Top Financial Advisors in Seattle, WA

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Brighton Jones is a fee-only firm that typically works with high-net-worth individuals. However, the firm does have some individual clients who are not high-net-worth. Brighton Jones also advises institutional clients, including pooled investment vehicles, pension and profit-sharing plans and charitable organizations. The firm does not set a minimum account size, but its does have a minimum quarterly fee of $2,500 to $3,500.

The firm offers the services of wealth management, retirement plan consulting, financial planning and financial wellness consutling.

Advisors at Brighton Jones use both long-term and short-term purchases as part of a client’s investing strategy. This means securities may be bought and held for more than a year or may be sold within a year of purchase. Margin transactions and options may also be used. The firm uses fundamental, technical and cyclical analysis to determine which securities in which to invest.

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Freestone Capital Management is a fee-based firm that serves a majority of high-net-worth and non-high-net-worth individuals and families. It also works with pooled investment vehicles, pension and profit-sharing plans, charitable organizations and businesses. The firm is headquartered in Seattle, but it operates secondary branches in Anchorage, Santa Barbara, San Francisco and Silicon Valley.

Though there is technically no minimum investment for new clients, the firm seeks to work with clients who can invest at least $1 million. Additionally, some advisors at Freestone may earn commissions for selling insurance products to clients. This represents a potential conflict of interest, but the firm is bound by fiduciary duty to act in the best interest of clients at all times. Services offered by this firm include financial planning, retirement plan solutions, investment management, estate planning, tax planning and more. 

Advisors at Freestone Capital Management seek to build a portfolio with a proper balance of risk and reward, based on what the client wants and what the client's financial goals are. Long-term investments are the hallmark of the investing strategy at Freestone. Still, other strategies, including short-term purchases, trading, concentrated positions, short sales and other techniques, could be used.

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The vast majority of Empirical Wealth Management's client base is comprised of individuals. However, the firm does have a number of institutional clients, including businesses, government entities, charitable organizations, pooled investment vehicles and pension and profit-sharing plans. 

Empirical Wealth Management offers customizable investment management services through both a wrap fee program and a more traditional advisory fee arrangement. The former bundles together all transactional and outside fees with advisory fees into a single flat rate, whereas the latter only includes advisory fees, with transactional charges being separate. Financial planning services include retirement planning, estate planning, tax planning and more.

In general, Empirical Wealth Management tends to invest with a long-term time horizon in mind. However, on occasion, the firm may decide to include some short-term investments in your portfolio for the purpose of meeting a specific goal you might have.

The firm looks to invest in between 12 and 21 asset classes within any one portfolio. It does this to ensure your portfolio's asset allocation is well diversified. Empirical Wealth Management tends to invest in mutual funds and exchange-traded funds (ETFs), though stocks, bonds, futures, options and other investments may be utilized as well.

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Badgley Phelps Wealth Managers, founded in 1966, is the oldest firm on this list. This fee-only firm has lots of certified individuals on-staff. To be a client of this firm, which primarily serves high-net-worth individuals, you’ll need at least $1 million in investable assets. The firm also maintains advisory relationships with non-high-net-worth individuals, retirement plans, charities and businesses.

Badgley Phelps Wealth Management provides an array of wealth management-related services, including wealth transfer planning, asset protection, investment management, cash flow planning, college planning, retirement planning, estate planning, tax planning, foundation management, risk management, legacy planning, philanthropic planning and investment policy development.

Badgley Phelps Wealth Management invests its clients’ assets in a mixture of growth stocks, value stocks, international stocks, small and midcap stocks, taxable bonds, municipal bonds, short-term bonds and multi-strategy alternative funds. The exact allocation depends on the portfolio strategy, as well as a client’s financial situation and goals and risk tolerance. Badgley Phelps offers three investment strategies: equity-only, fixed-income only and balanced portfolio management.

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Moss Adams Wealth Advisors is a subsidiary of a company owned by Moss Adams LLP, one of the nation’s largest public accounting and consulting firms. This fee-based wealth management firm does not have a set account minimum. The firm works with non high-net-worth clients, high-net-worth clients, charitable organizations and those with pension and profit-sharing plans.

With Moss Adams’ wealth of affiliated companies and extensive staff, there is no shortage of services offered. Moss Adams Wealth Advisors provides an array of services, including investment management, investment consulting, fixed income management, personal financial planning and insurance management and consulting. The firm’s insurance review services are offered in conjunction with MASI.

The firm also offers family office services, including tax planning and preparation, stock option planning, estate planning, personal finance planning, investment management and consulting, insurance management and consulting, bill paying, household employee payroll, bookkeeping, cash flow and budgeting, liquidity management, reporting and communication, coordination of key advisors, and family vision and governance.

Moss Adams Wealth Advisors, LLC takes its clients through a four-step wealth management process that integrates financial planning. In the first step, the firm consolidates a client’s financial information and develops a personal profile of his or her goals, risk tolerance and time horizon. From there, the firm formalizes its plan for the client with an investment policy statement that will serve as a roadmap to future decisions. Step three is the implementation of that plan, and the final step is the continued monitoring of it.

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Laird Norton Wealth Management is the next firm on this list. It has a large team of advisors on staff. Of those advisors, there are financial certifications such as certified financial planner (CFP) certified trust and financial advisor (CTFA), chartered financial analyst (CFA), certified public accountant (CPA) and accredited estate planner (AEP). The firm works with high-net-worth individual, non high-net-worth individuals, those with pooled investment vehicles and charitable organizations.

Laird Norton is a fee-only firm, so you won't have to worry about conflicts arising from an advisor receiving commissions. And while there is a $10,000,000 general requirement, Laird Norton Wealth Management does serve families who have "investable assets ranging from $1,000,000 to in excess of $200,000,000."

Laird Norton's full-service wealth management services are aimed at meeting clients’ current needs, achieving future financial goals and safeguarding their legacy for future generations. The approach is focused not only on optimizing financial capital, but also human capital, to weave together all aspects of wealth. The firm’s full-service wealth management includes investment management,  financial planning and trust services.

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Fee-only Pacific Portfolio Consulting has a client base that features a nearly even mix of high-net-worth individuals and non-high-net-worth individuals. The firm's institutional clients include pension and profit-sharing plans, charitable organizations and businesses. The minimum account size required by this firm is $500,000, though this requirement is waivable.

Services offered by the firm include wealth management, financial planning, investment planning and discretionary investment management. 

All investment research used to manage client money is done in-house by the analysts employed by Pacific Portfolio Consulting. The firm uses modern portfolio theory, an investing strategy that stresses the impact of individual investments on the entire portfolio and seeks to maximize the efficiency of the portfolio. In other words, the firm aims to get the most return possible out of a given risk level.

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The Clarius Group rounds out our top 10 list, as the fee-only firm works with those who are non-high-net-worth individuals, high-net-worth individuals and charitable organizations. However, the majority of their clients are high-net-worth. The minimum account size requirement of $10 million within an investment portfolio, but The Clarius Group can waive the requirement at its discretion. 

Other services the firm offers are cash flow management, tax planning, estate planning, entity oversight, philanthropic strategy and administration as well as insurance and risk management coordination.

According to The Clarius Group, the firm's investment strategy involves passive strategies that, "attempt to achieve benchmark-like results." With active strategies, the firm looks to utilize them in an "attempt to outperform a relevant and appropriate benchmark through the application of manager skill or knowledge."

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Aspire Capital Advisors provides customized investment advisory solutions for its clients. This is achieved through continuous personal client contact and interaction while providing discretionary investment management and related advisory services. Aspire Capital works closely with each client to identify their investment goals and objectives as well as risk tolerance and financial situation in order to develop an investment strategy for the client’s investment portfolio[s]. 

The firm primarily works with individuals, high net worth individuals, trusts, estates, businesses and retirement plans. Investment advisory fees are paid quarterly, in advance of each calendar quarter, pursuant to the terms of the investment advisory agreement. Investment advisory fees are based on the market value of assets under management at the end of the prior calendar quarter. Investment advisory fees will be calculated as a flat fee or based on a tiered breakpoint schedule, pursuant to the terms of the investment advisory agreement. These fees range up to 1.00%.

The firm primarily employs fundamental analysis in developing investment strategies for its Clients. Research and analysis from Aspire Capital are derived from numerous sources, including financial media companies, third-party research materials, Internet sources, and review of company activities, including annual reports, prospectuses, press releases and research prepared by others. 

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Garde Capital provides investment advisory services to clients on a discretionary and nondiscretionary bases. The advisory services include, among other things, providing advice regarding asset allocation and the selection of investments. All of the work the firm does, according to it's latest Form ADV filing, is at the discretion of the client. They also offer portfolio management and financial planning to individuals and families, trusts, charitable organizations, individual pension plan accounts and retirement plan trustees.

Clients receiving asset management and portfolio management services typically pay fees based on the assets under management. This can range from 0.40% to 0.95% per year, with the AUM ranging from $0 to more than $50 million. 

In order to help manage risk, the firm believes that a portfolio must be properly diversified at all times. As modern portfolio theory would dictate, this means not simply owning a large number of stocks and bonds, but spreading investment assets over many different types of stocks and bonds each of which may behave differently in response to varying economic and market conditions. By building a portfolio that invests in asset classes that are not perfectly correlated with one another the firm strives to create a more optimized portfolio that can help minimize risk for a given level of return or maximize return for a given level of risk.