Hiring an advisor doesn’t just improve long-term financial returns—it also saves time and stress, according to a new study from Vanguard.
“Financial advice actually enables a lot more than just financial well-being,” says Paulo Costa, an economist at Vanguard and co-author of the study. “Reducing negative emotions is really where advisors shine.”
For the past decade, Vanguard researchers have been trying to measure how much financial advice is worth. They have identified four core sources of value: financial value, portfolio value, time value, and emotional value. Earlier Vanguard studies found that both financial and portfolio advice were beneficial on average—often due to simple interventions, like optimizing contributions to tax-advantaged accounts and buying life insurance.
But Vanguard’s latest study—based on a survey of 12,443 investors, including 7,746 with advisors—suggests that clients may be underestimating the softer, less tangible benefits of working with an advisor.
Three-quarters of advised clients say financial advice saves them time—a median of two hours a week. Those spare hours don’t just go toward doomscrolling. Clients report using the extra hours for leisure, time with family, exercise, and household chores.
The emotional payoff is also significant. Eighty-six percent of advised clients report feeling greater peace of mind. “Reducing stress, increasing peace of mind, spending more time with family, all of those things contribute tremendously to overall well-being,” says Costa.
Vanguard estimates that investors spend an average of 3.8 hours a week distracted by financial stress while at work. That corresponds to an average annual cost per worker of $5,950 to $6,775 in lost productivity.
Yet investors don’t always fully appreciate those benefits. Only 38% of clients reported considering time savings when signing up for an advisor, even though 76% reported saving time. Three-quarters of clients (74%) wanted an advisor to deliver emotional value, while 86% reported emotional benefits.
“The industry needs to be more open to talk about the things that we already do well, which is to provide peace of mind and save client time,” says Costa. “When you look at the news, most of the things people are talking about is returns.”
The study also notes that digital advisors—often referred to as robo-advisors—can be beneficial. Although human advisors saved clients more time and stress on average than their digital counterparts, clients with robo-advisors still reported significant gains to mental health and free time.
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