Useful free calculators and an SEC-data-driven advisor ranking, but its business is selling consumer leads to the very advisors it matches you with.
What it's really for A finance-content site whose core business is matching you with advisors who pay for the lead.
What our grade covers The grade on this page is about its 'top financial advisor' rankings and matching, not everything the site does.
High Scoring Confidence Checked against primary sources. We are confident in the facts and the grade here.
Financial advisors pay SmartAsset the most, via subscription fees for consumer referrals; by SmartAsset's own disclosure, paying can get a firm into the matching/referral funnel, though it says payment has "no impact" on its editorial top-advisor rankings.
Source →- Operating since
- 2012 (14 years) · source
- What it costs you
- Free to read The reviews are free to read.
- How they make money
- It earns subscription/referral revenue from financial advisors who pay for consumer leads through its SmartAdvisor/AMP matching platform, supplemented by ad and affiliate revenue on its personal-finance content.
- What they do
- SmartAsset publishes free personal-finance calculators and content and ranks "top financial advisors" using public SEC data, while its core product matches consumers with paying fiduciary advisors.
- What to watch for
- Its editorial top-advisor lists say paid relationships don't affect rankings, but the advisor it ultimately connects you with comes through a paid lead-matching funnel, not a quality review of the advice you'll receive.
- Composite score
- 2.30 / 5.00 → grade C
How the grade was reached
Does the site take money from the very entities it ranks? Pay-for-placement, vendor-funded data, and affiliate commissions all pull this down. The less the ranking can be bought, the higher the score.
What is the ranking actually built on? Hands-on testing scores highest, then verified first-hand reviews, then opinion or popularity surveys and self-reported figures, then pay-to-rank, which scores lowest.
Is the methodology published, specific, and reproducible? Can a reader see how a given rank was reached, or is it a black box?
Are commercial relationships, sponsorships, and affiliate arrangements disclosed clearly and near the rankings themselves, rather than buried?
How hard is it to game? Controls against fake reviews, solicited reviews, and vendor gaming raise this; an open box anyone can stuff lowers it.
Evidence
- SmartAsset's published methodology states: "This list may include firms that have a business relationship with SmartAsset, in which SmartAsset is compensated for lead referrals. Such relationships have no impact on our rankings, and firms are included and ranked based strictly on the above criteria" (AUM, client count, clients per advisor, firm age, and fee structure, using SEC data). Source: SmartAsset Top Financial Advisors methodology →
- SmartAsset's AMP page describes a subscription service where fiduciary advisors pay to be matched with the ~50,000 consumers who use SmartAsset monthly to find an advisor; advisors target referrals by asset tier and geography, confirming the people it ranks/matches are the ones paying. Source: SmartAsset AMP (Advisor Marketing Platform) →
- SmartAsset was founded in July 2012 by Michael Carvin and Philip Camilleri, is headquartered in New York, and is an independent, privately held fintech with over $161M in venture funding and a unicorn valuation; SmartAdvisor is described as a lead-generation platform connecting consumers with financial advisors. Source: Wikipedia: SmartAsset →