RIAs nail client retention, but Schwab warns of 70,000 talent shortage

Independent advisors are proving to be incredibly effective at keeping clients, as Charles Schwab’s latest RIA Benchmarking Study says client retention has remained at 97% for participating firms over the past 10 years. 

The 2025 edition was Schwab’s 19th year of its study. Nearly 1,300 RIAs with a combined $2.4 trillion in assets under management participated in this year’s study. Schwab says its annual survey found RIA client retention rate has been steadfast at 97% from 2014 through 2024.

“Once clients have experienced working with an RIA, it's such a testament to the high quality client experience that RIAs deliver. They stay, 97% client retention is incredible,” Lisa Salvi, Schwab’s VP of advisor services, consulting and education, told InvestmentNews. “We went back over a decade in our study, and it stayed at 97%, so it is a huge testament to how great of an experience that they receive from their advisor.”

Participating firms were polled this year from January through March. Surveyed RIAs saw a median AUM surge of 16.6% in 2024 and 17.6% increase in year-over-year median revenue. The number of clients for participating firms had a median jump of 4.8% in 2024.

Firms will need to add talent to keep up with their growing size and services, with Schwab’s survey estimating that the median RIA will need to hire four new roles in the next five years. Based on current growth rates, the RIA industry will need to add over 70,000 new staff over the next five years, according to Schwab, and that figure does not account for looming retirements or newly launched RIAs. 

“We have a $10 billion-plus peer group that would have been unheard of a few years ago because these firms have grown so rapidly,” said Salvi, as the survey documents inorganic growth trends tied to M&A and organic growth driven by client referral strategies.  

For the first time, Schwab included several questions around AI usage in this year’s study for RIAs. The most common uses of AI were meeting prep and notetaking for client meetings, summarizing tasks after meetings, and drafting emails. 

Digital advertising was found to be the most effective way for RIAs to generate leads in 2024, with 85% converting online ads into client leads. Every other lead tactic tracked by the study (podcasts, webinars, email campaigns, blog, videos, social media) fell below 70% in their succes rate for leads. Notably, 20% of firms across the study reported using AI to develop digital marketing content. 

“It's typically taking a piece of content that they've developed and atomizing it, in other words, creating more ways to use it in other channels,” said Salvi. “I don't think it means they are crafting the whole thing [with AI], I think it means you're taking something you've written and you're able to then have a couple posts [targeting different platforms] and different pieces of it, so that you're getting more mileage out of something that you have created.”