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SEC IAPD is the official U.S. government database of investment adviser filings. Best Investors is not the SEC and is not IAPD. It reads the same public IAPD XML feeds and turns them into firm, advisor, and office pages you can search by zip, name, or specialty.
Use IAPD when you need the government original. Use Best Investors when you want that filing on a map, next to the rest of the firm’s Form ADV answers, with a plain-language explainer for each item code.
IAPD (Investment Adviser Public Disclosure) is run for the SEC. A firm’s Form ADV Part 1A lives there. So do brochures, Form CRS, and related documents. The record is the legal public file.
Anyone can search IAPD by name or CRD number. The site is built for lookup of a known firm or person, not for browsing “advisors near this zip” as a consumer directory.
IAPD does not rank firms for you. It does not sell placement. It does not add photos, claim flows, or contact forms. That is the point: it is the source file, not a marketplace.
Best Investors downloads the public IAPD bulk feeds (SEC firms, state firms, and individuals) and stores them as organization, individual, and location records. The homepage states coverage of 35,000+ registered firms and 600,000+ investment professionals across the United States.
On a firm profile, the same Part 1A answers appear with item codes such as 5F(2)(c) (regulatory AUM) and 5G(1) (financial planning). Each published code links to a Form ADV explainer. Search sorts nearby offices by distance. Claimed owners can take questions through the site. Pro listings ($9.99/month) sort first in search and directories, show a Pro badge, and may include more photos.
Daily Advisor News reads feed-to-feed changes (AUM movers, new names, exits). That series is derived from the same filings. It is not a second regulatory system.
| Feature | SEC IAPD | Best Investors |
|---|---|---|
| Official source of the filing | Yes. This is the public file. | No. Republishes the public feeds. |
| Search by zip / distance | Not built as a consumer map. | Yes. Nearby firms and offices. |
| Full Part 1A on one profile | Filing views on IAPD. | Item-coded ADV panel on the firm page. |
| Plain-language item guides | SEC form instructions. | /info/adv/ explainers linked from the panel. |
| Paid placement | None. | Pro sorts first. Disclosed on this site. |
| Contact / claim | Not a lead product. | Claim listing and message forms. |
The filing contents should match. If they do not, treat IAPD as the original and treat Best Investors as a display layer that can lag a feed cycle.
Best Investors is not a regulator and not legal advice. A clean profile here is not a government endorsement.
Form ADV answers are self-reported by the adviser. Best Investors does not audit AUM or rewrite Item 11 narratives.
Pro placement means a paid listing can appear above a closer unpaid listing. Distance is still the geographic sort. Pro is applied after that fetch. Read that as advertising, not as a quality score.
Feed timing: pages update after the ingest jobs run. IAPD can show a filing Best Investors has not yet rebuilt.
For how Best Investors treats the feed as a source, see Why Best Investors is a filing source.