Websites for RIAs
Website Design for Registered Investment Advisors: A Site That Books Meetings and Survives an Exam
The first visitor to an RIA's website is the prospect. The second is her son, checking whether you are legitimate. Eventually, one of them is an SEC examiner. A good advisory site is written for all three, and it should make the first two pick up the phone.
October 10, 2026 · 9 min read
The short answer
A website for a registered investment adviser should book introductory meetings, state fees and services in plain numbers, show registration and link Form ADV and the Form CRS relationship summary, introduce each adviser with checkable credentials, and route clients to their custodian logins. It must load fast, read well on a phone, and carry disclosures your compliance officer approves.
On this page
- Six jobs an advisory website does every day
- The pages and features an RIA site needs
- Disclosures designed in, not pasted on
- Readable by a retiree on a phone, and by a crawler
- Athena CMS, with agents that draft and never publish alone
- Fixed prices, 0% financing and six build stages
- When a template site is honestly enough
Six jobs an advisory website does every day
Most RIA sites are built like a brochure from 2009: a sailboat, a handshake, a paragraph about trust. Prospects scroll past all of it looking for three facts: what you charge, who you serve and whether you are who you say you are. The site's real work is practical, and it breaks into six jobs.
Book the introductory call
A clear button on every page, a scheduler that shows real availability, and a short form that asks only what the first meeting needs.
Answer the fee question first
Asset-based tiers, planning fees and minimums, stated as Part 2A states them. A prospect who has to email to learn your fee often does not email.
Prove registration and duty
Registration status, a link to Form ADV on IAPD, and the Form CRS relationship summary where retail investors will see it.
Speak to one kind of client
Pages for the people you serve best: retirees drawing income, physicians, business owners, widows rebuilding a plan. Specific beats general.
Get clients to their accounts
One tidy page of logins for the custodian, the planning software and the document vault, so clients stop calling for the link.
Equip referral partners
A page a CPA or estate attorney can send a client to, explaining who you help and what happens at the first meeting.
The pages and features an RIA site needs
| Why it matters | What it includes | |
|---|---|---|
| Fees and minimums page | The most-searched fact and the first thing a careful prospect compares | Tiers, flat fees, hourly work, minimums, how fees are billed, all matching Form ADV |
| Who we serve pages | Gives search engines and AI answers a reason to name you for a narrow question | One page per niche, with the decisions that client faces and how you help |
| Team bios | People hire a person, then verify the person | Experience, designations used correctly, and links to each adviser's IAPD or BrokerCheck record |
| Regulatory documents | Required disclosures and the facts examiners and prospects check | Form CRS posted prominently, a link to Part 2A on IAPD, privacy notice, registration statement |
| Client login hub | Cuts support calls and reassures clients their money sits with a custodian | Custodian, planning software and document vault logins on one page |
| Meeting scheduler | Turns interest into a calendar entry before it cools | Embedded booking, confirmation email, a short intake form |
| Insights library | Gives clients, referrers and AI engines something useful to quote | Dated articles with approved disclosures, sorted by topic and audience |
| Secure upload or portal | Statements and tax returns should never travel by email attachment | Links to your vault, or a custom portal, which falls in our web application tier |
Firms that also hold broker-dealer licenses need more, starting with a BrokerCheck link on specific pages; website design for financial advisors covers that case. Multi-family offices with deeper service menus should see websites for wealth management firms.
Disclosures designed in, not pasted on
Compliance on an advisory site fails in predictable ways: an award logo added by a well-meaning assistant, a review widget that pulls in Google stars, a performance chart with gross returns and no net. We prevent most of that in the build itself, by giving each risky element a template with fields for the disclosures it requires, so nobody can publish the logo without the date.
- Form CRS placement. A firm with retail investors and a public website must post its current relationship summary prominently on that site, and the brochure's cover page must list the website address.
- Testimonials and reviews. Under the SEC Marketing Rule, a client quote on the site needs disclosure of client status, compensation and conflicts. The SEC's December 2025 risk alert found firms copying third-party reviews without them.
- Ratings and awards. The same alert found logos shown without the rating's date, period, rater or fees paid. We build the award block so it cannot display without those fields.
- Performance. If shown at all, net beside gross, with 1, 5 and 10 year periods.
- Credentials. CFP® marks as adjectives with an approved noun, never in a domain or URL, per CFP Board.
- Records. Advisers must keep copies of every advertisement, and the website counts. Agree with compliance how each published version will be captured before launch.
Readable by a retiree on a phone, and by a crawler
Many advisory clients are older, and some read with a magnifier setting on. That argues for large type, high contrast, real buttons, short pages and forms that forgive typos. We build to accessibility standards as part of the job, with ADA compliance work available for existing sites, and we keep pages fast because nobody's patience improves with age. Site speed and Core Web Vitals covers the technical side.
Machines read the site too. A Vercel analysis in December 2024 found that most major AI crawlers, including those from OpenAI, Anthropic and Perplexity, did not run JavaScript, so a fee table that only appears after scripts load may be invisible to them. Our sites are built on Next.js and render the text into the HTML. A well-built WordPress site serves HTML too; the problem is the page builder that does not. How this plays out in AI answers is covered in GEO for registered investment advisors and in why JavaScript can hide pages from AI crawlers.
Athena CMS, with agents that draft and never publish alone
Every custom site we build includes Athena CMS, our content system. Its AI agents draft and flag; a person approves. That matters more for an adviser than for almost anyone, because nothing should publish without review. These are the agents most advisory firms use.
- Delphi asks ChatGPT, Google's AI answers and the others what they say about your firm, spots wrong fees or outdated claims, and drafts corrections for review.
- Hestia keeps your address, phone, hours and services identical across the site and listings, holiday hours included.
- Iris writes page titles, descriptions, social cards and structured data, so the markup matches the visible text.
- Prometheus finds client questions your site never answers and drafts the page for compliance to edit.
- Harmonia prepares Spanish versions and checks accessibility, useful for firms serving San Antonio families in both languages.
- Argus watches for broken links, failed forms and expiring certificates before a client notices.
Echo, the review agent, can draft replies and place review quotes on pages; for an RIA we leave placement off unless your compliance officer approves the disclosures. The comparison with a plugin stack is on Athena vs WordPress.
Fixed prices, 0% financing and six build stages
Custom builds and rebuilds are a fixed price starting at $1,750. Sites with a client portal or web application start at $3,500, and a site with an online booking flow is about $9,000 on our web design pricing page. We quote after a free audit or the free mockup. 0% financing needs 25% down: up to 12 months on any project, 24 months from $15,000 and 36 months from $20,000. A $9,000 site, for example, is $2,250 down and $562.50 a month for twelve months.
- 1
Free mockup
We design your home page from your Form ADV, your current site and the clients you want, and send it with no obligation.
- 2
Fixed quote
A written price and page list. The scope does not creep, and neither does the bill.
- 3
Copy through compliance
We write the pages and deliver them for review in one package, with every disclosure marked, so your CCO reviews once instead of chasing drafts.
- 4
Build and test
Next.js pages, Athena CMS, scheduler, logins hub, structured data, accessibility and speed checks on real phones.
- 5
Launch with redirects kept
Every old URL is kept or permanently redirected, so existing search rankings and bookmarked links survive the move.
- 6
Care after launch
Optional hosting and maintenance, plus training so your team can edit fees, bios and articles themselves.
When a template site is honestly enough
A builder or advisor template is fine when
- You are a solo planner with a full calendar from referrals
- Your vendor's template already includes compliance archiving your CCO trusts
- You need five pages and no portal, scheduler or niche content
- Budget is tight and the site's only job is to confirm you exist
A custom build earns its price when
- You want to win clients from search and AI answers, not just confirm referrals
- Your niche needs pages and content a template cannot shape
- Speed, accessibility and clean HTML matter for older clients and crawlers
- You want one system for the site, listings and AI monitoring
Wix and Squarespace can host a respectable five-page site, and several vendors sell templates made for advisers. If one fits, use it, and run the free website health check on it once a year. When you outgrow it, the website design hub shows how we work across trades, the financial services website overview covers the family, and our financial services industry page covers the rest. Marketing that sends people to the new site is laid out in RIA marketing, with family-wide versions for finance marketing and finance AI search. Or skip the reading: ask for a free mockup of your new home page and judge us on the work.
Questions owners ask before a new website
If the firm offers services to retail investors and has a public website, the SEC requires the current relationship summary to be posted prominently on it. The SEC's guide also sets design requirements for the posting. We build the placement your compliance officer specifies and make updating it a simple edit in Athena CMS.
Only as your compliance officer allows. A client review displayed on your site is treated as a testimonial under the SEC Marketing Rule and needs clear disclosures of client status, compensation and conflicts. We can build a compliant display, or leave reviews off the site entirely and let them live on Google.
DataCram's custom builds start at a fixed $1,750, sites with a client portal or web application start at $3,500, and a site with an online booking flow runs about $9,000. Financing at 0% with 25% down spreads the cost over up to 12 months on any project.
Yes. A custom portal falls in our web application tier, starting at $3,500. Many firms prefer to link the vault their custodian or planning software already provides, which is simpler to approve. We will tell you which fits after looking at your current setup.
Not if the move is handled properly. We keep URLs where we can, permanently redirect the ones that change, and carry over titles and descriptions. Short-term movement is normal; lasting losses usually come from forgotten redirects, which is why we map every old URL before launch.
We draft from your Form ADV, your existing materials and interviews with your advisers. Your compliance officer reviews and approves every page before launch, and later edits made in Athena CMS go through whatever approval process your firm sets.
Keep reading
- Websites for wealth firmsWebsite Design for Wealth Management Firms: A Site Built for the Family and for Their AttorneyWealth management website design with Form CRS, fee pages, adviser profiles and client portal links on Next.js with Athena CMS. Fixed price from $1,750.
- Websites for advisorsWebsite Design for Financial Advisors: Sites That Clear Principal Review and Still Book MeetingsWebsites for financial advisors and broker-dealer reps with the BrokerCheck link, firm disclosures and seminar sign-ups built in. Fixed price from $1,750.
- Marketing for RIAsMarketing for Registered Investment Advisors: Turning Referrals and Searches Into First MeetingsRIA marketing that turns referrals, search and AI answers into booked first meetings, within the SEC Marketing Rule. Channels, a 90-day plan and real costs.
- Marketing for tax officesTax Preparation Marketing: Fill the Appointment Book Before the Season OpensMarketing for tax preparers and enrolled agents: where filers find an office, a 90-day pre-season plan, IRS e-file ad rules, client list limits and prices.
- AI search for tax officesGEO for Tax Preparers: Get Named by AI Before the Filing Season StartsHow tax preparers and enrolled agents get named by ChatGPT and Google AI: PTIN and credential records, local listings, IRS ad rules and a pre-season plan.
- Contractor websitesHome Services Website Design That Turns Visits Into CallsCustom websites for HVAC, plumbing, roofing and other home service trades: tap-to-call, estimate forms, license details, fast pages. From $1,750, fixed.
- Everything in Website Design by TradeSee the section
See your new home page before you spend a dollar
Send your current site and the clients you want to reach. We design your home page, with the fee and registration sections laid out, and send the mockup free with no obligation.
Which of these sounds like you? (pick any)
Rather talk now? Call (210) 346-0848.