Wells Fargo raises hurdle for higher advisor payouts for first time in 5 years

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• Key insight: Wells Fargo becomes the latest wirehouse to require advisors to produce a bit more to earn the same take-home pay. In its case, it’s raising a monthly revenue-production hurdle they must cross to earn a higher payout rate.
• Supporting data: Advisors on average will have to increase their revenue production by 2%, or about 2%, or $15,000 a year, to avoid a pay reduction, said Sol Gindi, head of Wells Fargo Advisors.

Wells Fargo is upping the monthly revenue-production hurdle advisors have to cross to gain a pay boost while also requiring them to show asset growth if they want to avoid a cut in their deferred compensation.

Those were two of the biggest changes Wells Fargo announced Thursday to its advisor compensation policies for 2027. Along with various smaller adjustments, Wells said it was raising the monthly amount of revenue advisors must generate to see a bump in their payout rate. Under the current policy, advisors keep 22% of the first $13,500 in monthly revenue generated for the firm and 50% on anything above that. Next year, the hurdle for that payout boost will go up to $16,000.

Wells Fargo Advisors Head Sol Gindi said in an interview Thursday that this is the first time the hurdle has been adjusted in about five years. Since then, Wells Fargo advisors’ revenue production has risen by 57% on average, in part buoyed by the strong stock market.

“And we’ve done a lot in the last five years, right?” Gindi said. “We’ve invested in the business, we restructured the business, the business is growing. You know, our FAs are larger. Our advisors now have so many more tools to grow and we want to see more of them growing.”

At the same time, Wells Fargo is keeping in place “enhanced grid” payouts for advisors who bring in $2 million or more in net new assets over the past 12 months and generate $2 million or more in additional revenue in the same period. Advisors who meet both criteria get to keep 50% of the revenue they generate for the firm.

READ MORE: What to expect in advisor pay in 2026 

Some Wells advisors to get an $8,400-a-year haircut

Andrew Tasnady, a compensation consultant and the founder of Tasnady & Associates, said the hurdle increase will cost advisors $8,400 a year if they don’t qualify for the enhanced grid. But Wells Fargo gives advisors plenty of ways to make that up by generating more revenue and earning various rewards and bonuses.

“If you do one $1 million loan, you get 75 basis points on that, and that’s $7,500,” Tasnady said. “So it’s not tragic.”

Gindi said advisors on average will have to increase their revenue production by about 2%, or about $15,000 a year, in order to offset any income losses. 

“You know, we’ve delivered so much more growth than that, and they have more opportunity going forward than that,” he said. “So that’s how we’re thinking about it.”

READ MORE: Wells Fargo private wealth head taps firm’s full capabilities for clients 

Lowered deferred comp for advisors who aren’t growing

In others change intended to encourage growth, Wells Fargo is boosting deferred compensation for advisors who bring in new assets while lowering it for those whose asset totals remain the same or fall. Advisors whose assets are growing will see their deferred payouts rise to a range of 6% to 11% of their current revenue production. That’s up from a range of 5% to 10% now.

Meanwhile, advisors whose totals are stagnant or falling will see their deferred payouts reduced to a range of 3% to 8%. Deferred compensation is paid after an interval of several years and is often portrayed as a bonus that rewards advisors for staying with a firm. Wells Fargo advisors make no deferred compensation if they generate $714,000 or less in annual revenue and are paid it at varying rates for revenue above that.

“Advisors who are growing their businesses and deepening relationships and bringing the full capabilities of Wells Fargo to bear, they’re going to do the best under the plan,” Gindi said. “And I think they’re going to do the best anywhere with this plan.”

Tasnady noted that Wells Fargo’s wirehouse rival Merrill saw an increase in advisor departures when it adopted an unpopular “growth” compensation grid in 2018 that similarly punished advisors for not bringing in more assets. Tasnady said people never like to think money is being taken away from them.

One important distinction for Wells’ 2027 policy, he noted, is that its reduced payout will be “on deferred and not the cash payout like Merrill’s.”

READ MORE: How Wells Fargo keeps advisors by letting them go independent 

A few added sweeteners

Alongside those larger changes, Wells Fargo is also adding various sweeteners to encourage advisors to take actions like help to open banking accounts and arrange loans for clients. For instance, Wells will start offering a reward for opening or moving money into business-checking accounts for clients. Advisors will receive 15 basis points (0.15%) for moving money into a business-checking account without a priority credit line — which is used to arrange security-backed loans — and 25 basis points (0.25%) on money moved into accounts with a PCL. 

Wells Fargo will offer deferred rewards to advisors whose clients move money into deposit accounts, on top of the rewards already provided for arranging lines of credit and providing mortgages and other one-time products. The new reward will be equal to 150% of their year-over-year growth in revenue from checking or other deposits.

Wells Fargo is the last of the four large wirehouse firms to announce its pay policies for 2027. Of the others, Merrill and UBS are keeping their basic payout grids unchanged, while Morgan Stanley adjusted its to require advisors to produce a little bit more revenue to maintain their compensation.

Wells Fargo has consistently had one of the most-generous payout grids among wirehouses. For advisors producing $1 million in annual revenue, it paid $468,965 this year — putting it behind only UBS. For those at the $2 million production level, it was the top payer, offering just over $1 million.