Ultra-high-net-worth families, those with $20 million or more in financial assets, made up a mere 0.3% of the U.S. population in 2024 but accounted for 24.7% of all financial assets: $22.5 trillion in investable assets across some 442,000 households, Cerulli Associates reported Tuesday.
Wealth managers, the report said, are looking for innovative ways to cater to the distinct needs of these ultra-wealthy families. Practices that are more focused on this wealth segment tend to offer multiple additional services, on average, including:
● Business planning — 75%
● Foundation management — 74%
● Private banking — 61%
Most notably, however, they are adding concierge and lifestyle services, which Cerulli said can best be considered a catch-all category for the variety of nontraditional services that an advisory firm may deliver or coordinate on behalf of their clients.
These practice are nearly twice as likely as the broader high-net-worth market to offer concierge and lifestyle services, the report said.
“Advising across the entire balance sheet for families while providing access to specialist financial and nonfinancial services that client families may need allows advisory firms to unlock the most value for their wealthiest clients,” Chayce Horton, associate director of wealth management at Cerulli, said in a statement.
“For firms looking to serve as the core advisory provider to ultra-wealthy families, it is critical to deliver solutions that serve the client in every facet of their lives from wealth management to concierge services.”
Extra Fees
Firms that expand the number of core services they provide and the breadth of solutions they are willing to coordinate on behalf of their wealthiest clients face increased costs and more time allocated to these tasks. This requires practices and advisors to think critically about how they are going to be compensated for their time and expertise.
Basis-point fees, which have remained somewhat anchored for the past five years, are starting to tick up, according to Cerulli's most recent data.
In 2025, high-net-worth practices reported that four to five services they offer clients are subject to extra fees. Fifty-four percent of firms reported that they had upped fees for trust administration and trustees services, 44% for tax planning, preparation and compliance, and 36% for concierge/lifestyle services.
Horton said that as they seek to serve more ultra-wealthy U.S. households, firms must augment any rationalization or growth in services with a parallel rationalization in revenue.
“Not only is this practice important from a business profitability sense, but there is also a degree of importance in maintaining flexibility to meet the unique needs of ultra-wealthy investors who expect everything to be highly customized,” he said.
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