RIA software: the ultimate guide for 2025

The best RIA software is not the longest feature list or the platform with the most integrations on its logo wall. It is the smallest stack that fits how you actually run a firm: your custodian, your client load, and the regulator you answer to. Most "top 25 tools" posts list everything and rank nothing, which is how solo advisors end up paying for an enterprise rebalancer they will never use.

Here is the short version. Buy your CRM first, because it is the spine every other tool plugs into. Buy financial planning software second, because that is the work clients are paying you for. Add portfolio management and billing when you actually have assets to report on, not before. Compliance and document tooling scale with headcount and AUM. Everything else, including your meeting notes, should plug into the CRM rather than become a tenth login. The rest of this guide walks the seven categories, names the real options with current pricing, and tells you what to buy at each stage instead of all at once.

The seven categories of an RIA tech stack

Every RIA tool sold today fits into one of seven buckets. Sort vendors into these before you compare features, because comparing a CRM to a financial planning tool is a category error that wastes weeks.

1. CRM. The system of record for clients, households, tasks, and communication history. This is the spine.
2. Financial planning. Cash-flow and goals modeling, retirement projections, and the client-facing plan itself.
3. Portfolio management and reporting. Account aggregation, performance reporting, and billing on AUM.
4. Trading and rebalancing. Automated model-based rebalancing and tax-aware trading across households.
5. Compliance. Code of ethics, ADV tracking, archiving, and books-and-records obligations.
6. Document management and client portal. Secure storage, e-signature, and a place clients log in.
7. Client communication and meeting capture. Email, secure messaging, scheduling, and notes from client calls.

What "RIA" actually means for your software choices

Quick grounding, because it changes which compliance and reporting tools you even need. A Registered Investment Advisor is a firm registered to give investment advice and held to a fiduciary standard. Where you register depends on assets under management. Advisers with less than $100 million in regulatory AUM generally register with their state securities regulator, and advisers at $110 million or more must register with the SEC, with a buffer zone in between where you may choose (per Kitces' analysis of the state-vs-SEC threshold, as of June 2026). In April 2025 SEC Commissioner Mark Uyeda publicly questioned whether the long-standing $100M threshold should rise, so this number may move (per Kitces, as of June 2026).

Why this matters for software: a state-registered solo shop and an SEC-registered firm have different books-and-records and archiving obligations, which drives how much compliance and document tooling you actually need. If you are still deciding whether to register at all, start with our companion piece on becoming an RIA: definition, regulations, and fees and come back here for the stack.

Category 1: CRM (buy this first)

Your CRM is the spine. Every other tool either reads from it or writes to it, so a bad CRM choice taxes everything downstream. In the 2026 T3/Inside Information Software Survey, 91.08% of responding advisors reported using one of the 17 surveyed CRMs, which tells you this is non-optional infrastructure, not a nice-to-have (per the T3 Technology Hub recap of the 2026 survey, as of June 2026).

The two advisor-native CRMs most solo and small RIAs start with are Redtail and Wealthbox. Salesforce Financial Services Cloud is the enterprise option, far more flexible and far more expensive to configure.

Redtail CRM

• Best for: advisors who want the most-integrated, advisor-built default
• Pricing: Launch from $39/user/mo billed annually (up to 5 users); Growth from $59/user/mo for unlimited users
• Deep custodian and planning integrations (Schwab, Fidelity, Orion, eMoney)
• Long track record as the category default among RIAs

Wealthbox

• Best for: firms that want a modern, fast UI and quick onboarding
• Pricing: Basic $59, Pro $79, Premier $99 per user/mo (annual discounts available)
• Clean activity feed and collaboration features
• 30-day free trial, light setup

What to do: if you are a solo or sub-five-person firm, start with Redtail or Wealthbox. Reach for Salesforce only when you have a real reason for custom objects and workflows, plus budget for an admin to maintain it. For the deeper logic on choosing and running a CRM well, see our client relationship management tips and account management best practices.

Category 2: financial planning (buy this second)

Planning software is the product clients actually feel. The category is a three-horse race: RightCapital, eMoney Advisor, and MoneyGuide. In the Kitces August 2025 AdvisorTech survey, advisor satisfaction landed at 8.7/10 for RightCapital, 8.5/10 for eMoney, and 7.9/10 for MoneyGuide, and RightCapital had become the #2 most-used comprehensive planning tool, the primary planning software for about 25% of advisors (per RightCapital's summary of the 2025 Kitces report, as of June 2026).

8.7

RightCapital satisfaction (/10)

8.5

eMoney Advisor (/10)

7.9

MoneyGuide (/10)

How to choose without a 30-day bake-off you do not have time for:

• RightCapital if you want modern visualizations, tax-planning views, and fast plan creation for a mass-affluent and HNW book.
• eMoney Advisor if you want deep cash-flow modeling and a strong client portal and account-aggregation experience.
• MoneyGuide if you prefer goals-based planning and your custodian or broker-dealer already bundles it.

The honest answer: any of the three is fine. Pick the one your CRM and custodian integrate with most cleanly, because the integration tax is real and recurring.

Categories 3 and 4: portfolio management, reporting, and rebalancing

This is where firms overbuy. Portfolio management platforms aggregate held-away and custodied accounts, calculate performance, and bill on AUM. Orion and Black Diamond are the common full-suite choices; Addepar shows up at larger and more complex firms. Trading and rebalancing (Orion's tooling, iRebal, and similar) automate model-based trades across households.

The trap is buying this before you have the assets to justify it. If you are sub-$50M and report from your custodian's portal, a six-figure portfolio-accounting platform is dead weight. Add this category when reconciliation and billing become a monthly time sink, not before.

Categories 5 and 6: compliance, documents, and the portal

Compliance tooling (think archiving, code-of-ethics tracking, ADV and books-and-records workflows) scales with your registration status and headcount. A state-registered solo can often run lean; an SEC-registered multi-advisor firm needs real archiving and supervision. Document management and e-signature plus a client portal round this out. Many firms get the portal for free inside their planning tool (eMoney is known for this), which is one fewer thing to buy.

Do not buy compliance software speculatively. Buy it when your obligations or your examiner require it.

Category 7: client communication and meeting capture (the cheap, high-leverage one)

This is the category most RIAs underrate and the one with the fastest payback. You meet clients constantly: discovery, annual reviews, plan presentations, check-ins. Every one of those calls produces notes, action items, and a compliance record, and most advisors capture them by typing while half-listening or reconstructing from memory afterward.

An AI notetaker fixes that. It records and transcribes the call, writes a summary, and pulls out action items, so you are fully present with the client and the documentation writes itself. For your books-and-records obligations, a searchable transcript and dated summary of what was discussed is also a genuinely useful artifact.

The catch is how the tool captures the meeting. Many notetakers send a bot that joins the call as a visible participant, which on a client-facing fiduciary call is awkward at best and a consent problem at worst.

This is where Scribbl is the honest best answer for advisors who run client calls in Google Meet. Scribbl records, transcribes, and summarizes from a Chrome extension, with no bot joining the call. Nothing shows up in the roster, so your annual-review meeting stays a conversation between you and your client. It is free for individuals (the Lite plan covers 10 meetings per month at unlimited length), Pro is $20 per user per month or $13 billed annually for unlimited meetings, and Scribbl for Teams adds Zoom and Microsoft Teams plus CRM, Slack, and Drive integrations so the notes flow into your system of record (per the Scribbl pricing page, as of June 2026).

1. 1

   Join the client call in Google Meet

   Open the meeting as you normally would. No bot joins, nothing appears in the participant list.

2. 2

   Scribbl records and transcribes from your browser

   The Chrome extension captures audio and produces a speaker-labeled transcript in the background.

3. 3

   Get an AI summary and action items

   After the call you get a clean recap with decisions and follow-ups, not a wall of raw transcript.

4. 4

   Route the recap into your CRM

   On Team plans, send the summary and action items to your CRM so the client record stays current.

Google Meet

Meeting participants

• You (advisor)
• Client
• Spouse
• No notetaker bot captured in-browser

To get the most out of this category, the meeting itself has to be structured. Borrow our client meeting agenda template and client meeting notes template for annual reviews, and our guide to taking better meeting notes so the AI has clean structure to summarize against.

A realistic starter stack by firm stage

You do not need all seven categories on day one. Here is what to actually buy at each stage.

Stage	CRM	Planning	Portfolio/billing	Meeting capture
Solo, sub-$50M	Redtail or Wealthbox	RightCapital	Custodian portal	Scribbl (free Lite)
Small firm, $50M to $250M	Redtail or Wealthbox	RightCapital or eMoney	Orion or Black Diamond	Scribbl Pro/Team
Multi-advisor, $250M+	Salesforce FSC or Redtail	eMoney or MoneyGuide	Orion, Black Diamond, or Addepar	Scribbl for Teams

Notice the pattern: the CRM and meeting capture stay constant and cheap across stages, while portfolio and planning tooling get heavier as assets grow. Build outward from a strong, well-integrated center rather than bolting on a tenth disconnected login.

Frequently asked questions

What software does an RIA actually need to start?

At minimum: a CRM (Redtail or Wealthbox), financial planning software (RightCapital, eMoney, or MoneyGuide), and a way to capture client meetings. A solo advisor can often report from the custodian's portal at first and skip a dedicated portfolio-accounting platform until reconciliation and billing become a real time sink. Add compliance and document tooling as your registration status and headcount require.

Should I buy an all-in-one platform or best-of-breed tools?

For most firms under roughly $300M, best-of-breed with a strong CRM at the center ages better. All-in-one gives you one login and one bill, but one vendor's weak module becomes your weak module, and you lose the ability to swap a single piece without re-platforming the whole firm. Larger firms with dedicated operations staff can make all-in-one work because they have the people to run it.

Is it safe to use an AI notetaker on client calls?

It can be, if you do two things: disclose that you are recording and get the client's agreement, and prefer a tool that does not put a bot in the call. Several states are all-party-consent, so recording a confidential call without everyone's consent can create real liability. A no-bot, browser-based tool like Scribbl captures the call without adding a participant, which keeps the meeting feeling like a normal conversation while still producing a transcript and summary for your records.

What is the difference between SEC and state RIA registration, and does it change my software?

Advisers under $100 million in regulatory AUM generally register with their state; at $110 million or more they register with the SEC, with a choice in the buffer zone between (per Kitces, as of June 2026). It mostly changes your compliance and books-and-records obligations, which drives how much archiving and document tooling you need. SEC-registered multi-advisor firms generally need more compliance infrastructure than a lean state-registered solo.

How much should a starter RIA tech stack cost per month?

Ballpark, per advisor: a CRM runs roughly $39 to $99 per user per month, planning software is typically a few hundred dollars per advisor per month or bundled by your broker-dealer, and meeting capture can start free (Scribbl Lite) or run $13 to $20 per user per month for unlimited use. Portfolio-accounting platforms are the big variable and are priced on assets and complexity, which is exactly why you defer them until you have the AUM to justify the bill.

The bottom line

There is no single "best RIA software," only the smallest stack that fits your stage and integrates cleanly. Buy your CRM first and treat it as the spine. Add planning, then portfolio and billing as assets grow, and layer in compliance and documents as your obligations require. Keep client communication and meeting capture cheap, present, and bot-free so your reviews stay conversations and your records write themselves.

If you run client meetings in Google Meet, the fastest win in this whole list is the cheapest one: start capturing your calls with Scribbl on the free plan, route the summaries into your CRM, and stop typing while your client is talking. When you are ready to bring Zoom and Teams into the mix, Scribbl for Teams covers all three.