An Orion Alternative for Winning and Onboarding Clients
Compare Orion and Investipal across portfolio operations, prospect analysis and client onboarding. See where each fits your firm’s workflow.
At a glance
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.
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.
Choose Orion if
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.
Why consider Investipal?
The Work Before the Account Is Funded
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.
One Workflow Instead of a Handoff Chain
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.
Add It Without Replacing Your System of Record
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.
InvestipalInvestment proposal
Prepared for the Morgan household
Your next chapter. A considered approach.
Investment recommendation
Planning the transition
1
Book a Working Session
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.
30 minutes
2
Connect the Systems You Are Keeping
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.
One setup pass
3
Load Your Models and Brand Kit
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.
At your own pace
4
Run It in Parallel on New Prospects
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.
Immediate
Frequently asked questions
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.
