Family Office Costs, Fees and Minimums

Cost depends on the service and operating model

A dedicated office has its own operating expenses. In Campden Wealth and RBC’s 2025 North American survey, offices below $250 million in assets under management reported mean annual operating costs of $1.1 million. The measure excludes investment-related fees paid to banks and third-party managers; it is survey evidence, not a provider quote.1
A provider’s published fee covers a defined engagement. Ballentine Partners’ Family Office group discloses a $180,000 minimum annual fee under its asset-based schedule; other services can cost extra. March 17, 2026 brochure.2
Different service names can carry different prices within one firm. Rockefeller’s March 2026 brochure lists Family Office Counseling at typically $35,000 to $75,000 annually, separately from its broader Holistic Financial Planning retainer. Neither is a universal all-in family-office price.3
A net-worth threshold, an account minimum and a minimum annual fee answer different questions. The SEC family-office exclusion itself sets no minimum net worth.4

Separate four kinds of spending

The same family can incur more than one of these costs. A quoted annual retainer should identify which work it buys and which other costs remain with the family.

Operate an office

Pay for the office’s people and infrastructure. Survey operating-cost measures can include staff, premises, technology and professional support, but their definitions and exclusions differ. They describe the cost of running an organization, rather than a service provider’s price.1

Evidence: Published annual operating-cost survey, with sample limits. Read the survey table.

Outsource operations

Buy work such as bookkeeping, bill pay, reporting or selected professional services. Ballentine separately prices optional bill-pay administration; Pathstone says some services can involve third parties under separate agreements. Ask who performs the work and which tasks need another agreement.2 5

Evidence: Service-specific disclosures, not a market-wide price range. Read the fee examples.

Buy advice and planning

Engage someone to analyze, recommend or coordinate. Rockefeller’s brochure separates annual planning and counseling retainers from a shorter planning analysis/report. Advice does not establish that the adviser also executes every recommendation or runs the family’s administration.3

Evidence: Named planning and counseling fees. Compare billing mechanisms.

Pay for investments and implementation

Investment-management charges, outside fund costs and custody charges may sit alongside planning or administration fees. Tiedemann Advisors’ client relationship summary distinguishes its investment fee from extended family-office work and notes additional costs. Campden/RBC’s operating-cost figures expressly exclude outside investment-related bank and manager fees.1 6

Evidence: Entity-specific disclosures and survey exclusions. Build the total-cost checklist.

What the operating-cost evidence measures

Campden Wealth and RBC’s North America Family Office Report 2025 reports survey results from 141 North American offices within a worldwide sample of 317 responses. The survey ran from April through August 2025. North America is broader than the United States, and participating offices are not a census of all offices.1

The report gives a mean annual operating cost of $4.3 million across its North American participants, but cautions that the simple mean is misleading because office sizes vary. The asset bands provide more context. They measure assets under management, not a family’s net worth.1

Campden Wealth / RBC — 2025 North American operating-cost evidence

Reported group	Mean annual operating cost	Measure and limitation
Offices below $250M in assets under management	$1.1M	Office operating cost; annual cost reported in the 2025 survey. The report’s smallest AUM band is $100M–$249M.1
Offices above $1B in assets under management	$9.8M	Same measure; larger-office group, not the cost of every office above this threshold.1
All North American participating offices	$4.3M	Simple mean across offices of different sizes; the report cautions against treating it as representative of an individual office.1

Table scope: Report published October 16, 2025; survey April–August 2025; 141 North American offices within 317 worldwide responses. Investment-related fees paid to banks and third-party managers are excluded. These annual operating-cost observations do not price a provider engagement or include every cost borne by a family. Research checked October 19, 2026.1

Use the figures to frame questions about an office’s budget. They cannot establish that a shared provider is cheaper, that a quoted retainer replaces the entire budget or that a particular family should employ its own staff. Those comparisons require equivalent service scope and costs. The model comparison explains the differences in staffing and control.

How providers charge

Read the billing mechanism and the service description together. A fixed price can exclude material work; an asset-based agreement can include services beyond portfolio management. Negotiability tells you how terms are set, not what the family receives.

How these examples were selected: Public disclosures that identify a fee mechanism or name a priced service. Providers appear alphabetically within the price table; rows are unranked, with no numerical scoring. These examples do not establish market prevalence, service quality or a cost winner. Methodology.

Billing mechanisms and their limits

Mechanism	Billing basis	What the disclosed example may cover	What needs a separate check	Public disclosure / example
Fixed / flat fee	Agreed amount for a stated service or period	A defined family-office engagement	Scope changes, additional functions and third-party charges	Ballentine publishes a negotiated Family Office fixed-fee range; its covered period is not expressly stated.2
Retainer	Recurring payment under a continuing engagement	Planning or counseling	Which recommendations the provider implements and which operational services cost extra	Rockefeller publishes separate annual planning and counseling retainers, with negotiable terms.3
Hourly	Time worked under an agreed rate	Selected planning, reporting, tax-planning or other services, as specified	Rate, time budget, who works on the matter and authorization for overruns	Rockefeller permits hourly pricing for selected services; Aspiriant’s CRS also describes hourly planning fees. A universal hourly rate is not published in these summaries.3 7
Asset-based	Percentage of the agreement’s stated asset base	Investment advice or a broader named service	Assets included, breakpoints, minimum fee and charges not covered	Ballentine publishes a Family Office schedule based on assets under management; Tiedemann’s investment rate is an advisory charge, not its administration price.2 6
Project	Payment for a defined assignment	A planning analysis and report	Deliverables, duration, implementation and later recurring work	Rockefeller publishes a separate analysis/report fee, typically for a six-month engagement.3
Bundled services	Several services under one agreement and fee	The services expressly included in that agreement	Optional administration, outside specialists and affiliated services	Ballentine’s Family Office schedule coexists with separately priced optional bill-pay administration. A bundle’s contents need checking.2
Negotiated terms	A pricing condition that can apply to several mechanisms above	Work agreed for the particular engagement	Written scope, adjustment rights and separate agreements	Ballentine negotiates flat-fee arrangements. Corient says family-office and tax work may involve separate agreements and additional charges.2 8
Performance-based	Compensation tied to investment results under the engagement’s terms	Investment work where this mechanism is agreed	Whether it applies, calculation terms and other compensation	No comparable family-office operating price is established by the examples used here.

Published fees for named services

These figures belong to the entities and services shown. Different rows are alternatives or separate assignments; do not add them into a supposed standard package.

Provider / entity	Named service	Published fee or minimum	Basis and period	Source date	Limitation
Ballentine Partners · Multi-family office · Ballentine Partners, LLC · CRD 152802	Family Office, asset-based arrangement	Published schedule from 0.60% to 0.10%; $180,000 minimum annual fee	Assets under management, annually; minimum is a fee, not an asset threshold	March 17, 2026, ADV Item 5, p. 14.2	Applies to this service group. Optional bill pay has a separate provision. Waiver terms are not established by the figures alone.
Ballentine Partners, LLC · CRD 152802	Family Office, fixed-fee alternative	Generally $180,000–$500,000, negotiated; can be higher or lower	Fixed service fee; covered period not expressly stated in the range’s passage	March 17, 2026, ADV Item 5, p. 14.2	Service level, scope and complexity affect the fee. Obtain the period before comparing it with annual charges.
Ballentine Partners, LLC · CRD 152802	Optional bill-pay administration	Typically $10,000–$50,000 annually; can be much higher	Administration service fee per year; case-by-case	March 17, 2026, ADV Item 5, p. 14.2	Optional service, separately priced; not a universal surcharge or fixed ceiling.
Rockefeller Global Family Office · Advisory / family-office division · Rockefeller & Co. LLC · CRD 294197	Holistic Financial Planning	$75,000–$500,000 annual retainer	Planning service fee per year	March 2026, ADV Items 4–5.3	Scope and complexity affect the retainer; fees negotiable. Not a universal all-in family-office price.
Rockefeller & Co. LLC · CRD 294197	Wealth Strategy Planning Report and Analysis	$15,000–$25,000 per plan	Defined planning engagement, typically six months	March 2026, ADV Item 5, p. 16.3	Not an annual retainer or a quoted cost to establish a family office; fees negotiable.
Rockefeller & Co. LLC · CRD 294197	Family Office Counseling	Typically $35,000–$75,000 annually	Counseling service fee per year	March 2026, ADV Items 4–5.3	Different named service from Holistic Financial Planning. Bill pay, reporting and tax planning can be separately priced; fees negotiable.

For comparison, Tiedemann Advisors’ March 27, 2026 CRS states that extended family-office services such as bill payment and bookkeeping are typically flat-fee, but does not give the amount. Its separately disclosed investment-management rate, generally up to 0.85% of assets under management annually, cannot supply that missing administration price.6

The provider directory records other disclosure limits. An adviser affiliate’s fee should not be substituted for a trust-company or group-wide family-office price.

What a minimum actually means

Net worth measures assets less liabilities. An investment-asset or account minimum concerns the assets a provider accepts under a service agreement. A minimum annual fee is compensation. None can be converted into another without changing the meaning of the source.

A published view about when a dedicated office becomes economical is another kind of statement. It is guidance about cost and complexity, not a legal qualification or a promise of acceptance.

Source	Published statement	Basis	Statement type and scope	Date / flexibility
SEC family-office rule guide	No minimum net worth is stated in the exclusion’s conditions.4	Clients, ownership, control and public holding-out	Federal investment-adviser exclusion; not an economic threshold or universal definition of a family office	2011 rule guide; conditions and exceptions still matter
Campden Wealth / RBC, 2026 report	$100M–$250M in private wealth is a working range where a dedicated single-family office may become cost-effective, depending on complexity and operating costs; the report says there is no fixed threshold for benefit.9	Private wealth, as used in the report	Report authors’ economic guidance; not an admission criterion or an individual recommendation	September 29, 2026; expressly conditional
Tiedemann Advisors, LLC · CRD 147189	Generally requires a $25M account balance.6	Investment-advisory account balance	Provider’s advisory-account minimum, not a family-office administration minimum or net-worth floor	March 27, 2026 CRS; may waive
Aspiriant, LLC · CRD 146720	No absolute account minimum; typically serves investment portfolios of $1.5M or more.7	Investment portfolio	Description of general advisory clients; not an Exclusive Family Office entry price	August 21, 2026 CRS; no absolute minimum
Ballentine Partners, LLC · CRD 152802	$180,000 minimum annual fee under its asset-based Family Office schedule.2	Annual provider compensation	Minimum fee; not net worth, account size or a survey operating budget	March 17, 2026 ADV; terms subject to the engagement

A business’s sale value is also different from an individual shareholder’s proceeds. An illiquid holding does not become an advisory account merely because it contributes to net worth. When a threshold matters, obtain the provider’s definition of qualifying assets and the exact service to which it applies. The fit guide examines complexity and workload alongside these financial measures.

A one-time setup price needs its own scope

The evidence used here does not establish a US one-time setup-cost benchmark. Campden/RBC reports annual operating costs. Ballentine and Rockefeller disclose prices for named ongoing or planning services. Those measures do not price the creation of a particular family’s office, and Rockefeller’s six-month planning analysis should not be relabeled as a setup charge.1 2 3

For a setup proposal, request separate scopes for any recruitment, systems, data migration, professional work and implementation. Identify which charges end at launch, which recur, who owns the resulting records and systems, and which outside firms will contract directly with the family. Obtain a budget for the operating period after setup as a separate deliverable.

Build a total-cost checklist

Give each candidate the same list of work and ask for the same period. Keep its quoted fee separate from costs paid to other parties. Mark an amount as unknown until the responsible provider supplies it.

Provider fee — service-specific amounts available, not a complete family quote. Which named service are we buying? What is included, what changes the fee and what requires a second agreement? Use the Ballentine and Rockefeller figures only within their disclosed scope.2 3
Separate investment or CIO work — possible additional cost. Does the agreement include investment oversight or management? Which assets are charged, and are outside manager fees additional? Campden/RBC excludes outside investment-related bank and manager fees from its operating-cost measure.1 6
Personnel — family-specific amount unknown. Which employees will the family fund separately? Request the compensation and employment budget, supervision responsibilities and any recruitment charges. The operating-cost survey is context, not that staffing quote.1
Legal and tax — check separate scope and contracting entity. Who prepares filings or documents, who provides advice and who coordinates? Corient identifies separate family-office and tax agreements that may carry extra fees.8
Custody and investment products — possible additional cost. Ask which custodian, fund and other third-party charges are outside the quoted fee. Tiedemann’s CRS expressly distinguishes additional costs from its own compensation.6
Transactions and implementation — individual charges not established here. Request applicable trading, transfer and implementation charges from the firms that will perform them. Keep investment and brokerage agreements distinct from a planning retainer.3 10
Systems and other vendors — family-specific amount unknown. Who contracts for reporting systems, payroll, security and other selected services? Ask whether each vendor charge is included, passed through or separately agreed. A broad service menu does not establish one bundled fee.5 8

Frequently asked questions

How much does a family office cost each year?

First identify what is being priced. Campden/RBC’s 2025 North American sample reports annual office operating costs; Ballentine and Rockefeller disclose fees for specified services. An office budget and a provider retainer do not cover the same things. Outside investment, custody or separately contracted professional work can remain additional.1 2 3 6

Is a multi-family office cheaper than employing my own team?

These public figures cannot settle that comparison. The dedicated office’s budget and the provider proposal need the same functions, responsibilities and exclusions. A provider’s fee for counseling alone cannot stand in for a quote to perform administration, manage investments and employ staff.1 3 Compare the operating models before comparing their prices.

Do family offices charge a percentage of assets?

Some agreements do. Ballentine’s Family Office group publishes an asset-based schedule and a flat-fee alternative. Tiedemann separately describes an asset-based investment-management charge and typically flat-fee extended family-office work. The basis depends on the entity and service, not just the family-office label.2 6

Is a flat fee better than an asset-based fee?

A billing label does not establish the scope or total cost. Compare the written work, the assets charged, any fee minimum, separately priced services and how the fee changes. Ballentine’s published alternatives and separate bill-pay provision illustrate why the service agreement matters.2

Is $50 million enough for a family office?

The SEC exclusion has no minimum net worth. Providers set their own commercial terms, and a dedicated office’s economics depend on operating costs and complexity. Campden/RBC’s 2026 report gives conditional guidance about dedicated offices rather than a fixed eligibility line.4 9 The useful next step is to define the required work and obtain comparable proposals; this evidence does not establish an individual family’s suitable structure.

What does it cost to start one?

The sources used on this page do not establish a US one-time setup benchmark. Annual operating expenses and prices for named planning services should retain those labels. Request a separate implementation scope and a recurring operating budget.1 2 3

Sources

All sources were checked October 19, 2026. Source dates identify the document or data period, rather than this page’s publication date.

Campden Wealth / RBC, The North America Family Office Report 2025. Primary; published October 16, 2025. Pages 6 and 42–43. Survey April–August 2025; 317 worldwide responses, including 141 North American offices. Annual operating-cost measure excludes investment-related fees paid to banks and third-party managers.
Ballentine Partners, Form ADV Part 2A. Primary; March 17, 2026, 54 pages. Item 5, page 14. Family Office fee mechanisms, annual asset-based minimum and optional bill-pay pricing; Ballentine Partners, LLC, CRD 152802. Percentage denominator is assets under management. The separate fixed-fee range’s covered period is not expressly stated.
Rockefeller Global Family Office, Form ADV Part 2A. Primary; March 2026. Items 4–5. Holistic Financial Planning, separate planning analysis/report, Family Office Counseling and selected service charges; Rockefeller & Co. LLC, CRD 294197.
SEC, Family Office: A Small Entity Compliance Guide. Primary; 2011 rule guide. Conditions of the federal family-office exclusion; no net-worth threshold stated. Not a commercial eligibility test.
Pathstone, Capabilities. Primary; undated live service page. Current menu and third-party/separate-agreement limitation.
Tiedemann Advisors, Form CRS. Primary; March 27, 2026. Advisory-account minimum, investment fee, extended family-office flat-fee basis and additional costs; Tiedemann Advisors, LLC, CRD 147189.
Aspiriant, Form CRS. Primary; August 21, 2026. Fee mechanisms and general portfolio-size wording; Aspiriant, LLC, CRD 146720. Not a numerical Exclusive Family Office price schedule.
Corient, US Disclosure. Primary; undated live disclosure. Separate family-office/tax agreements, affiliates and potential additional charges. Does not publish a complete family-office price.
Campden Wealth / RBC, The North America Family Office Report 2026. Primary; published September 29, 2026, page 45. Conditional dedicated-office economic guidance using private wealth; not a legal minimum.
Rockefeller Capital Management, Form CRS. Primary; revised August 25, 2025. Advisory/brokerage entity and cost distinctions; not a replacement for the named service fee disclosures.

Update trail

October 19, 2026 — Checked operating-cost survey scope and named provider fee disclosures; separated legal conditions, economic guidance, asset minimums and annual fee minimums.

Request a correction.