Last week, Fidelity announced two “tech bundles” aimed at RIAs under $250M. Such bundles may look attractive on their face, but they tend to fall apart under scrutiny. Why? First, bundles add complexity that smaller firms may not be staffed to address. Generally speaking, for firms with under $250M in AUM, a simpler tech stack is often more effective. Second, bundling complicates the service model. There’s no single point of contact, no internal resource RIAs can go to when things go wrong. Troubleshooting and playing “dot connector” takes time and attention away from clients. Finally, it’s never clear how long services and tools will be bundled together. An RIA might come to depend on the set of tools in a bundle, only to find it will be discontinued in six months. Shifts like this can be seismic for small firms. Growing RIAs deserve an integrated platform with long-lasting features built specifically for them. In other words, bundles tend to fall short because the whole is usually less than the sum of its parts. A few things I noticed from the RIABiz article worth calling out: The price of Fidelity’s bundles differs from firm to firm. Usually, this means that firms with higher AUM enjoy steeper discounts, better pricing, and most unfortunately, a higher level of service. This is wrong. Advisors of all sizes deserve both the best pricing AND exceptional service. FMAX Essentials initially offers only 25% of the investment options of the full FMAX offering. That means fewer options for RIAs, and less personalization for clients. The result? Advisors will be pigeonholed into making tradeoffs. This line: “One advisor said it would be great if there were an ‘easy button,’ if someone can show us what we need to run our businesses day-to-day.” There is an easy button. It’s Altruist. With some of the lowest trading fees in the industry, $0 technology costs for Altruist brokerage accounts—which gets you all the tools you need to open, fund, trade, bill, and report—and an expertly staffed service team available by chat, phone, and email, it doesn’t get any easier than that.