What your stack
actually costs.

Assembled one good decision at a time, renewing in different months, never totalled on a single page. Here is how to total it.

Most firms underestimate this by about half

Not because anyone is careless. Because the stack was assembled one good decision at a time over several years, each renewal landed in a different month, and nobody has ever seen the total on one page.

Add these up

• Portfolio accounting and performance reporting — usually the largest software line.
• Trading and rebalancing — sometimes bundled, often not.
• CRM — plus per-seat costs as you add people.
• Financial planning — frequently per-advisor.
• Risk analytics — often sold on assets rather than seats.
• Billing — a small line that consumes a disproportionate number of hours.
• Compliance tooling and consulting — usually annual, usually rising.

Then add the line that is almost never on the spreadsheet: what your platform or TAMP charges on assets. For most firms this single item is larger than every software licence combined, and it is the one that scales with your success rather than your headcount.

The part that is not money

Count renewals as well as dollars. Five vendors is five renewal negotiations, five support queues, five security reviews, five sets of terms governing where your client data goes, and five relationships that break independently of each other. That is a management load, and it lands on whoever has the least slack.

What to do with the number

Take it to every firm you evaluate and ask them to beat it — not on the software line, on the total. A partner unwilling to be measured against your real number is telling you which number they prefer.