Merrill Lynch plans to join its peers in selling data on advisors’ investment product usage to third-party asset managers, according to an updated disclosure brochure filed on Friday.
Starting January 1, Merrill will offer asset managers data on individual advisors and their practices for fees ranging between $125,000 and $860,000 per year, according to the brochure. Additional data related to passively managed exchange-traded funds will be offered for between $25,000 and $550,000.
Fund managers paying more will receive more extensive information. The data will include product usage, sales metrics and other “analytical data” that fund managers can use to “tailor sales and educational efforts,” according to the brochure.
A Merrill spokesperson confirmed the program is new. The data provided does not include account-level or individually identifiable client information.
The fee schedule will apply uniformly across all of the fund managers offering products on Merrill’s platform.
Asset managers have long collected data on advisors to guide sales efforts, and Merrill’s rivals began selling information about their own advisors over a decade ago. Merrill had provided some data to fund companies limited to advisors already using their products.
“The trends that we are talking about are at this point very well established, and there is enough precedent now that if you don’t join in, you are missing out on the ability to squeeze a little more juice out of the assets you put together,” said Phillip Wool, chief research officer and head of portfolio management at asset manager Rayliant Global Advisors.
Morgan Stanley, for example, charges $25,000 for a basic mutual fund data package and up to $500,000 for more “comprehensive” information, according to its disclosure brochures. Fund companies that sponsor other products can pay additional fees for data on ETFs, unit investment trusts and separately managed accounts.
Wells Fargo Advisors discloses that it charges fund managers up to $1.15 million for “aggregated sales data.”
UBS, whose advisor force is less than half of its wirehouse peers, collects between $150,000 and $300,000.
Merrill’s data will cover products including mutual funds, ETFs, alternative investments, separately managed accounts, model portfolios, annuities and insurance, according to the filing.
Advisors will not receive any of the sales analytics payments. The payments also do not directly factor into its chief investment office’s review process but do create a conflict for the firm, Merrill acknowledged in its brochure.
“We will have a financial incentive to make available and recommend products from Third-Party Firms that pay fees for Data Analytics over those that do not,” the filing noted. “We will also have an incentive to favor Third-Party Firms that select Data Analytics with higher fees over those that select Data Analytics with lower fees.”
Merrill’s updated brochure also provided additional details on a “support fee” that it will charge asset managers starting January 1.
The fee expands existing revenue-sharing agreements and will charge up to 0.10% annually on mutual fund and actively-managed exchange-traded fund assets held in its advisory programs, up to 0.02% annually on assets in certain separately managed accounts and up to 0.15% on certain annuity purchases.
Fund managers will pay the fees from their own pockets rather than directly from fund assets, and Merrill advisors will receive no portion of the payment.
Unlike the analytics purchases, support payments can factor into Merrill’s decision about which products it offers. The filing noted that it creates a conflict to recommend higher-cost products and could also prompt managers to raise underlying expense costs to cover the charge.
Major brokerage firms have sought to find new sources of distribution revenue as investors shift from mutual funds to lower-cost ETFs.
Merrill’s brokerage unit disclosed receiving at least $100,000 each in marketing support from 49 fund companies in 2025. BlackRock was the top partner and paid between $130 million and $39.99 million in revenue sharing that year.