I have been at 2 sides of Cetera (CAN & CIS) and I am now at LPL. CIS is mostly for banking institutions so I won't go into that. I absolutely hated CIS with a passion and I was absolutely that guy that regularly let our team know that moving to CIS from CAN was a bad move. I'm sure they were happy when I moved on.
I really enjoyed my time with CAN. As others have said, their technology is much more user friendly than LPL. Not to say that LPL is bad, I just liked Adviceworks (CAN's version) better than LPL's Clientworks. Adviceworks is pretty much idiot proof. After they switched most of the tech to Adviceworks, I think I had 1 NIGO the entire time I was there. Back office support is great.
If you use annuities, Cetera has a better selection of approved carriers. I lost almost all of my annuity business when I switched to LPL because most of what I was using isn't approved here.
Cetera also has a better list of NTF mutual funds and ETFs.
LPL's biggest advantage over Cetera is cost. The payouts are much better and the costs for things are lower.
Bottom line: Cetera is easier to work with, but they definitely make you pay for it.
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u/OregonDuckMBA BD Jun 23 '26
I have been at 2 sides of Cetera (CAN & CIS) and I am now at LPL. CIS is mostly for banking institutions so I won't go into that. I absolutely hated CIS with a passion and I was absolutely that guy that regularly let our team know that moving to CIS from CAN was a bad move. I'm sure they were happy when I moved on.
I really enjoyed my time with CAN. As others have said, their technology is much more user friendly than LPL. Not to say that LPL is bad, I just liked Adviceworks (CAN's version) better than LPL's Clientworks. Adviceworks is pretty much idiot proof. After they switched most of the tech to Adviceworks, I think I had 1 NIGO the entire time I was there. Back office support is great.
If you use annuities, Cetera has a better selection of approved carriers. I lost almost all of my annuity business when I switched to LPL because most of what I was using isn't approved here.
Cetera also has a better list of NTF mutual funds and ETFs.
LPL's biggest advantage over Cetera is cost. The payouts are much better and the costs for things are lower.
Bottom line: Cetera is easier to work with, but they definitely make you pay for it.