A team of financial advisors works directly with clients through individual, joint, retirement, trust, and estate accounts, developing strategies tailored to each client’s goals, risk tolerance, and financial situation.
Affinity organizes its services for clients into four categories:
Wealth management
Investment management
Retirement planning,
Business consulting and financial management.
Within wealth management, the core ongoing services are:
Investment management: Advisors work with clients to set goals and risk tolerance, then build and monitor portfolios using investments, such as mutual funds, bonds, stocks, and ETFs.
Financial planning: This can include multiple strands, such as investment, retirement, estate, and insurance planning.
Retirement plan services: Elements generally include vendor analysis, plan participant enrollment and education tracking, and performance reporting, among others.
How the service works
Affinity starts with an initial meeting to understand a client’s situation and goals, followed by an investment plan meeting where a personalized plan and investment approach are presented.
After implementation, advisors schedule check-ins at approximately 45 and 90 days, then meet semi-annually over the next two years and annually thereafter to review progress and adjust the plan as circumstances change.
This process is designed to provide ongoing advice and monitoring rather than one-time planning or purely self-directed investing.
What are the pros and cons of Affinity Wealth Management?
Affinity Wealth Management offers advisor-led wealth management that combines ongoing investment management with financial planning. However, its asset-based fee structure and additional underlying costs are important factors for prospective clients to weigh.
Pros of Affinity Wealth Management:
Advisor-led, ongoing relationship: Affinity provides investment advisory services to clients through one-to-one engagement, with advisors working directly with clients to understand goals, risk tolerance, and financial situation and to develop an investment approach.
Broad range of investments: When managing portfolios, Affinity primarily uses mutual funds, ETFs, bonds, stocks, options, CDs, foreign securities, and REITs, and notes that it does not restrict advice to proprietary products or a limited menu of investments.
No stated account or relationship minimum: The firm states that it does not require an account size or relationship-size minimum to open or maintain an advisory account or relationship, which may make the service accessible to a broader range of portfolio sizes.
Flexible planning fee formats: Planning services can be billed in several ways, including hourly fees, fixed project fees, or ongoing annual fixed fees, with amounts negotiable based on the scope and complexity of the engagement and the overall relationship.
Comprehensive planning scope: Financial planning can cover a range of services, either as part of wealth management or under a separate planning agreement.
Cons of Affinity Wealth Management:
Layered and sometimes complex fee structure: In addition to advisory fees, clients may pay custody fees, account administrative fees, mutual fund and ETF internal expenses, and applicable securities transaction fees. For clients in the wrap-fee program, transaction and certain other costs are bundled into a single asset-based fee, which may be higher than the non-wrap advisory fee alone.
Planning fees can be significant for complex engagements: While negotiable, the disclosed ranges mean that comprehensive or ongoing planning engagements can represent a substantial cost, especially when combined with investment management fees.
Potential conflicts from planning-related recommendations: The firm notes that financial planning recommendations that lead clients to hire Affinity for investment management or increase assets under its management may raise the advisory fees it receives. This creates a potential conflict between the firm’s financial interest and the client’s interest, while clients remain free not to implement those recommendations.
Affinity Wealth Management fees: how much does Affinity Wealth Management cost?
For wealth management, Affinity mainly charges an asset-based advisory fee of between 0.50% and 1.50% annually.
Fees are billed quarterly in arrears, plus separate financial planning fees that can range from $350 per hour to $250–$15,000 per project, or up to $25,000 per year for ongoing planning.
In addition, clients pay certain third-party trading, custody, and fund expenses in addition to Affinity’s own fees.
Investment management fees:
Annual advisory fee ranges from 0.50% to 1.50% per year, based on the market value of assets under management at the end of each calendar quarter.
The specific rate depends on factors such as service complexity, asset levels, and overall relationship, and is negotiable at Affinity’s discretion.
Financial planning fees:
Hourly planning: $350 per hour.
Fixed project fees: $250 to $15,000, often tied to the estimated hours needed.
Amounts are negotiable based on the nature and complexity of the work and the overall relationship.
Ongoing planning retainers:
Ongoing planning can be structured as an annual retainer of up to $25,000, with the level based on complexity, meeting frequency, and other factors.
Other costs:
In addition to Affinity’s own advisory and planning fees, clients may also pay:
Trading and custody charges
Internal expenses of mutual funds and ETFs
Possible bundled (wrap) trading costs for certain legacy accounts
Insurance commissions
What is Affinity Wealth Management’s minimum account size?
Affinity Wealth Management does not set a firm-wide minimum account relationship size for advisory clients, and planning services are available without a portfolio minimum.
Who should choose Affinity Wealth Management?
Affinity Wealth Management is generally positioned for individuals and families who want an ongoing, advisor-led relationship that combines portfolio management with broad financial planning, rather than a do-it-yourself or fully automated investing platform.
Affinity Wealth Management works well for:
Individuals and families who want a human advisory team: Clients work directly with financial advisors who monitor portfolios regularly and continuously, and meet at least annually, with additional meetings as needed.
Investors seeking combined investment management and financial planning: Wealth management is structured to integrate discretionary or non-discretionary portfolio management with financial planning that can cover retirement, savings, estate planning, education funding, insurance needs, and other goals.
Clients who value flexibility: Planning can be engaged as part of the wealth management relationship or through separate hourly, project-based, or retainer arrangements, allowing clients to match the planning scope and fee structure to their needs.
Investors who want access to a broad investment menu: Portfolios can use mutual funds, ETFs, bonds, stocks, options, CDs, foreign securities, and REITs. The firm notes it does not limit advice to proprietary products or a restricted list of investments.
Clients who do not want to be constrained by a formal minimum: The firm states that it does not require a specific account size or relationship-size minimum to open or maintain an advisory relationship, which may broaden access for investors with different portfolio sizes.
Who might not benefit as much:
Investors seeking a low-touch, low-cost robo-advisor: Affinity’s service is built around human advisors and ongoing personal contact, rather than automated portfolio management with purely digital tools.
Self-directed traders who want to pick and trade securities themselves: The firm provides advisory accounts with discretionary or non-discretionary management and ongoing monitoring, not a self-directed brokerage platform geared toward frequent trading.
Cost-sensitive investors focused on minimizing all advisory and planning fees: The combination of an annual advisory fee and optional planning fees may result in total costs higher than some purely automated or limited-scope alternatives, especially for larger portfolios or extensive planning engagements.
Affinity Wealth Management: Is it secure?
Affinity is registered with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission as an investment adviser. It operates as a fiduciary, meaning it is required to act in clients’ best interests and follow a written Code of Ethics and compliance procedures.
Client assets are not held directly by Affinity. Accounts are maintained with a third-party custodian, and Affinity has only limited authority (e.g., deducting advisory fees), while the custodian is responsible for valuing securities and issuing account statements.
From a data-protection standpoint, Affinity states that it complies with SEC Regulation S-P, which requires policies and procedures to safeguard non-public personal information (NPI) of consumers and clients.
It describes NPI to include personal and financial account information. It says it protects this data by limiting employee access, securing physical records, and requiring electronic files to be password-protected and firewall-protected.
Affinity Wealth Management: Customer service
Affinity Wealth Management’s customer service is built around an advisor-led relationship rather than a ticket or chat-based help desk.
Clients work directly with a financial advisor and typically receive support through scheduled meetings as part of their ongoing wealth management engagement.
Outside of meetings, clients can contact the firm through traditional channels such as phone and email, or by submitting an online form to request a meeting or follow-up conversation.
These channels are intended to start and maintain dialogue with the advisory team, rather than provide instant, 24/7 support.
Affinity Wealth Management: Mobile app
Affinity Wealth Management does not offer a dedicated mobile app.
Clients access their information through secure web-based portals, including a “Financial Planning portal” and an “Affinity client portal.”
Here, clients can find timely updates, key communications, resources, and notes that help them stay connected by logging in through these secure access links rather than downloading a native app.
Is Affinity Wealth Management worth it?
Whether Affinity Wealth Management is worth it depends on the type of investor.
For individuals and families who want an ongoing, advisor-led relationship that combines discretionary or non-discretionary portfolio management with broad financial planning it offers a comprehensive, relationship-based service structure.
However, investors who are primarily focused on keeping advisory costs as low as possible, prefer a robo-advisor or self-directed platform, may find Affinity’s percentage-of-assets fee structure and its more traditional, relationship-based model less aligned with what they are looking for.
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