Navigate 401K
For advisors / Step-up to Navigate Wealth
Step-up to Navigate Wealth

Build the wealth book on our platform.

For advisors affiliated directly with Navigate: when a client's balance, complexity, or preference outgrows guided advice, they step up to a full Navigate Wealth relationship — with you as the advisor and our infrastructure behind you.

01 | Who this path is for

One platform, three levels of service, one advisor.

If you affiliate with Navigate rather than run your own RIA, you don't have to choose which segment of client you can serve. Plan participants come in through the 401(k). Smaller households are served on TrailGuide. When one grows into full planning, you step them up to Navigate Wealth instead of referring them away.

Every tier runs on the same custodian, planning tools, compliance supervision, and billing — so a step-up is a change in service level and fee schedule, not a transition the client has to survive.

No segment you must decline

A $40K rollover and a $2M household can both be your client, served at the level each one needs.

Infrastructure included

Custody, models, planning software, disclosures, and supervision are already built. You don't buy a tech stack to move upmarket.

Compensation follows the tier

Your payout reflects the work at each level and rises with the relationship as it steps up.

02 | The service ladder

Entry, step-up, and everything in between.

A client's tier is a function of balance, complexity, and what they want from an advisor — not a hard cutoff. These bands are where each model is designed to work.

Entry TrailGuide $25,000 – $300,000

Guided wealth management for the mass affluent — investment management, planning, and a real advisor at a price that works at this balance.

Service model: Digital-first, model portfolios, scheduled check-ins.
Step-up Navigate Wealth Above the TrailGuide range

Full financial planning and investment management for higher-balance households — the tier a client moves into when guided advice stops being enough.

Service model: Comprehensive planning, tailored portfolios, ongoing advisor relationship.
Routed out Partner firm Set by partnership

Where a plan came through a partner advisor with their own wealth practice, qualified households route to that firm rather than stepping up with us.

Service model: Warm introduction, tracked and attributed to the referring firm.

Bands are design ranges, not eligibility rules. The step-up threshold for your book is set with you and reviewed as your practice grows.

03 | Step-up triggers

Four reasons a client moves up.

Balance

Contributions, market growth, a rollover, or an inheritance pushes the household past the guided range.

Complexity

Equity compensation, a business sale, rental property, or estate and tax questions that need real planning work.

Planning need

The client wants a plan they can revisit — retirement income, education funding, insurance and legacy — not just a portfolio.

Preference

They ask for more advisor time and a deeper relationship, regardless of what the balance says.

04 | How a step-up runs

A change in service, not a transfer.

1
Flagged in reviewBalance and planning-need triggers surface in the regular book review, or you raise it from a client conversation.
2
Joint fit reviewWe look at the household together — assets, complexity, and what the client is asking for — and confirm the tier.
3
Client conversationYou present what changes: scope of planning, meeting cadence, deliverables, and the fee schedule at the new tier.
4
Agreements & scopeNew advisory agreement and disclosures executed; planning scope documented. Accounts stay where they are.
5
Ongoing at the new tierPlanning work begins, review cadence steps up, and your compensation moves to the Navigate Wealth schedule.
05 | What you carry, what we carry

You hold the relationship. We hold everything else.

Moving a client up a tier usually means new planning work, new deliverables, and new compliance obligations. On our platform those are already staffed.

Area You Navigate
Client relationship Yours, at every tier Never a competing relationship
Financial planning Lead the conversation Planning tools, templates, analysis support
Portfolio construction Select and present Models, research, rebalancing, trading
Custody & operations None Account opening, transfers, funding, servicing
Compliance Follow the process Supervision, disclosures, archiving, ADV
Billing Set within the schedule Fee calculation, collection, and payout
Plan-sourced clients Receive and serve Identify and route from the 401(k) channel
A note on economics

Payout differs by tier and by affiliation model, and is agreed in writing before you bring your first client on. Any split figures you've seen in a partnership presentation were built for that specific opportunity — treat them as illustrative, not as a published schedule.

Grow a wealth book without building a firm.

Tell us what your book looks like today. We'll walk through the tiers, the platform, and the payout so you can see what affiliating would change.