Setting
a minimum.

A minimum is the clearest statement a firm makes about who it is for. Most firms either do not have one or ignore the one they have.

The number most firms avoid setting

A minimum is the clearest statement a firm makes about who it is for, and most firms either do not have one or have one they routinely ignore.

Both are decisions. Neither was made deliberately.

What a minimum is actually for

Not exclusion. Capacity. Every relationship consumes a similar baseline of time regardless of size — onboarding, reviews, reporting, the annual document chase — and below some level that baseline exceeds the revenue.

The right question is not what other firms charge. It is what your baseline actually costs, and that is a number you can calculate rather than guess.

Calculate it rather than copying it

Take the total hours consumed by a typical relationship in a year, including the operational work that does not touch the client. Multiply by a fully-loaded hourly cost. That is your baseline. The minimum fee has to exceed it by enough margin to be worth doing.

Convert to assets at your fee rate and you have a floor derived from your own economics rather than from the market.

A minimum fee usually beats a minimum asset level

An asset minimum turns away clients who are profitable for reasons other than balance — a high earner with rapid accumulation, an inheritance about to arrive, a professional with complex planning needs.

A minimum fee keeps them and prices them properly. The client who cannot justify it declines on their own, and you have not had to make a judgement about anyone.

What to do with the clients below it

This is where firms stall, and the reason is usually loyalty to people who were there early. That loyalty is real and it deserves an honest answer rather than an indefinite subsidy.

Three legitimate options. Grandfather them explicitly, as a decision you made rather than a thing you avoided. Move them to a defined lighter service that is genuinely profitable. Or refer them somewhere that fits, with help.

What does not work is keeping them at full service, below cost, while telling yourself it is temporary.

Saying it out loud

A minimum you will not state is not a minimum. If it appears nowhere and is applied inconsistently, your staff cannot use it and prospects cannot self-select.

Publish it, or accept that you do not have one.

Segmenting the clients you already have →