Advisors

A generic wealth manager and an equity-literate advisor look identical on paper. Both might call themselves a CFP, both charge a fee, both have a nice office and a website with a photo of a family on a beach. The difference is whether they’ve actually spent a decade running AMT math on Form 6251, negotiating 10b5-1 plans through a public company’s legal department, and arguing with a lender about how to underwrite unvested RSU income for a jumbo mortgage. For tech employees with equity comp, that operating experience is the entire point. This section is about finding it, evaluating it, and knowing what to ask.

What “fee-only” and “fiduciary” actually mean

Both terms get abused in advisor marketing. Fee-only means the advisor charges you for advice and does not earn commissions from insurance, annuities, or mutual funds. That removes the largest conflict of interest in the industry: advisors who get paid by whoever sells them products have a structural incentive to sell the products that pay the most. Fiduciary is the legal standard: the advisor is required to act in your best interest, not just recommend things that are “suitable.” Every advisor in the Wellspent-powered match network meets both standards.

The fee structures that matter for equity earners are flat annual retainers (typical range $5-25k), percentage of assets under management (0.5-1% with breakpoints), and hourly for one-time events. Commission-based advice is almost always wrong for this audience.

What to actually ask

A good first conversation with an advisor is not about their process or their firm — it’s about whether they’ve done your specific kind of work before. Useful questions include: what percentage of your clients hold >$1M of concentrated employer stock? How many 10b5-1 plans did you help set up last year? What’s your typical process when a client exercises ISOs for the first time? Have you advised clients through an IPO lockup expiry in the last 24 months? How do you handle QSBS documentation? Have you managed any cross-border equity situations? These questions separate generalists from specialists quickly.

Red flags: vague answers, deflecting to “we take a comprehensive approach,” heavy focus on “tax-advantaged products” without specifics, or an initial consultation that feels like a sales pitch rather than a fact-finding session.

When to actually match

The threshold for engaging a paid advisor is usually tied to a specific event: a first ISO exercise over $100k of bargain element, an RSU vest that would push you past the $1M supplemental-withholding threshold, a pre-IPO liquidity event with 12-24 months of runway to plan, a state move with trailing equity income, or net worth crossing $1M where estate planning starts to matter. For most mid-career tech employees, the advisor decision isn’t “do I need one permanently” but “do I need one right now for this event.”

For readers at the early-career stage, the pillar guides and Q-format library probably cover 80% of what you need. The advisor becomes valuable at the deals-worth-money scale.

The Wellspent match

The match form is powered by Wellspent, an independent knowledge graph of financial advisors. Neither VestedGrant nor Wellspent charges advisors for leads. Wellspent charges advisors a flat subscription to help them structure their data for AI-driven discovery; rankings are driven by your situation (state, specialty, equity type, fee structure) not by payment. The editorial policy covers this in full.

Next step

If you’ve got a specific event inside the next 12 months (first large ISO exercise, IPO visible, state move), match with an advisor now rather than waiting until you’re in the event and out of planning runway. If you’re just researching and don’t have a specific event, the supporting articles in this section are the cheapest education — a couple hours of reading will usually let you self-diagnose whether an advisor is actually warranted.