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The word covers four different arrangements. Firms shopping for one of them routinely buy another, because both are sold with the same three letters.
A turnkey asset management platform takes some or all of the investment operation off an advisory firm's desk — model management, trading, rebalancing, performance reporting, and usually billing — and runs it centrally, so the advisor keeps the client relationship without keeping the machinery underneath it.
That is the definition. What matters more is the part definitions leave out: TAMPs differ enormously in what they actually take on, and the word covers arrangements that have almost nothing in common.
| What it is | What it takes off your desk | What it leaves you |
|---|---|---|
| A model marketplace | Investment selection | You still trade, bill, reconcile and report |
| An overlay manager | Selection and rebalancing | You still bill, reconcile and report |
| A platform TAMP | Selection, trading, reporting, billing | Software you operate yourself |
| An operating partner | All of the above, plus the people who run it | The client relationship and the mandate |
Firms shopping for the fourth frequently buy the third, because both are sold with the same word. The difference shows up at quarter end, when it turns out somebody at your firm still has to run the billing file.
Ask a prospective TAMP one thing: after we sign, who does the work?
Not who provides the tools. Who sits down and does it. If the answer is a screen, you have bought software. If the answer is a named person, you have bought an operating partner, and the two cost different things for good reason.
A well-structured arrangement never asks you to give up the things independence was for. Discretion stays with you in writing. Your clients stay at your custodian. Your data stays portable. If any of those three moves, you are not outsourcing labour — you are transferring the firm.
Most of the anxiety about TAMPs is not about fees, it is about the migration. Ask for the number in hours of your time, not weeks of theirs, and ask what makes a transition run long. The honest answers are held-away assets, a performance history that never reconciled, and fee schedules that live in one person's head.
Questions this did not answer? Ask them directly — that is what the twenty minutes is for.
Book 20 minutes with KyleQuestions we get asked
A turnkey asset management platform takes some or all of the investment operation off an advisory firm's desk — model management, trading, rebalancing, performance reporting and usually billing — and runs it centrally, so the advisor keeps the client relationship without keeping the machinery underneath it.
There is no single answer, because the word covers four different arrangements: a model marketplace, an overlay manager, a platform TAMP, and an operating partner. Firms shopping for an operating partner frequently buy platform software instead, because both are sold with the same word. The question that separates them is simple — after we sign, who actually does the work? If the answer is a screen, you bought software. If it is a named person, you bought an operating partner.
Pricing is usually shaped one of three ways: as a percentage of assets, as a flat rate per account, or as a single flat fee. What matters more than the shape is what sits outside it. Ask whether modules, seats, rebalancing, reporting or data extracts are billed separately, because that is where a quoted number and an actual cost diverge.
You should not. A well-structured arrangement never asks you to give up the things independence was for. You keep discretion, you keep the mandate, and the client stays yours. If a provider requires otherwise, that is a different kind of arrangement and should be priced and disclosed as one.
Not with every provider. We work where your clients already custody — Charles Schwab, Interactive Brokers, Axos and Apex — so there is no forced migration and no repapering, and we never custody assets ourselves.