an ongoing and
developing research process, mixing online surveys and interviews, and focused exclusively on technology in the wealth management sector across the world.

Rather than a one-off research process, the WTIS will seek to build an ongoing program of research among wealth managers of different types across the world on a broad range of technology and related topics, building up an aggregated knowledge base of both qualitative views and perspectives as well as quantitative data points.

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About PureFacts
The PureRevenue Platform enables scalable revenue management by powering the entire revenue lifecycle. Firms calculate, collect, distribute, incentivise, and optimise their revenues using PureFacts AI-enriched fees engine, incentive compensation application, and compelling revenue business intelligence powered by a single system of record for revenue management.

PureFacts’ customers retain more clients, deliver incremental value, improve productivity, properly incentivise advisers and partners, prevent costly mistakes, and find optimisation opportunities.

About Pirker Partners
Pirker Partners' mission is to foster business and technology innovation in wealth management by partnering with executives at financial institutions, WealthTech, startups and private equity/venture capital firms.

As a strategic advisory firm, Pirker Partners supports decision makers at these firms with a flexible, ongoing engagement model by delivering focused, strategic advice and thought leadership on current themes relating to business and technology innovation, and to act as a platform for dialogue between the various parties involved.

About The Wealth Mosaic
The Wealth Mosaic is a UK-headquartered online solution provider directory and knowledge resource, focused specifically on the wealth management industry.

For wealth managers, the buy side of our marketplace, The Wealth Mosaic is designed to enable discovery of key solutions, solution providers and knowledge resources by specific business needs.

For solution providers and vendors, the sell side of our marketplace, The Wealth Mosaic exists to support the positioning, exposure and business development needs of these firms in a more complex and demanding market.

Interested in discovering more? Read our reports!

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