Savvy's Sell-and-Stay Model

This reveals that Savvy is buying growth capacity, not just buying books for succession. The pitch is aimed at mid career advisors and smaller RIAs that still want to keep building, especially firms around $50M to $1B in AUM where Savvy says its sweet spot is about $200M. Instead of cashing out and winding down, these advisors sell into Savvy, keep their client relationships, and use Savvy software and support staff to grow faster.

• Large aggregators and consolidators are framed as a different buyer. Savvy positions itself against Focus, Hightower, and Dynasty by saying those firms assemble vendor stacks, while Savvy is building software to handle prospecting, onboarding, reporting, and back office work in one system. That matters most to advisors who still want leverage, not retirement.
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• The economic logic is that subscale RIAs often cannot afford a truly integrated client experience on their own. Savvy says many smaller firms refer taxes, trusts, insurance, and other needs out to separate specialists, while advisors also juggle many disconnected tools and spend large chunks of time moving data between systems instead of serving clients.
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• This sits inside a broader shift from pure robo advice to higher touch, tech enabled wealth management. Robo models struggled with low fees, high CAC, and churn, while newer firms like Savvy target $1M to $20M net worth households and can monetize at 75 to 100 basis points, which supports a much more service heavy model.
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The next step is a more standardized roll up of smaller advisor businesses into software driven platforms. If Savvy keeps convincing productive advisors to sell and stay, the winning firms in wealth management will look less like retirement buyers and more like operating systems for advisors, with M&A as the channel and software as the engine of post deal growth.