Ameriprise pays advisors $1,000 or a fee share to send clients to its virtual desk

Ameriprise Financial has begun paying advisors who refer customers to its Personal Wealth Group, the unit of salaried advisors who work with clients virtually, according to an advisory program brochure the firm updated on Friday. Employee advisors can receive a one-time $1,000; independent contractors are paid an amount equal to the portion of the advisory fee earned from the client over the past year. Both payments require the customer to remain with the Personal Wealth Group for at least 12 months.

The two schedules do different work. A flat $1,000 does not move with the size of the household, which makes it closer to a nudge than a price. The contractor's payment is set off the fee stream itself, so it rises with the account and is worth more to the advisor who gives up more revenue to hand the relationship over. For an independent practice deciding whether to keep servicing an account or send it to a salaried desk, the second version at least puts a number on the trade.

The wirehouses have pushed the other way for years, encouraging advisors to shuttle smaller accounts to call centers and centralized service units by reducing or eliminating pay on those relationships. Merrill Lynch cut pay to 20% on accounts under $500,000 and does not pay on households below $250,000. Morgan Stanley stopped paying advisors on households below $300,000 this year, with new relationships exempt for their first year. Some advisors resist the handoffs, arguing that those accounts often grow into larger relationships.

Ameriprise, which has around 10,000 brokers, does not have a penalty for serving those customers. So-called regional firms typically emphasize greater flexibility for small accounts, though at least one, Minneapolis-based RBC Wealth Management, eliminated pay on accounts under $100,000 in 2021. Because the Ameriprise payment sits on top of current compensation rather than restoring a schedule that was cut, the same household that costs an advisor money at a wirehouse earns the advisor money here.

An Ameriprise spokesperson said the Personal Wealth Group serves clients across all wealth levels, and the firm frames the referral around fit rather than size. "For eligible clients, advisors may recommend the Ameriprise Personal Wealth Group when it is the best fit for their needs and service preferences," the spokesperson said, adding that clients receive personal advice backed by the firm's capabilities, resources and service standards.

That framing separates the offer from a threshold schedule. If the virtual desk takes households at any wealth level, which client goes where turns on how the client wants to be served. At the wirehouses, the grid makes that call at $100,000 or $250,000 or $300,000, and the advisor works around it. Ameriprise is asking the advisor to make it instead, and paying for the answer.

The 12-month condition is where the long-running resistance argument and the new terms meet. The payment is for a client who stays, so an advisor's compensation now depends in part on a relationship the advisor no longer runs. The coverage does not say what happens if a client asks to come back inside the year.

In a separate September update, Ameriprise detailed an annual fee on some managed accounts that are sub-advised by Envestnet. Clients in its private wealth consulting and tax overlay services pay between 0.05% and 0.10% annually on the market value of assets, and the fee is paid directly to Envestnet, not shared with Ameriprise or the advisor.

Together the two disclosures frame an Ameriprise book from opposite ends: a one-time payment for moving a household to a salaried desk, and a recurring charge on assets in two named service lines that reaches neither the advisor nor the firm. The referral terms stop at 12 months. The number to watch is how many of Ameriprise's roughly 10,000 brokers use them, and how many of those households are still with the Personal Wealth Group when the year runs out.