IBD Elite 2026 ranks 37 brokerages; clearing costs stay hidden

Financial Planning has published the 2026 IBD Elite study, its annual ranking of the largest independent brokerages in wealth management by reported revenue. The ranking is in its 41st edition. It ranks 37 firms. Each firm's revenue is broken into advisory fees, commissions, and other streams, so the table shows not just size but where the money comes from. The package also includes six exclusive top-10 rankings, a printable PDF, and an interactive database.

The companion feature, "The cryptic costs of clearing and custody for advisors," is where the practical numbers live. Wealth Advisor Daily's earlier account of this year's study noted that clearing and custody costs sit under so many layers that few advisors ever see the true total. A revenue table cannot show that line, and the reporting around the study suggests few advisors have seen it itemized anywhere. Read side by side, the ranking and the feature pose the independent model's open question: size is public, cost is private.

For an advisor weighing platform economics, the ranking is a rare public yardstick for scale. Scale, though, is not cost. Revenue ranks the brokerage, not the deal; the terms that decide how much of a breakaway's production survives clearing fees live in agreements and custody schedules outside every table in the study. The fee-versus-commission split the table lays out is useful on its own, and the feature is the place to start before anyone treats a top-10 line as a shortlist.

None of that makes the list less useful. It answers the obvious question first: which brokerages are largest. The hard question, what a platform's clearing and custody actually charge, is the one the surrounding reporting begins to answer. An advisor who wants that number has to go beyond the table and into the agreements.