An Orion Alternative for Winning and Onboarding Clients
Orion is a deep system of record: portfolio accounting, performance reporting, trading, Redtail CRM, and compliance. Investipal is built for the work before an account is funded: statement intake, risk profiling, proposals, IPS, e-sign, and onboarding. Every module runs on its own.
Trusted by advisory firms across North America
Is Investipal a good Orion alternative?
Investipal is usually the better fit when the problem is winning and onboarding clients: turning a prospect held-away statements into a risk-aligned proposal, an investment policy statement, and a signed, funded account. Orion remains the stronger fit when the problem is running the book you already have, including portfolio accounting, performance reporting, trading and rebalancing at scale, CRM, and firmwide compliance. A common setup among firms that evaluate both is keeping Orion as the system of record and putting Investipal at the front of the workflow. Investipal modules also run standalone, so a firm can start with statement intake or proposals alone.
Investipal vs Orion
See how Investipal compares across key capabilities
Winning and Onboarding New Clients
| Feature | Orion | Investipal |
|---|---|---|
| AI Statement Intake From Held-Away Accounts | Not publicly listed | Advanced PDF, PNG, JPG, XLSX, CSV, or Plaid; every extracted row jumps to its source in the original document |
| Holdings Validation Before They Reach a Proposal | Not publicly listed | |
| Risk Tolerance Questionnaire and Scoring | Risk Intelligence | Advanced Portfolio, behavior, and risk capacity scored separately into Conservative, Income, Balanced, and Aggressive bands, with a documented override |
| Prospect Proposal Generation | | Advanced Six-step wizard ending in a drag-and-drop proposal studio with live portfolio components |
| Investment Policy Statement Generation | Not publicly listed | |
| Digital Onboarding Portal | Client Portal | Advanced Choose the tasks, disclosures, e-signature, and payment steps the household completes |
| Built-In E-Signature and Document Acceptance | Not publicly listed | |
| White-Label Client Deliverables on Your Own Domain | Branded client experience | |
| Embeddable Lead-Generation Widgets | Not publicly listed | |
Portfolio Analysis and Client-Facing Modeling
| Feature | Orion | Investipal |
|---|---|---|
| Current vs. Proposed Portfolio Comparison | | Advanced Performance, allocation, sector, region, income, and fee analysis side by side |
| Holdings Overlap With Fund Look-Through | Not publicly listed | |
| Named Historical Stress Scenarios | Stress testing | |
| Monte Carlo and Goal Funding | Planning | |
| Institutional Risk Analytics | | |
| Alternatives, Annuities, and Structured Products | Wealth management solutions | |
| Tax Transition and Withdrawal Modeling | Tax-intelligent trading | |
| Portfolio News and Sentiment Monitoring | Not publicly listed | |
Running the Existing Book
| Feature | Orion | Investipal |
|---|---|---|
| Portfolio Accounting and Book of Record | Advanced | |
| Firmwide Performance Reporting at Scale | Advanced | Portfolio level Portfolio and household analytics, not a reporting book of record |
| Trade Execution and Book-Wide Rebalancing | Advanced | Per portfolio Rebalance an individual portfolio with per-holding weight locks and drift warnings |
| Custom Indexing and Direct Indexing | | |
| TAMP, OCIO, and Outsourced Management | | |
| CRM | Redtail CRM | Integrates Connects to Wealthbox, Salesforce, and Redtail rather than replacing them |
| Advisory Fee Billing | | |
| Advisor Compensation and Payouts | Not publicly listed | |
| Compliance and Supervisory Review | Advanced | |
| Custodial Data Connections | Advanced | |
AI and Workflow Automation
| Feature | Orion | Investipal |
|---|---|---|
| Firm-Level AI Layer | Denali AI | Alpha In-app assistant with per-seat AI usage reporting |
| AI That Executes Workflow Steps | Not publicly listed | |
| Firm Knowledge Base Grounding AI Output | Denali Data Layer | |
| Automated Proposal Commentary | Not publicly listed | |
| AI Meeting Preparation and Proposal QA | Not publicly listed | |
| Reusable Onboarding Task Workflows | Redtail workflows | |
| Meeting Notetaker Integrations | Not publicly listed | |
Why advisors choose Investipal
Go beyond Orion's capabilities with a complete platform
Orion is strongest once assets are on the platform. The prospect stage is where advisors still retype holdings out of PDFs and rebuild proposals in slide decks. Investipal starts at that statement: upload it, verify each extracted row against its source in the document, and carry the result straight into risk scoring, comparison, simulation, and a client-ready proposal.
A typical stack sends the same client through a risk tool, a proposal tool, a document generator, an e-signature vendor, and an onboarding form. In Investipal those are six steps of one wizard that ends in a shareable proposal, an investment policy statement, signatures, and a configured client portal, all under the firm branding.
This is not an all-or-nothing migration. Keep Orion for accounting, reporting, and trading, connect Redtail or Wealthbox for CRM, and run Investipal at the front of the funnel. Org-level workflow settings turn individual tools on or off, so a firm can adopt statement intake and proposals alone and expand later.
Which platform is the better fit?
A balanced way to evaluate Investipal and Orion based on the workflow you are actually trying to improve.
- Your bottleneck is the front of the relationship: statements arriving as PDFs, proposals assembled by hand, IPS documents written from scratch, and onboarding chased over email.
- You want the risk conversation, the comparison, the stress tests, the proposal, the signature, and the funded account to be one continuous workflow instead of five systems.
- You want to adopt one module at a time. Statement intake, proposals, IPS, onboarding, and billing each run on their own, and org-level workflow settings hide the steps you do not use.
- You need firm-branded client deliverables on your own domain, including an interactive proposal link rather than a static PDF.
- You need a portfolio accounting book of record and firmwide performance reporting, which Investipal does not provide.
- Trading and tax-intelligent rebalancing across the whole book is the daily job, or you rely on custom indexing at scale.
- You want TAMP, OCIO, or outsourced investment management bundled with the technology.
- Redtail is already the operating CRM for your firm and you want CRM and portfolio data under one vendor.
Switch from Orion in minutes
Our team handles the migration so you can focus on your clients
Bring a real prospect statement to a short walkthrough. We scan it live, verify the extracted holdings against the source document, and build the comparison so you can judge the output on your own data instead of a demo file.
Link Wealthbox, Salesforce, or Redtail for CRM, connect Schwab and Altruist feeds or Plaid for held-away accounts, and attach your notetaker. Orion stays in place as the book of record while Investipal handles intake and proposals.
Import the model portfolios your firm already runs, set benchmarks and fee schedules, upload your investment philosophy to the knowledge base, and apply your logo, colors, disclosures, and custom domain so every client deliverable is yours.
Use Investipal for the next handful of prospects while everything existing stays where it is. Guided in-app workflows walk a new advisor through the first proposal and the first onboarding, so nothing depends on a training marathon.
Explore the next pages in your evaluation
Go deeper on the workflow areas that usually decide whether a comparison page becomes a real buying conversation.
See the six-step wizard that turns a scanned statement into a client-ready proposal.
Explore pageKeep Redtail as your CRM and connect it to Investipal client records.
Explore pageGenerate the IPS from the same goals and risk profile behind the proposal.
Explore pageReview the rest of the active Investipal comparison pages.
Explore pageFrequently asked questions
Common questions about switching from Orion
What is the best Orion alternative for an RIA?
It depends on which half of the problem you are solving. If you need portfolio accounting, firmwide performance reporting, and trading at scale, the honest answer is that few products replace Orion outright and you should evaluate direct system-of-record competitors. If the pain is the prospect and onboarding stage, statements arriving as PDFs, proposals built by hand, IPS documents written from scratch, and paperwork chased by email, Investipal is built specifically for that stretch of the workflow and works alongside whatever runs your book.
Can Investipal replace Orion completely?
Not in every case, and we will say so early. Investipal does not provide portfolio accounting as a book of record, trade execution across the whole book, custom indexing, or a TAMP. What it does replace for many firms is the collection of point tools bolted around those systems: the risk questionnaire, the proposal builder, the document generator, the e-signature vendor, and the onboarding forms.
Does Investipal replace Redtail CRM?
No. Investipal integrates with Redtail, and also with Wealthbox and Salesforce, so client records stay in the CRM your firm already uses. Investipal keeps its own client workspace for portfolios, proposals, documents, and billing, and pulls meeting context in from notetaker integrations.
Can we run Investipal and Orion at the same time?
Yes, and that is a common setup among firms that evaluate both. Orion stays the system of record while Investipal handles held-away statement intake, risk profiling, proposals, IPS, e-signature, and digital onboarding. Held-away and prospect accounts come in through Plaid or a scanned statement, and custodial feeds from Schwab and Altruist can be linked directly.
What does Investipal do that Orion does not publicly offer?
The clearest gaps in Orion public materials are AI statement intake with per-cell source citations, generated investment policy statements, built-in e-signature with document acceptance that can trigger billing, an interactive white-label proposal microsite on your own domain, embeddable lead-generation widgets, and an AI assistant that executes proposal steps rather than only summarizing them.
What does Orion do that Investipal does not?
Portfolio accounting and book-of-record reporting, tax-intelligent trading and rebalancing across an entire book, custom indexing, TAMP and OCIO services, cash and credit solutions, and Redtail CRM. Orion states that it administers $6.6 trillion in advisor-managed assets, which is a scale of custodial and accounting infrastructure Investipal does not offer.
How disruptive is adding Investipal for a firm on Orion?
Less than a platform migration, because nothing has to be turned off. Firms typically start with new prospects only, keep every existing account where it is, and use guided in-app walkthroughs for the first proposal and the first onboarding. Org-level workflow settings let you hide the tools you are not adopting so advisors see a shorter path, not a longer one.
Keep your book where it is. Fix the front of the funnel.
See how a prospect statement becomes a risk-aligned proposal, an investment policy statement, and a signed, onboarded household without leaving one workflow.