RIA Wire Answers · Updated September 2026 · By the RIA Wire data desk
What are the options for buying an RIA prospect database?
There are three ways to get a database of registered investment advisers: build it yourself from the SEC's free Form ADV file, license an enterprise adviser-data platform (typically $5,000–$20,000 per year, sold by demo and quote), or subscribe to a cleaned monthly extract like RIA Wire, priced on the page. All three draw on the same underlying public data — the differences are cost, freshness, and how much work lands on you.
Key numbers (September 2026 SEC Form ADV extract)
- —The source data is public: 14,863 US SEC-registered advisers report AUM in the SEC's monthly Form ADV extract.
- —6,560 of those firms manage $100M–$500M — the band most vendors prospect.
- —The market moves monthly: 132 firms entered that band and 27 disappeared from the SEC file between August and September 2026 alone.
- —No option gets you emails from the SEC file — it has no email column. Phone (100% of band firms) and website (92.8%) are what the public record provides.
Option 1: Build it yourself from the SEC file (free, recurring work)
The SEC publishes every registered adviser's Form ADV data as a free monthly download — roughly 40MB of CSV covering firm name, CRD number, address, phone, website, employees, accounts, and regulatory AUM. It is the primary source every commercial adviser database is built on.
The cost is time: the file's column formats are messy, the download naming changes month to month, and the work repeats every month or your list decays. Firms enter and leave the $100M–$500M band at roughly 5% a quarter. If you have an analyst with a spare day each month, this is a real option.
Option 2: Enterprise adviser-data platforms ($5,000–$20,000/year)
Several established vendors sell adviser databases with dashboards, rep-level records, and analyst-enriched fields such as emails and team details. They are sold the enterprise way: a demo call, a custom quote, and an annual contract. For a national wholesaling desk that needs rep-level detail and CRM integrations, that depth can be worth the price.
For a small team that needs firm-level records — who they are, how big they are, where they are, how to call them — most of that spend buys features that never get used, plus a sales process that takes weeks before you see a row of data.
Option 3: A cleaned monthly extract, priced on the page
RIA Wire is the third option: the SEC's monthly file, filtered to the 6,560 firms managing $100M–$500M, cleaned into one national CSV plus every state pre-cut, refreshed every month, delivered by download link. No demo, no quote call — the annual price is published on the site, and the only contract offered is the annual subscription. Cancel any time before your renewal date.
Which option fits which buyer?
- Build it yourself — you have in-house data hands and the monthly hour-count doesn't bother you.
- Enterprise platform — you need rep-level records, enriched emails, and integrations, and the budget line already exists.
- Cleaned monthly extract — you sell to RIA principals, want fresh firm-level data in your CRM this week, and prefer a listed price to a quote call.
RIA Wire is the cleaned-extract option: every US RIA managing $100M–$500M, refreshed monthly from the SEC's own file, delivered as a CSV that loads into any CRM.
See what's in the RIA Wire file — pricing is on the page →Common questions
Where does RIA prospect data come from?
Almost all of it traces to the SEC's public Form ADV filings, which every registered investment adviser must keep current. Commercial databases start from that file and layer on cleaning, enrichment, or analyst research.
How much does an RIA database cost?
Enterprise adviser-data platforms typically run $5,000–$20,000 per year, quoted after a demo. The SEC's raw file is free but requires monthly processing. RIA Wire's cleaned monthly extract is an annual subscription at $2,628/year, with the price published on ria-wire.com.
Can I buy a list of RIA email addresses?
Not from the public record — the SEC's Form ADV extract contains no email addresses for any firm. Vendors offering adviser emails source them separately (research, scraping, or enrichment), so verify quality and compliance before you buy.
How often should an RIA prospect list be refreshed?
Monthly, because that is how often the SEC publishes new filings. Between August and September 2026, 132 firms entered the $100M–$500M band and 27 disappeared from the SEC file — an annually purchased list misses all of that movement.
What fields are in the SEC's adviser file?
Firm name, CRD number, SEC number, address, phone, website, regulatory AUM, total accounts, and total employees, among others. It is firm-level data: no emails and no individual-rep records.
Source and method
Every figure on this page is computed from the SEC's monthly Form ADV extract (the public FOIA file of every SEC-registered investment adviser), using the same parsing and threshold-crossing logic that builds the RIA Wire subscriber files. Figures are from the September 2026 extract; the SEC publishes a new file each month, and these pages are refreshed against it. Any row can be verified against the SEC's own download.