Kiplinger Readers' Choice Awards 2025: Wealth Managers

a picture of Kiplinger Readers' choices for wealth management services

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Kiplinger Readers' Choice Awards Categories

By Emma Patch

published 27 May 2025

Contributions from
Lisa Gerstner

in Features

About the Kiplinger Readers’ Choice Awards 2025
The Kiplinger Readers’ Choice Awards aim to recognize and celebrate the best products and services in the personal finance arena. We asked you, our Kiplinger community, to help us name the products and services you think have delivered excellent value in the past year.

The survey results, which we’re sharing here in our second annual Readers’ Choice Awards, offer valuable insight into which providers shine when it comes to your everyday interactions and experiences with them. Our Awards recognize excellence in everything from credit cards, banks and brokers to insurers, tax software and financial apps. For each category, we’ve listed an overall winner that earned the highest score. We’ve also highlighted other products and services that earned above-average scores for various criteria we asked readers to assess.

By voting, our community has helped us form our guide to the very best financial products. These are the products and companies that you think stand out from the crowd.

Kiplinger Readers' Choice Awards: Wealth Managers

These firms take a holistic look at your finances and offer advice tailored to you. Beyond assisting with investment strategies, advisers may help you manage credit and debt, savings, estate and tax planning, and more. Readers rated wealth managers based on the quality of financial advice they received, the trustworthiness of the advisers, how likely they would be to recommend the firm to others and their overall satisfaction with the wealth manager.

OVERALL WINNER: Fidelity Wealth Management

Outstanding for:

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Quality of advice
Trustworthy advisers
Most recommended
Overall satisfaction

Fidelity Wealth Management earned high ratings in all of the surveyed categories. Readers like that Fidelity’s dedicated advisers are easy to reach and offer individualized attention.

“I have a wonderful local wealth manager at a nearby Fidelity office. Very pleased with him,” says one satisfied reader. Says another, “I’ve used Fidelity Wealth Management since I retired. They’re very responsive have done well managing my portfolio.”

The wealth-management offerings, which include financial planning, investment management and tax-smart strategizing, come in tiers. Fidelity Wealth Management, which requires minimum investments of $500,000 (excluding 401(k)plans) in eligible Fidelity accounts, charges a fee of 0.2% to 1.5% of the assets under management.

Fidelity Private Wealth Management clients must have a minimum investment of $2 million with Fidelity and $10 million or more in total investable assets. Fees range from 0.2% to 1.04%, and clients get access to a dedicated team of financial professionals.

Ameriprise Financial

Outstanding for:

Quality of advice
Trustworthy advisers
Most recommended
Overall satisfaction

Readers who take advantage of Ameriprise’s services noted many positive, longtime relationships with their advisers. One survey respondent assessed the firm’s financial planning services as “truly objective” with “sound recommendations” that are guided by the client’s best interests in mind.

Ameriprise serves more than 3.5 million clients with a network of more than 10,000 financial advisers. Advisers offer personalized financial guidance tailored to clients’ goals, whether they pertain to retirement, education, a major purchase or estate planning. Planning services also include cash-flow management, tax strategies, insurance and even small-business planning.

Bank of America/Merrill Wealth Management Services

Outstanding for:

Quality of advice
Trustworthy advisers
Overall satisfaction

The wealth services from Bank of America and Merrill, the bank’s brokerage unit, rose in the ranks this year, earning high marks for most of the surveyed criteria. Readers raved about the quality of service. “I sleep well at night knowing my adviser has our back. She keeps in touch just the right amount of time,” says one reader.

One option for customers is Merrill Lynch Wealth Management, through which you work with a dedicated adviser. Or, with Merrill Guided Investing, investment pros build and manage your portfolio, and you have the option to work with an adviser. Bank of America also offers wealth management for high-net-worth clients through its private bank.

UBS

Outstanding for:

Most recommended
Overall satisfaction

UBS Wealth Management provides advice and investment strategies tailored to help you reach your financial goals as well as custom asset allocation and portfolio management. UBS helps you organize your finances with three strategies: wealth for now (liquidity), wealth for later (longevity) and wealth for others (legacy).

Readers had many kind words to say about their UBS advisers, commenting that their advice is both “thoughtful” and guided with clients’ “best interests at heart.”

Morgan Stanley Wealth Management

Outstanding for:

Trustworthy advisers

In addition to virtual consultations, Morgan Stanley provides traditional in-person advisory services. These services are typically available to clients who maintain at least $500,000 in investable assets.

Whether you choose virtual or in-person services, your adviser will customize a plan for you in such areas as retirement and college savings, tax efficiency, generational wealth, and philanthropy.

Kiplinger Readers' Choice Awards Categories

Emma Patch joined Kiplinger in 2020. She previously interned for Kiplinger's Retirement Report and before that, for a boutique investment firm in New York City. She served as editor-at-large and features editor for Middlebury College's student newspaper, The Campus. She specializes in travel, student debt and a number of other personal finance topics. Born in London, Emma grew up in Connecticut and now lives in Washington, D.C.

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