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Advisor-style clarity, without the 1% fee
Most people don't need a portfolio manager. They need a clear, current answer to one question: what should I do next with my money? Here's what advisors actually cost, when they're worth it, and what to use when they're not.
What a financial advisor actually costs
The dominant pricing model is 1% of assets under management, every year. That’s $2,000 a year on a $200,000 portfolio and $5,000 a year on $500,000 — billed whether it was a good year or not. And because the fee is skimmed from your assets, it compounds against you: money paid in fees is also money that never grows for the rest of your investing life.
There are alternatives inside the industry — flat-fee planners typically charge a few thousand dollars per engagement, and hourly planners exist if you can find one — but the bigger barrier is minimums: many AUM advisors won’t engage below $250,000 or more. The people with the most riding on each decision are often the ones the model excludes.
To be fair about when a human earns the fee: complex tax strategy, estate planning, business sales, and messy equity compensation are genuinely specialist work. And a good advisor’s real value is often behavioral — being the voice that stops you from selling everything in a crash. If that’s what you’re buying, it can be worth it.
What most people actually need
Strip away the mystique and most financial questions people carry around are prioritization questions: pay off the car loan or invest more? How much cash is too much? Am I saving enough? What order do the accounts go in? The answers follow from widely-accepted principles applied to your actual balances, rates, and goals — and they change as your numbers change, which is exactly what a once-a-year meeting can’t keep up with.
That’s the job Ashbloom was built for: an AI financial coach that reads your full picture every day and tells you the single highest-impact next move — for $12 a month, flat, whether you have $5,000 or $5,000,000.
How it decides — the actual methodology
A fair objection to any AI tool: how do I know the advice isn’t made up? Ashbloom’s answer is architectural. Every number — balances, interest costs, savings coverage, match capture — is computed with plain, deterministic math from your accounts before the AI is involved. The AI explains the numbers and what they mean; it cannot invent them.
The prioritization itself follows the sequence many financial advisors suggest:
- A starter safety net — about one month of expenses
- Your full employer retirement match — never leave it unclaimed
- High-interest debt, roughly anything above 6%
- A full emergency fund of 3–6 months of expenses
- Tax-advantaged retirement space (Roth accounts and similar)
- An HSA, if you’re eligible
- Maxing out remaining retirement contributions
- Big goals — home, education, major purchases
- Paying down remaining low-rate debt
- Taxable brokerage investing
No secret sauce, and that’s the point — the value isn’t a proprietary formula, it’s having the widely-agreed-upon order applied to your live numbers, every day, with the reasoning shown.
What Ashbloom won't do
Boundaries build more trust than promises, so here are ours plainly: Ashbloom is an educational tool, not a registered investment advisor. It won’t pick stocks or funds, won’t give individualized investment advice, and won’t pretend to do estate or tax strategy. It can’t move your money — bank access is read-only. For the specialist work, it pairs with a professional instead of replacing one; for everything else, it’s the always-on answer to “what next?”
Advisor alternative FAQ
Can an app replace a financial advisor?
For the core question most people bring to an advisor — 'what should I do next with my money?' — increasingly yes, because that answer follows from widely-accepted priorities applied to your actual numbers. For tax strategy, estate planning, and complex equity compensation, a qualified human professional still earns their fee. Ashbloom is honest about that line: it handles the always-on prioritization, and pairs well with a professional for the specialized work.
Is a 1% AUM fee worth it?
It depends what you get for it. On a $500,000 portfolio, 1% is $5,000 every year — and because it's skimmed from assets, it also compounds against you: over 25 years the drag can consume a six-figure slice of your final balance. If your advisor provides behavioral coaching that keeps you invested through crashes, tax and estate work, and genuine planning, that can be worth it. If you're mostly getting an annual meeting and a rebalanced portfolio, there are far cheaper ways to get the 'what should I do next?' answer.
What does Ashbloom cost compared to an advisor?
Ashbloom Premium is $12 a month ($99 a year) flat, regardless of how much you have. A 1% AUM advisor on a $300,000 portfolio costs $3,000 a year — about 25 times more — and many advisors won't take clients below a minimum at all. Ashbloom's free plan (every calculator, unlimited manual accounts, and your net worth in one place) costs nothing, and you can try the coach free for 14 days.
Get the 'what next?' answer without the minimums.
Start free: add your accounts, then try the coach free for 14 days — ask where your next dollar should go and see the reasoning. Keep Premium if you want the coach watching daily — $12/month, flat.
Start freeFree plan, free forever · No credit card to start
Also comparing against budgeting tools? See how Ashbloom compares to budgeting apps — or try the free calculators.