By Steve Garmhausen

The family office was once the most exclusive corner of wealth management: a kind of command center for the sprawling activities of billionaires. Now "family office services" are everywhere. Banks, national brokerages, and independent financial advisor firms all claim the mantle.

For wealthy families, the change is a major opportunity -- and a potential source of confusion. "It's noisy out there, with so many people using 'family office' as a marketing term," says Paul Ferguson, managing director of relationship management for Schwab Advisor Family Office. "It's definitely a challenge."

Even as the family office label has proliferated, the menu of family office services has exploded. Along with the traditional components of investment management, estate planning, and consolidated financial reporting, available services now include everything from household bill--pay and staffing to next-generation financial education and even cybersecurity support.

An ecosystem of specialist firms has sprung up to provide services as niche as private--jet and yacht management and advising on art, wine, and other collectibles. A financial advisor team, including many in our current Top 250 Private Wealth Management Teams ranking, frequently plays the role of "quarterback."

A customizable suite of family office services might seem the epitome of 21(st) -century luxury, but families should think through what help they want and need, which firms can really deliver, and whether it makes economic sense, experts say.

Before families can sort through family office pitches, they need a clear picture of what a true family office actually does. At its core, a family office is a dedicated team that manages a family's financial, administrative, and often personal affairs. The family office person is "the first call" for financial matters and even big nonfinancial decisions families face, says Ferguson. "You have a trusted advisor who can solve every issue for you," he says. "That's the real power of the model."

Historically, that level of customization only made sense for the ultrarich. A classic single--family office often costs seven figures a year to run. That limited them to families with $250 million or more, and more comfortably in the $1 billion--plus range. But things are changing. These days, some experts say $100 million may be enough to support a single-family office, and $25 million to $50 million to support a multifamily office, in which one advisory business serves multiple families.

'Family Office' Everywhere

So, why is the term "family office" suddenly a part of financial advisors' pitch to wealthy families? First, there are more such families. The number of ultrawealthy households has swelled as fortunes have been made in fields like tech, healthcare, and private equity. There are currently more than 101,240 U.S. households with at least $30 million in assets -- up 8% from the previous year -- making the market worth $11.3 trillion, according to Schwab Advisor Family Office. The long run--up in asset prices has helped matters: A hypothetical investment of $20 million in the S&P 500 five years ago would have nearly doubled by now.

Although families with long-established wealth are very hard to peel away from their existing trusted advisors, the newly wealthy are considered in play. And that has financial advisors in a frenzy. These recently rich founders, executives, athletes, and entertainers need urgent help with turning their windfalls into steady money, diversifying their investments, managing taxes, and creating long--term financial plans.

But it isn't necessarily raw wealth that necessitates family office services. "It's less about a number and more about the level of overall complexity," says Nick Rhoads, vice chair of Chicago-based Family Office Exchange, a membership organization for families and family office service providers. And nothing multiplies complexity like the need to transfer wealth among multiple generations within a family, he says.

Family office providers old and new are dangling ever more services as they vie for these clients. They include philanthropy design and grant administration, education for heirs about stewarding family wealth. Access to nonpublic investments has become table stakes for serving the wealthy, especially those who have gotten rich by starting, running, or investing directly in private companies. They turn to family offices not just to oversee their investments but to serve as a private--markets gateway.

How to Choose

As with buying a new car, the more money you have when shopping for family office services, the more features you'll be able to afford.

The single--family office remains the apex of exclusivity. It offers maximum control, customization and privacy -- but demands significant commitment. The family effectively becomes an employer of a small financial firm, responsible for hiring and retaining specialists, managing compensation, overseeing compliance, and bearing cyber and operational risk. Often this can mean a family employs a few key family office leaders who outsource roles. The annual operating cost of a single-family office ranges from $2.1 million on the small side to more than $20.8 million for large offices, according to consulting firm Deloitte.

"The trend in the industry is toward ecosystems, not necessarily a big family office," says Lyon Polk, a veteran Morgan Stanley advisor whose clients' net worth is typically around $250 million. By that, he means that families are increasingly assembling networks of specialists instead of building and staffing a fully in-house organization. "It's more about ecosystems."

For those who don't want their own family office, a multifamily office is the next step. These advisory firms began appearing in the 1980s and 1990s and were a major evolution in the space. Created out of single-family offices or by banks, they ushered in the sharing of investment, reporting, and planning infrastructure across multiple families. As a result, these platforms can deliver much of the single--family office experience at a lower cost. A family with $50 million might pay $500,000 a year, for example.

That has opened the door to families with, say, $25 million to $50 million in assets. At the same time, many brokerage firms, private banks, and larger advisory firms have built ultrahigh--net--worth teams that look and feel like multifamily offices, even if they sit inside a bigger institution.

More Are Coming

The term family office isn't regulated and doesn't have a written-in-stone definition, so almost any business can adopt it. Plain-vanilla wealth managers and accounting firms tout their family office services, even though they might just provide a sliver of the experience or outsource a lot of the more sophisticated work.

The hardest, most expensive part of family office services for most firms is the truly deep work of family governance -- the framework for making family decisions -- and very sophisticated, customized planning, says Jamie McLaughlin, CEO of J.H. McLaughlin & Co., a consulting firm in Woodbury, Conn. To do that work properly, firms need highly specialized, highly paid people -- which many can't afford, he says. "Unless they have the best people, I don't believe that on the planning and family counseling side they can truly deliver family office services, " says McLaughlin.

For families seeking the right fit, it is critical to look beyond branding. First, take stock of your needs. Do you have relatively straightforward family office needs, like investment management and tax and estate planning? Do you have more complicated needs, like juggling businesses, trusts, and properties across borders? Do you want to branch out into philanthropy and formal family governance?

Be ready to fire questions at prospective advisors. Some key ones: How many other clients like me do you serve? What's their situation, and how have you helped them? Whom specifically will I work with regularly, and what are their qualifications? How do you get paid, and how do you avoid conflicts of interest?

One underappreciated line of questioning is about pricing, says McLaughlin. If a firm wraps "family office services" into a simple asset--based fee, it is implicitly signaling that extra work -- like bill pay, paperwork for businesses and financial instruments, complex planning, and family meetings -- is free, he says. With a financial incentive only for gathering assets, the firm will be tempted to focus on that, he says. McLaughlin recommends negotiated fees for noninvestment services.

Don't rush into commitments, says Polk. "There are so many big decisions that need to be made when you're building an office," he says, "and if you do it wrong, it could be a million--dollar mistake."

Looking ahead, there's little sign that the family office boom will abate. As private markets remain central to how fortunes are created and preserved, the need for coordination around complex balance sheets should only grow. Family office services are likely to become even more sophisticated: more co--investment opportunities; impact and environmental, social, and governance capabilities; sophisticated risk and tax analytics; and richer, tech--enabled dashboards.

"The wealth creation in the past 15 years has been extraordinary," says Nathan Hamilton, executive chairman of Family Office Exchange. "It has created a lot of new family offices, and that trend is going to continue for the next 10 years."

Write to rankings@barrons.com

This content was created by Barron's, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. Barron's is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

May 08, 2026 09:30 ET (13:30 GMT)

Copyright (c) 2026 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.