Vanguard debuts customizable model portfolios with Vestmark support for RIAs

Vanguard is reinforcing its appeal to advisors as it opens yet another door into the booming business of model portfolios.

On Wednesday, the firm announced the launch of Vanguard Custom Model Portfolios, a new offering that it says lets financial advisors modify select multi-asset and single-asset-class models to reflect individual client preferences on products, asset classes and management style, while retaining Vanguard's underlying investment discipline and low-cost structure.

"Helping advisors scale personalization while managing their practices efficiently remains a key focus for Vanguard," Amma Boateng, managing director of Financial Advisor Services at Vanguard, said in the announcement.

The launch, whch follows Vanguard's dynamic model portfolo launch earlier ths year, deepens its presence in one of the fastest-growing corners of the advisory business. Third-party model portfolios held more than $943 billion in assets as of March 31, a 46% increase from a year earlier, according to Morningstar's most recent US Model Portfolio Landscape report. Custom models specifically – where advisors work with providers to tailor existing strategies – grew to $258 billion over the same period, a 40% jump.

Read more: Advisors hand off portfolio construction as models take center stage

Vestmark named choice partner for RIAs

To bring the new models to market, Vanguard is working with several platform providers, including Vestmark's wealthtech infrastructure, SS&C Black Diamond Wealth Solutions' turnkey asset management platform, and Orion's Tailored Allocation Portfolios. Vestmark, announced as a selected partner for registered investment advisors, said it will supply trading, rebalancing, tax-aware portfolio transitions and ongoing tax management to help implement the custom models at scale.

"Vanguard has built its reputation around disciplined investing, low costs and long-term investor outcomes," said Karl Roessner, chief executive officer at Vestmark, said in a separate announcement Wednesday. "By combining that investment expertise with Vestmark's portfolio-management, trading and tax-management infrastructure, we can help RIAs deliver greater personalization without adding operational complexity."

Vestmark's platform supports open-architecture portfolios that can combine mutual funds, exchange-traded funds, separately managed accounts, direct indexing and alternative investments inside a single unified managed account. The firm said it wll also give advisors access to a white-labeled digital experience for viewing accounts and performance, submitting service requests, building proposals and running tax-transition analyses.

According to Vestmark, its technology already supports more than $2 trillion in assets, five million investor accounts and 72,000 financial advisors across six of the ten largest managed account program providers.

Eve Cout, head of advisor solutions for Financial Advisor Services at Vanguard, framed the collaboration as a response to advisors wanting more control without added operational burden.

"Advisors shouldn't have to choose between scale and control," Cout said. "Technology-enabled platform capabilities have made model portfolios increasingly customizable and simple to deliver and use."

Vanguard also pointed to internal research suggesting the efficiency case for models generally: the firm said using model portfolios to scale core portfolio construction can cut the time advisors spend on that work by roughly two-thirds, time that can be redirected toward behavioral coaching and prospecting, according to Vanguard's Investment Advisory Research Center. Separately, Vanguard cited Morningstar data showing its model portfolios carry an average expense ratio of about 0.07%, versus a roughly 0.40% industry average as of February 2026.

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A crowded field of asset manager-technology tie-ups

Vanguard and Vestmark are not alone in pursuing this structure. Vestmark itself announced a similar collaboration with T. Rowe Price in January, an offering called Custom Premier that pairs T. Rowe Price's model research with Vestmark's tax-aware trading and rebalancing engine, giving RIAs access to custom models on the Vestmark platform with no platform fee.

Last month, Mercer and American Beacon rolled out a five-strategy suite of their own, aimed at advisors, wealth managers and multi-family offices as third-party model assets swell toward the trillion-dollar mark, an example of how the personalized-model trend is playing out across the industry.