Ameriprise vs Edward Jones Fees Compared 2025

Ameriprise vs Edward Jones Fees Compared — How Each Firm Actually Charges You

Comparing Ameriprise vs Edward Jones fees has gotten complicated with all the vague, number-free content flying around. As someone who spent three months rolling over a 401(k) from a former employer, I learned everything there is to know about what these firms actually charge. Today, I will share it all with you.

I sat through two advisor meetings before I ever read the fee disclosures. Don’t make my mistake. Both firms are full-service brokerages. Both charge meaningfully more than discount platforms. And both have fee structures that reward their advisors in ways nobody mentions while you’re sitting across a desk talking about retirement goals.

Ameriprise — The Wrap Fee Model

But what is Ameriprise’s SPS platform? In essence, it’s a wrap fee model — one bundled annual percentage covering investment management, trading, and advisory services. But it’s much more than that.

The wrap fee typically runs between 0.75% and 1.75% annually — depending on account size, complexity, and program tier. Larger accounts get lower percentages. Smaller accounts, your $100k rollover IRAs, tend to sit closer to that 1.75% ceiling. There’s technically no hard minimum to open, but advisors push SPS for accounts of $25,000 or more. Below that threshold, you may end up in a commission-based brokerage account instead. Entirely different animal.

Edward Jones — Annual Fee Plus Program Fees

Edward Jones structures things differently. Its flagship managed program, Advisory Solutions, charges a tiered annual program fee starting around 1.35% for the first $250,000, stepping down as assets grow. There’s also a separate account fee — currently around $40 per year per account — applied to standard brokerage accounts sitting outside advisory programs.

Edward Jones still operates heavily on a commission basis for clients not enrolled in a managed program. Transaction commissions instead of an annual percentage. This distinction matters enormously for rollover investors who don’t realize they actually have a choice in the matter. Ask. Explicitly.

Fee Comparison by Account Size — Real Dollar Examples

Probably should have opened with this section, honestly. This is the part that actually moves the needle on your decision.

The table below pulls from the midpoint of publicly available fee ranges — both firms’ Form ADV Part 2 disclosures and representative program fee schedules. The “10-Year Cost” column assumes zero account growth. Pure fee dollars leaving your pocket, nothing more.

Edward Jones is cheaper at every account size under the Advisory Solutions structure. The gap isn’t massive — roughly $300 to $750 per year on a $100,000 account. But stretch that a decade and you’re staring at a $3,000 to $7,500 difference before you even touch the compounding effect of those fee dollars sitting uninvested.

One caveat worth flagging: these are advisory program fees only. Neither figure includes underlying expense ratios of the funds held in the account — which can add another 0.05% to 0.85% depending on whether you’re in index funds or actively managed mutual funds. At Edward Jones, you are very likely in actively managed funds. More on that below.

Hidden and Easy-to-Miss Fees at Both Firms

The annual advisory fee is not the whole story. Both firms carry additional costs that show up in product choices, not as clean line items on your statement.

Edward Jones — American Funds and Front-End Loads

Edward Jones has a longstanding relationship with American Funds, otherwise known as Capital Group. Many Edward Jones portfolios are built heavily around their products. These funds often carry front-end sales loads of 3.50% to 5.75% for smaller accounts. Roll over $100,000, your advisor parks you in American Funds Growth Fund of America (AGTHX), and you’ve immediately lost $3,500 to $5,750 before a single dollar gets invested.

Load waivers exist for IRA rollovers inside some advisory programs — ask specifically whether your account qualifies. Do not assume it does.

Ameriprise — Insurance and Annuity Commissions

Ameriprise advisors earn commissions on variable annuities and insurance products. Disclosed in their ADV, not secret — but it creates a situation where advisor incentives and your financial interest can quietly drift apart. Variable annuities sold through Ameriprise sometimes carry surrender charges of 6% to 8% in year one, declining over a seven-year surrender schedule. Move your money before that schedule expires and you pay the penalty. All of it.

Rollover money going into a variable annuity inside an IRA is an arrangement the IRS specifically scrutinizes. The tax-deferral argument advisors sometimes make for it doesn’t hold up — your IRA is already tax-deferred. That argument evaporates on inspection.

Account Transfer Fees

Both firms charge outbound ACAT fees when you move assets to another custodian. As of 2025, Edward Jones charges $95 per account for a full transfer. Ameriprise runs approximately $95 to $150 depending on account type. One-time costs, sure — but worth knowing before you end up dissatisfied and want out.

Which Firm Is Better for a Rollover IRA

Direct answer, segmented by what you actually want.

If You Want Full-Service, Hand-Holding Advice

Edward Jones is cheaper on a fee-percentage basis and runs a straightforward branch-based advisor model that many retirees find genuinely comfortable. An office near your house. Someone to call. A relationship that feels like a relationship. Edward Jones delivers that at a marginally lower cost than Ameriprise. The tradeoff is fund selection — you will almost certainly get pushed toward American Funds. Decent funds. Not cheap ones.

If You Want Low-Cost Passive Investing

Neither firm is the right answer here. Both charge advisory fees that eat significantly into long-term returns compared to managing a rollover IRA yourself at Fidelity or Vanguard. Fidelity charges zero advisory fees on self-directed accounts and offers zero-expense-ratio index funds — FZROX, FZILX. Vanguard’s average fund expense ratio sits around 0.08%. The difference between paying 1.35% annually and 0.08% annually on a $250,000 account is roughly $3,175 per year. Over 20 years, with growth, that gap becomes a six-figure number.

I’m apparently someone who prefers to spend four hours learning the basics myself — and Fidelity works for me while full-service advice never quite justified the cost. Spend a weekend with a few allocation tutorials and a rollover IRA at Fidelity will almost certainly outperform either firm on a net-of-fees basis over time. That’s not a knock on full-service advising for people who genuinely need it. It’s just the math.

Bottom Line — What to Do Before You Roll Over

Burned by an advisor meeting where nobody mentioned fees until I asked directly, I now tell everyone the same thing: before you sign anything, ask for the Form ADV Part 2 in writing. Out loud. By name.

The ADV Part 2 is a plain-language disclosure document every registered investment advisor is legally required to hand over. It spells out exactly how the advisor is compensated, what conflicts of interest exist, and what fees apply to your specific account. If an advisor hesitates to provide it — that hesitation is your answer about whether to work with them.

Read specifically for the annual advisory fee percentage. Whether the advisor earns commissions on products they recommend. Whether surrender charges apply to any insurance products being proposed. Three things. That’s your checklist.

Also worth knowing: a rollover IRA is not a permanent commitment. You can move assets to another custodian at any time, minus the ACAT fee noted above. Roll over to Edward Jones, regret it in 18 months, move to Fidelity. The IRS allows unlimited trustee-to-trustee transfers. You are not locked in — even if nobody mentions that during the initial meeting.

The direct recommendation: For investors who genuinely want managed, relationship-based advice and are rolling over $250,000 or more, Edward Jones is the cheaper of the two full-service options in 2025. For investors comfortable with basic self-management, skip both and use Fidelity — the fee savings over a 20-year retirement horizon are substantial enough to matter in a very real, dollar-denominated way.

If you’re also comparing Fidelity and Edward Jones head-to-head, we’ve broken down those fees in detail in our Fidelity vs Edward Jones comparison.