Sell a company for eight figures and someone will tell you that you need a family office. It sounds right. It sounds like what serious families have. And for most families at that level, it’s the wrong answer to the right question.
The short answer
A family office is a private company whose only job is running one family’s financial life: investments, taxes, estate, insurance, philanthropy, bill paying, sometimes the household staff. It makes sense when the family is so large and so wealthy that a seven-figure annual budget barely registers.
In J.P. Morgan’s 2024 survey of 190 single-family offices, the families averaged $1.4 billion in net worth, and the offices averaged about $3.2 million a year to run. That is the world the term comes from. J.P. Morgan Global Family Office Report
What you’re actually missing is not an office. It’s a person who is responsible for the whole picture, and a system that makes sure nothing falls between your CPA, your attorney and your investment accounts.
“Family office” is a legal term, not a marketing one
Under the SEC’s family office rule, a true single-family office is excluded from registering as an investment adviser only if it has no clients other than family clients (essentially one family, its trusts and entities, and certain key employees), is wholly owned and controlled by the family, and doesn’t hold itself out to the public as an investment adviser. The moment it takes outside clients, it’s something else.
That’s why firms that serve many families, including the ones that brand themselves “multi-family offices,” are generally registered investment advisers like any other. The label describes a style of service, not a different kind of legal protection or a higher duty. What you’re owed comes from the firm’s registration and its agreement with you, whatever it calls itself.
To be clear: Morrowgate is not a family office, and we don’t pretend to be. What we do is the coordination a family office is built to provide, for families who don’t need to own one.
What a family office actually does
Strip away the mahogany and a family office does eight jobs. Every one of them can be done for you without hiring a staff.
Investments
One investment policy across every account, entity and trust, with someone accountable for how it all fits.
Tax planning
Multi-year projections and year-end decisions made before deadlines, worked out with the CPA.
Estate and trusts
Documents, titling and beneficiaries that actually match, kept current as life changes.
Risk and insurance
Liability, life, disability and long-term care reviewed against what the family would really need.
Giving
A plan for what to give, when, and through which vehicle.
The next generation
Family meetings, and adult children who understand the plan before they inherit it.
Reporting
One view of everything the family owns and owes, including accounts held elsewhere.
Coordination
The CPA, attorney and insurance advisor working from the same numbers and one action list.
The math nobody puts in the brochure
A single-family office is a small company with a payroll. A chief investment officer, a controller or CFO, tax and accounting staff, operations, systems, insurance, office space, outside counsel. Each line is a salary or a contract, and none of them shrink when markets fall.
| Family wealth | A lean $1.5 million office | The survey average of $3.2 million |
|---|---|---|
| $20 million | 7.5% a year | 16% a year |
| $50 million | 3.0% a year | 6.4% a year |
| $100 million | 1.5% a year | 3.2% a year |
| $500 million | 0.3% a year | 0.64% a year |
The surveys say the same thing. In J.P. Morgan’s 2024 data, even the smaller offices, those overseeing $50 million to $500 million, averaged $1.5 million a year. The typical office had about 11 people, and pay was the biggest line in the budget. UBS’s 2025 survey of 317 single-family offices found an average family net worth of $2.7 billion. These are not $20 million families.
Run the numbers on a $20 million family. A lean single-family office at $1.5 million a year costs 7.5% of the family’s wealth, every year, before a dollar is invested. That is not sophistication. That’s a very expensive way to feel organized. The office only starts to look efficient once the family is measured in hundreds of millions.
Three ways to get family-office work done
Here is the rough landscape. Costs are industry ranges drawn from surveys and firms’ own materials, not quotes. Ask any firm for its actual numbers, in dollars.
| Single-family office | Multi-family office | Wealth manager with family-office-style coordination | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Who it serves | One family | A limited number of large families | Families and business owners, usually $2 million to $50 million |
| How it’s regulated | Usually excluded from adviser registration under the SEC rule | Generally a registered investment adviser | A registered investment adviser |
| What it usually costs | Often $1 million to $3 million or more a year in staff, systems and space | Commonly 0.5% to 1.5% a year, with minimums often in the $10 million to $50 million range | Depends on scope; ask for it in dollars |
| Who sits on your side of the table | Employees of the family | A shared team | One lead advisor plus the firm’s support, working with your CPA and attorney |
What most $5 to $50 million families actually need
- One person who is responsible for the whole picture and calls you before you call them
- A family balance sheet that is kept current, so anyone can see what you own, what you owe and what’s still a promise
- A calendar: what gets reviewed early in the year, through the year and before year-end
- Your CPA and attorney in the same room, working from the same numbers
- A plan for the next generation that they’ve actually heard
That is the job of a good wealth manager at this level. If yours manages a portfolio and calls it wealth management, you are paying for half the job.
What a year of family-office-style coordination looks like
The difference between a family office and a portfolio manager isn’t the investments. It’s the calendar. This is the rhythm Morrowgate runs for client families. How often we meet depends on the family; the work happens either way.
| When | What gets reviewed |
|---|---|
| Early in the year | Last year’s results against the plan, the tax projection for the year ahead, and the family balance sheet brought current |
| Spring | Tax filing with the CPA, estimated payments, and any changes in income or spending |
| Mid-year | Estate documents and beneficiary designations against how accounts are actually titled; insurance coverage against what the family owns now |
| Fall | Year-end tax moves with the CPA: gains and losses, Roth conversions, charitable gifts while there’s still time to act |
| Any time life changes | A sale, a death, a marriage, a move, a new grandchild. The plan gets reopened, not filed away |
The honest test
Answer these without looking anything up:
- Who is responsible for making sure your estate documents match how your accounts are titled?
- When did someone last review your umbrella and life coverage against what you have now?
- Does your CPA know what your investment advisor is planning for December?
- Could your spouse or children find everything if you were gone tomorrow?
- Is there one document that shows everything you own and owe, including what’s held elsewhere?
If any answer is “nobody” or “I’m not sure,” you don’t need an office. You need a quarterback.
What Morrowgate coordinates: investments, consolidated reporting, tax planning with your CPA, estate coordination, insurance review, cash flow, giving, family meetings and joint meetings with your advisors. See everything we coordinate or look at a sample family balance sheet.
Questions owners ask
At what level of wealth does a family office make sense?
There’s no official threshold. Industry commentary commonly puts the floor at roughly $100 million to $250 million of investable assets, and many advisers say a full-service office needs $250 million to $500 million or more. Below that, the overhead tends to eat the benefit.
What is a multi-family office?
A firm that serves a limited number of wealthy families with family-office-style services. Because it serves more than one family, it is generally a registered investment adviser, like other wealth managers.
What is a “virtual family office”?
A marketing name for a lead advisor who coordinates outside specialists, such as the CPA, the attorney and the insurance advisor, instead of employing them. We don’t use the label. We just do the coordination.
Is a family office more private?
It can be, because a single-family office doesn’t register or file public disclosures the way advisers do. For most families the more useful privacy is simpler: fewer people with access, and accounts held in your own name at a major custodian.
Where this guidance stops
This article is general education on family offices and wealth management: how the rules and the options generally work. It is not tax, legal or investment advice, and nothing here is a recommendation for your situation. Rules change and outcomes turn on the facts, which is why a CPA and an attorney look at a family’s own numbers before anything is done.
Sources
- J.P. Morgan Private Bank: 2024 Global Family Office Report
- SEC staff responses to questions about the family office rule
- SEC: Final rule, Family Offices (Release IA-3220)
- UBS: Global Family Office Report 2025
- Morgan Lewis: Control, cost and complexity, finding the right family office model