Financial advisor website design that says what a practice will not claim

Most adviser websites open with a promise about the visitor's future. This design opens with what the practice does and what it costs. A written plan is a flat fee billed in two halves, questions afterwards are by the hour with a written estimate first, and a year of planning is billed after each quarter and ends by itself. Every fee sits in one table, and three worked examples add up a household's first year from the same numbers, so the page and the agreement can never disagree.

The law shaped the copy. In New York a practice paid to advise on investments registers as an investment adviser, its planners register too, and its advertising follows the SEC's marketing rule: no performance, no projections, no testimonials or ratings without the disclosures the rule requires. So the site shows none, says why on a page of its own, and tells a visitor how to look up any real adviser. A first meeting that costs nothing carries its conditions in the same sentence, as New York City requires, and no fee is ever shown cut from a price nobody paid.

And it draws the lines a careful practice draws. A plan writes questions down for the client's CPA, insurance agent and attorney, and goes no further; it never reviews a policy for a fee, drafts a will or prepares a return. The enquiry form has no message box, so nobody sends an account number through it, and the practice holds no client money. Thirteen pages quote what adviser websites commonly say, from 'fiduciary advisors who always put your best interest first' to 'beaten the market year after year', and answer each claim with the rule and its source.