What a Strong Equity Crowdfunding Advisory Service Tells You

The best advisory services do more than host your offering page. They tell you what a successful raise costs, including the marketing spend required to attract enough investors to hit your target. Most platforms imply that minimal promotion is enough. That is misleading, and issuers who build a budget around it routinely fall short of their goals. Ongoing marketing costs are usually substantial, and they vary with the amount being raised and how efficiently a campaign performs. We work with client companies and their marketing agencies throughout the life of the offering to keep improving that efficiency.

Cost Guidance From the Start

We provide upfront cost guidance on what it takes to market an offering successfully. That means not softening the required marketing commitment, and not hiding fees inside a percentage-based structure. We do not charge percentage fees, and our platform fees are materially lower than those charged by competing Reg A+ platforms.

Early-stage issuers should also budget for a two-year US GAAP audit, which typically runs $25,000 to $40,000, followed by securities legal work and then a marketing agency. The sequence matters. In a Reg A+ offering, the first service provider you need is the auditor, followed by the securities attorney, then the marketing agency.

A Proprietary Platform Built for Scale

We built our own back-end system to process investments and keep the investor experience simple. It includes full analytics, marketing integration, and low payment processing fees for issuer companies. That last point matters more than most issuers realize. Payment processing costs compound quickly when a company collects thousands of smaller investments from retail participants, and a clunky payment experience kills conversions. Our platform was built to handle high investor volume without that friction, which is a real operational advantage over platforms that rely on third-party infrastructure.

A Coordinated Network of Service Providers

We introduce every service provider a company needs: auditors, securities attorneys, marketing agencies, transfer agents, and, when appropriate, broker-dealers, and we advise clients on how to use each one well. This is not a referral list. We guide clients through how to work with each provider and in what sequence. Transfer agents, for instance, become essential once a company has a large number of investors, since they make it possible to manage shareholder records at scale. Most first-time issuers don't know when to bring in each provider or how to manage those relationships efficiently. That is where advisory depth earns its keep.

Where Broker-Dealers Fit, and Where They Don't

For most Reg A+ offerings, we do not recommend bringing in a broker-dealer. The one exception is an IPO onto the NASDAQ or NYSE in a strong market, where underwriters can add real value. Using a broker-dealer adds to the cost of raising capital. It slows the process because FINRA, which regulates brokers, moves slowly and often delays SEC Qualification of a Reg A+ offering. When a broker-dealer is involved, FINRA is always part of the process, and FINRA severely limits the advertising an issuer can run to attract investors. That restriction makes raising capital substantially harder. For most Reg A+ issuers, avoiding broker-dealers is faster, more cost-effective, and more flexible.

What the Reg A+ Timeline Looks Like

A cost-effective Reg A+ raise typically runs about 12 months. The SEC has qualified some of our client offerings in a matter of days, and the average time to Qualification after filing is about 50 days. These are real benchmarks, not aspirational ones, and they let issuers sequence the audit, legal prep, and marketing ramp correctly. There are also ongoing costs for SEC reporting and continued marketing after a Reg A+ offering closes, and they should budget for those from the beginning, not as an afterthought.

Secondary Markets and the Path to a Public Listing

We introduce corporate clients to secondary markets, including ATS-type markets and the major stock exchanges. A new startup can go public on the OTCQB or OTCQX and list on an Alternative Trading System through a Reg A+ offering. Listing on NASDAQ or NYSE requires two years of operating history, along with PCAOB audits covering the quarter before listing. In a Reg A+ Direct Listing onto the NASDAQ or NYSE, no shares are sold during the listing itself. Share sales happen earlier, as the company raises capital. Once listed, liquidity depends heavily on how well the company has been marketed and how compelling it is to investors.

TestTheWaters™(Optional) and Other Ways to Start

For companies not ready to commit to a full offering, our TestTheWaters™(optional) service is available at $10,000 per month for two months. It lets issuers gauge investor interest before taking on audit and legal costs. We also accept Reg D 506(c) and Reg D 506(b) offerings on our platform, and we are glad to assist and host Reg A+ offerings for Canadian companies. Rod Turner, capital-raising advisor and consultant, makes his advisory services available directly to our clients, giving issuers access to experienced, direct guidance on strategy, sequencing, and cost management throughout the raise.