What HEARTS & WALLETS does

Hearts & Wallets, LLC is an independent U.S. financial services market intelligence and benchmarking firm founded circa 2010 by Laura Varas and headquartered in Rye, New York. The company builds and maintains three proprietary integrated databases — the Investor Quantitative (IQ) Database with 135M+ data points on retail investor competitive buying patterns, the Inside Advice Database with 60K+ benchmarks across nearly 200 advice and guidance experiences, and the Explore Qualitative (EQ) Database with 8K+ curated consumer stories gathered over 10+ years. These assets, together with proprietary frameworks such as the Inside Advice Grid and Portrait market sizing methodology, are sold to leading financial institutions including banks, broker-dealer banks, large RIAs, asset managers and diversified financial services firms.

The commercial product portfolio comprises Trends reports (recurring market intelligence across Advice & Technology, Stores & Success Metrics, Investment Products & Asset Managers, Attitudes & Sentiment, Money Movement, Wants & Pricing, and Portrait of U.S. Household Wealth), Trends Subscriber Briefings, the IQ Dataminer web-based query/segmentation software, the EQ Vault qualitative research database, and Inside Advice Benchmarking engagements that run controlled simulations of client advice experiences against standardized hypothetical customers and measure 300+ variables. Distribution is primarily direct enterprise sales, supplemented by self-serve subscriber access via a login-gated portal; geographic scope is U.S.-only.

Hearts & Wallets operates as a founder-led private LLC with no disclosed external funding rounds, institutional investors, or M&A activity. Revenue is generated through annual/multi-year Trends subscriptions (with documented client outcomes: long-term subscribers show 70% higher primacy, 36% higher share of wallet, and 2.5x positive net flows vs. non-subscribers), individual report licensing at specified release windows, custom Inside Advice Benchmarking engagements, and licensed external use of H&W content under the Trends Subscriber Courtesy External Use Policy. Pricing is quote-based and not publicly disclosed. The firm self-describes as "the independent data and benchmarking firm," emphasizing independence and methodological confidentiality as core brand attributes.

Name

HEARTS & WALLETS

Legal name

HEARTS & WALLETS, LLC

Website

https://heartsandwallets.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

2010

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

Hearts & Wallets is an independent U.S. financial services market intelligence firm that sells subscription research, proprietary benchmarking, and consumer databases to banks, broker-dealers, RIAs and asset managers competing for retail investor relationships.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Headquarters

HQ city

Rye

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Software

Cost components

Personnel, Technology or R&D, Operations, Marketing or Sales, Others

Revenue model

1. Trends™ subscription: Annual (or multi-year) recurring subscription to Hearts & Wallets Trends™ research, granting subscribers advance access to all upcoming reports during the subscription period, input to future topics, invitations to Explore Qualitative focus groups, and access to Subscriber Briefings and certain EQ™ modules released each year. Subscribers see documented business outcomes: customers of long-term subscribers are 70% more likely to use those firms as their primary firm; average share of wallet is 36% higher; subscribers are 2.5x more likely to be in positive net flows.
2. Individual report licensing: One-time / periodic licensing of individual Trends™ market intelligence reports (e.g., Wants & Pricing, Stores & Success Metrics, Investment Products & Asset Managers, Attitudes & Sentiment, Portrait of U.S. Household Wealth, Money Movement) to non-subscribers, with annual release windows specified per report.
3. Inside Advice® Benchmarking engagements: Custom, confidential benchmarking engagements where Hearts & Wallets runs controlled simulations of a client's advice/guidance experiences using Hearts & Wallets hypothetical customers, measures 300+ variables, and delivers strategic recommendations in discovery sessions.
4. Content licensing for external use: Licensed external use of Hearts & Wallets content (data, findings, exhibits, statistics, charts, diagrams) via the Trends Subscriber Courtesy External Use Policy or other commercial agreements, subject to prior written approval.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion3 records

Distribution channels6 records

Marketing channels10 records

Core offering

Hearts & Wallets provides independent market intelligence on U.S. retail investor behavior to financial services firms (banks, broker-dealers, RIAs, asset managers). The offering is built on three proprietary integrated databases — Investor Quantitative™ (IQ, 135M+ data points), Inside Advice® (60K+ benchmarks across 650+ metrics on ~200 advice experiences) and Explore Qualitative™ (EQ, 8K+ curated consumer stories) — and is delivered through Trends™ subscriptions (annual reports and briefings), the IQ™ Dataminer web-based query software, the EQ™ Vault qualitative database, confidential Inside Advice® Benchmarking engagements, and Portrait™ of U.S. Household Wealth market-sizing reports.

Product overview

Hearts & Wallets operates a single platform-plus-modules architecture organized around three proprietary integrated databases — the Investor Quantitative™ (IQ) Database, the Inside Advice® Database and the Explore Qualitative™ (EQ) Database — that together bridge consumer marketing and wealth, retirement and banking businesses. The flagship commercial offering is the Trends™ subscription, which bundles three productized access points: Trends™ Reports (annual and timely market intelligence reports across the IQ™ modules such as Money Movement, Stores & Success Metrics, Investment Products & Asset Managers, Attitudes & Sentiment, Advice & Technology, Wants & Pricing, Household Finance, Pain Points & Actions, and Portrait™ of U.S. Household Wealth), Trends™ Subscriber Briefings (advance access and focus group invitations), and the IQ™ Dataminer (the query software over the IQ™ Database). Layered on top are EQ™ Vault (the qualitative research database with 100+ modules and a forthcoming searchable quotes database), the Inside Advice® Benchmarking service and its proprietary Inside Advice® Grid framework, and standalone Portrait™ market sizing reports. The IQ Database feeds quantitative analysis, the Inside Advice Database feeds competitive benchmarking of advice/guidance experiences, and the EQ Database feeds qualitative consumer insights.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• Trends™ Reports: Market intelligence reports highlighting best thinking from H&W subject matter experts covering advice, pricing, investment products, retirement, financial wellness, and digital innovation.
• Trends™ Subscriber Briefings
• IQ™ Dataminer
• EQ™ Vault
• Inside Advice® Benchmarking
• Investor Quantitative™ (IQ) Database
• Explore Qualitative™ (EQ) Database
• Portrait™

Products and services

• Trends™ Reports Annual and timely market intelligence reports drawing on Hearts & Wallets' three proprietary databases, covering advice, pricing, investment products, retirement, financial wellness and digital innovation. Sold as part of a Trends™ subscription and licensed individually for non-subscribers.
• IQ™ Dataminer Web-based datamining application that lets Trends™ subscribers tap into the proprietary Investor Quantitative™ (IQ) Database with over 120 million data points on saving, investing and advice. Supports custom segments, queries, historical data access and modules including Demographics, Retirement & Funding, Money Movement, Stores & Success Metrics, Household Finance, Investment Products & Asset Managers, Attitudes & Sentiment, Pain Points & Actions, Advice & Technology, and Wants & Pricing.
• EQ™ Vault The Explore Qualitative™ (EQ) Database interface capturing consumer perspectives on unmet needs, strategic issues and new concepts shaping retail saving, investing and financial advice. Provides access to 100+ EQ™ modules over 10+ years of qualitative studies, with a forthcoming searchable quotes database for strategy, innovation, product and communications executives.
• Inside Advice® Benchmarking Confidential, data-driven benchmarking of advice and guidance experiences, leveraging the Inside Advice® Database covering over 650 metrics on nearly 200 current experiences. Includes the proprietary Inside Advice® Grid (3x3 by service level and scope) and 9 lifestage-based hypothetical customers, with measurement of 300+ variables and delivery of strategic recommendations in discovery sessions.
• Portrait™ of U.S. Household Wealth Annual market sizing report combining detailed government data with the Investor Quantitative™ (IQ) Database to size U.S. retail investors. Provides Portrait Grid™ breakdowns of household wealth by age and asset ranges, TAM/SAM/SOM analysis, and tracks the four major components of household wealth. The 2025 edition incorporated 80,000+ U.S. households and reported U.S. household investable assets approaching $78T in 2024.
• Wants & Pricing Report (Trends™ module) Covers the Wants & Pricing module of the Investor Quantitative™ (IQ) Database, including importance of wants, satisfaction gaps, customer satisfaction, perception of value, pricing mechanisms, amounts and understanding of how stores earn money. Licensed individually to non-subscribers after the subscriber advance-access window.
• Money Movement Report (Trends™ module) Covers the Money Movement module of the Investor Quantitative™ (IQ) Database, tracking completed and anticipated money movement transactions (8,300+ in IQ 2023), drivers of rollover, transfer of assets and new deposits.

Quantifiable outcome

• Customers of long-term Trends™ subscribers are 70% more likely to use those firms as their primary firm (58% vs. 33% primacy rate).
• +8 more outcomes

Named customers8 records

Segments3 records

Ideal customer profiles2 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

AI capability3 records

Feature6 records

Partnerships

Four partnerships are on record, tiered core and minor.

• CAPTRUSTcoreGTM or Marketing PartnerCAPTRUST, one of the nation's largest RIAs, hosts the "Revamping Retirement" podcast featuring H&W CEO Laura Varas. The discussion breaks down opportunities and challenges facing plan sponsors and fiduciaries, covering plan design, fiduciary process, vendor management, investment oversight, and participant engagement. The episode is also distributed via Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
• Tiburon (Tiburon Strategic Advisors)coreGTM or Marketing PartnerTiburon is a wealth management industry conference where Hearts & Wallets' CEO and Founder Laura Varas delivered a Tiburon Talk at Tiburon 2025 on the Visualization of U.S. Wealth Market Size (asset figures as of 12/31/2023). Laura Varas also delivered a 2025 Tiburon Talk on Inside Advice® Benchmarking.
• Apple PodcastsminorChannel Partner/ Reseller/ DistributorApple Podcasts is one of the listed distribution platforms for the "Revamping Retirement" podcast featuring H&W CEO Laura Varas, hosting the full episode alongside Spotify.
• SpotifyminorChannel Partner/ Reseller/ DistributorSpotify is one of the listed distribution platforms for the "Revamping Retirement" podcast featuring H&W CEO Laura Varas, hosting the full episode alongside Apple Podcasts.

Scale indicators12 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Direct peers

• Cerulli Associates: Cerulli Associates is a research and consulting firm specializing in asset management, wealth management, and retirement markets. It is directly comparable to Hearts & Wallets because both serve financial institutions with proprietary syndicated research and benchmarking on retail investor and advisor behavior.
• Spectrem Group: Spectrem Group provides market research and consulting to the financial services industry with a focus on HNW and affluent investor attitudes, behaviors, and product usage. Like Hearts & Wallets, it produces proprietary syndicated studies on retail/wealth investor buying patterns sold to FIs.
• Greenwald & Associates: Greenwald & Associates is a research firm focused on retirement, healthcare, and consumer financial services. It is comparable to Hearts & Wallets because both produce proprietary retirement and wealth benchmarking research sold to FIs, asset managers, and plan providers.
• J.D. Power: J.D. Power runs syndicated customer satisfaction and benchmarking studies across financial services (banking, wealth, insurance). It is directly comparable to Hearts & Wallets' Top Performer™ customer satisfaction and stores & success metrics franchise, using similar proprietary survey methodologies.
• Corporate Insight: Corporate Insight provides competitive intelligence and benchmarking of digital offerings for financial services firms (brokerages, banks, retirement plans). Like Hearts & Wallets' Inside Advice® benchmarking, it conducts controlled comparisons of consumer-facing FS experiences for enterprise subscribers.
• Cogent Reports (Escalent): Cogent Reports, a division of Escalent, produces syndicated investor and advisor research for wealth management, retirement, and retail banking. Its benchmarking and segmentation studies are directly analogous to Hearts & Wallets' IQ Database and Trends™ subscriber offerings.

Broad incumbents

• LIMRA: LIMRA is a large industry research and consulting organization serving the insurance and financial services industry with proprietary benchmarking, market sizing, and consumer studies. It is a broad incumbent to Hearts & Wallets because both produce proprietary FS research but LIMRA operates across a much wider portfolio with insurance-heavy focus.
• Morningstar: Morningstar is a broad investment research and data provider whose retail investor data and advisor software intersect with Hearts & Wallets' competitive intelligence and wealth-market sizing work. Morningstar is a larger incumbent with adjacent — but not directly substitutable — research products.
• Datos Insights: Datos Insights (formerly Aite-Novarica Group) provides research, benchmarking, and advisory for financial services, including retail wealth and retirement. It is a broad incumbent offering comparable syndicated benchmarking but with broader consulting-heavy monetization.

Others

• ICI (Investment Company Institute): ICI is the leading association representing regulated investment funds and produces widely cited research on household ownership of mutual funds, ETFs, and retirement accounts. It is thematically comparable to Hearts & Wallets' Portrait™ household wealth sizing but operates as an industry association rather than a commercial subscription research firm.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks7 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/heartswallets
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/1778857

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles10 records

Subsidiaries1 record

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about HEARTS & WALLETS