The licensing fee isn’t the expensive part. The expensive part is what happens when you want to leave — and realize your data, your workflows, your advisor experience, and your client portal are all trapped inside one vendor’s ecosystem. Vendor lock-in is the hidden cost that compounds every year. Milemarker eliminates it.

Firm-owned data · Open architecture · No forced migration · Portable infrastructure

The Cost Compounds Every Year

Year one is the licensing fee. Year five is the exit cost.

Vendor lock-in in wealth management has five dimensions, and each one gets more expensive over time.

• Data lock-in — Your client data, portfolio history, and operational records live on the vendor’s infrastructure. Leaving means a data migration project.

• Workflow lock-in — Your operational processes are built on the vendor’s tools. Leaving means rebuilding every workflow.

• Experience lock-in — Your advisors and clients are trained on the vendor’s interface. Leaving means retraining everyone.

• Integration lock-in — Your other systems connect through the vendor’s APIs. Leaving means rebuilding integrations.

• Contractual lock-in — Multi-year agreements with expensive early termination clauses.

Milemarker eliminates all five. Your data lives in your Snowflake warehouse. Your workflows run on Milemarker Relay across any system. Your experience is custom-built with Experience Builder. Your integrations are to your data layer, not to one vendor. And there are no multi-year lock-in contracts.

How Milemarker Eliminates Lock-In

Built to be left. Chosen because it works.

Every architectural decision Milemarker makes puts control in your hands, not ours.

Your data, your warehouse

Snowflake-native. You own the infrastructure. Take it with you if you ever leave — the warehouse and everything in it belongs to your firm.

Workflows that aren’t trapped

Milemarker Relay connects to 400+ systems. Switch any one tool and the automation keeps working — it’s tied to your data, not to a vendor.

Custom experiences you own

Experience Builder creates advisor and client interfaces that belong to your firm, not to a vendor. Your brand, your workflows, your IP.

Integrations to your data, not their platform

When you connect a system to Milemarker, you’re connecting to YOUR data warehouse — not to a vendor’s proprietary ecosystem.

No multi-year commitments required

Milemarker earns your business on value, not contractual lock-in. We don’t need long-term agreements to keep you.

Migration-proof

Add tools, switch tools, remove tools. The data layer and the experience layer adapt. No re-implementation needed when your stack changes.

$200B+

AUA on Platform

400+

Integrations

97%

Client Retention

Common Questions

Vendor lock-in questions answered

We’re already locked in to a platform. Is it too late?

No. Milemarker can run alongside any existing platform — extending it by unifying data from systems it doesn’t connect to. You don’t have to rip and replace to start reducing lock-in.

How do we know Milemarker won’t create its own lock-in?

Your data lives in YOUR Snowflake warehouse — you own the infrastructure, not us. Our integrations connect to standard APIs. Our experience layer is built on your data, not our proprietary format. If you ever leave, your data and your warehouse go with you.

What does it cost to switch away from a proprietary platform?

Depends on the platform, but typical costs include: 6–18 month migration, data export projects, workflow rebuilds, advisor retraining, client communication, and contract termination fees. It’s almost always more than the original licensing cost.

Can we gradually reduce lock-in?

Yes. The most common approach: connect Milemarker to your existing platform as a data source, then gradually build new workflows and experiences on the open architecture. Over time, the proprietary platform becomes one connector among many, not the center of everything.

Related guides

Part of the Wealth Operations series:

• The Hidden Costs of a Proprietary Advisor Desktop

• Open Architecture Advisor Platform

• Centralized Advisor Platform for Wealth Management

• Enterprise Wealth Platforms Without the Enterprise Lock-In

• Data Migration for RIAs: Moving CRM, Custodian & Portfolio Data Without Breaking Everything

• Data-Driven M&A Due Diligence for RIAs: Evaluate Acquisitions with Confidence