What is the difference between a single and a multi-family office?
The difference is ownership. A single family office is a company the family owns, staffed by people the family employs, working only for that family. A multi-family office is a firm that serves many families from one team; each family is a client.
Most of the practical differences, including cost, control, privacy, and what happens over generations, follow from that one fact.
How do they compare?
| Single family office | Multi-family office | |
|---|---|---|
| Ownership | The family | The MFO firm |
| Staff | Employed by the family | Shared across client families |
| Cost structure | Mostly fixed: salaries, systems, premises | Fees spread across many families |
| Customization | Complete | Within the firm's services and process |
| Governance | The family's own board and rules | Often the firm's standard process |
| Privacy | Fully private | Depends on the firm |
| Continuity risk | Key-person risk in a small team | Firm or relationship-manager turnover |
General comparison. Individual offices and firms vary widely.
When does a single family office make sense?
An SFO makes sense when the family wants full control, has enough complexity to keep a team busy, and has enough wealth that a team's fixed cost is a reasonable share of assets.
That last point is the hard one. In UBS's Global Family Office Report 2025, the cost of running the office averaged 41.1 basis points of assets in 2024, and staff were 67% of that cost. Because salaries don't fall when assets do, a standalone office gets proportionally more expensive the smaller it is. We walk through the numbers in How Much Does It Cost to Run a Single Family Office?
When does a multi-family office make sense?
An MFO makes sense when a family wants professional coordination, reporting, and governance support without building an organization. It is also a common bridge: families often start in an MFO and move to an SFO as wealth and complexity grow.
The questions to ask an MFO are mostly about control:
- Who owns the governance documents, reporting history, and entity records?
- If we leave, what stays with us?
- Who will actually work on our family, and how many other families do they serve?
- Is the firm paid by anyone other than us?
What is a hybrid family office?
A hybrid gives each family its own family office, with its own entity, board, and charter, while a shared platform supplies the staff, systems, and reporting underneath. The family owns the structure; the platform runs it.
This is the model 2SIX Partners uses. The aim is the ownership and governance of a single family office, without carrying a full team's fixed cost alone.
What doesn't change with the structure?
Whichever model a family chooses, two things stay the same:
- The attorney and CPA still matter. A family office, single or multi, coordinates legal and tax work; it does not replace the professionals who are responsible for it.
- Governance is the real asset. The office is the machinery. The family's charter, decision rights, and preparation of the next generation determine whether the wealth lasts. See Family Governance.