About the Company
Carry is a financial platform that helps small business owners build wealth via tax-advantage accounts and strategies.
The Challenge
As a fast-growing fintech, Carry needed a way to increase revenue per user in a way that also strengthened customer relationships. This wasn’t straightforward, because they knew that their customers faced unique financial challenges as business owners, and also had individual goals for their businesses and personal finances. Given the complexity, many of these customers lacked the expertise or resources to confidently plan and optimize their finances—and they weren’t interested in becoming financial experts themselves.
The Opportunity
Carry identified an opportunity to assist the small business owners on their platform with integrated financial planning for both their business and personal finances. They recognized that the offering would be unique and initially thought they would have to build and support the service in-house.
The Solution
With Uprise, Carry launched two premium subscription tiers that provide tailored financial planning to their small business owners, addressing both business and personal needs.
Carry’s premium tiers include:
- 1:1 access to a dedicated CFP® small business expert
- Custom financial plans tailored to each customer, including recommendations across their business and personal finances
- Video calls with their advisor to discuss financial strategies and goals
- 24/7 chat access with their advisor with guaranteed responses within 48 hours
- Ongoing support including financial monitoring and quarterly check-ins
The Result
A new VIP tier launched in a matter of weeks
After experiencing steady growth with their core product, Carry's primary objectives were to develop a high-margin, premium offering to boost value and revenue per user. They understood that achieving this goal required addressing a genuine pain point for small business owners and delivering a seamless solution.
However, speed to market was also critical in Carry’s decision-making process. They wanted to act fast while ensuring confidence in the solution they delivered.
By partnering with Uprise, Carry was able to launch a white-labeled financial planning service in just a few weeks. This enabled Carry to deliver significant customer value with minimal engineering lift, making the partnership with Uprise an easy and strategic choice.
Leveraging Uprise’s embedded financial planning capabilities, Carry has now expanded to offering to two premium subscription offerings: Essential Planner at $29/month and Plus Planner at $99/month. Since launch, Carry has seen high customer adoption and continues to partner closely with the Uprise team in evolving the offerings to match the needs of their expanding user base.
Increased trust through genuine, human financial guidance
As AI technology advances, many companies are opting for fully automated solutions to address the financial needs of their customers.
But for Carry, they understood that the vast majority of business owners feel much more comfortable talking about their money with an actual person. Therefore, having a human element was essential.
To meet this need, Carry partnered with Uprise, delivering AI-powered financial planning, but with a personal touch from a real Certified Financial Planner (CFP®). This approach not only ensured human involvement but also deepened their customer relationships, creating an additional layer of trust and engagement.
“It's honestly the main reason I moved forward with [Carry] and it's definitely worth it to feel like I have someone on my team that I can ask questions whenever I need. HUGE perk!”
— Austin, small business owner utilizing Carry's embedded financial planning services
Differentiated value that keeps customers coming back
SMB owners face unique, complex financial situations. As an SMB owner, the finances of the company are intricately intertwined with personal finances. This makes receiving financial guidance complex because everything – from legal entities to tax optimization strategies – needs to be accounted for. With Uprise, Carry is able to offer financial plans that are 100% personalized to each individual, taking into account the full scope of their business and personal situations.
“Most people in this space aim to be either business consultants or personal financial planners, but very few have the competence or capacity to excel at both,” says Ankur Nagpal, CEO at Carry. “That's exactly where Uprise stands apart.”
This unique expertise keeps customers coming back. With 24/7 access and guaranteed responses within 48 hours, they treat their fiduciary advisor as their go-to source for all their finance questions and needs.
Increased utilization of Carry’s broader platform
Carry users didn’t fully understand the value of Carry’s Solo 401k product, which is a relatively new tax-advantaged retirement account for solo business owners. Although customers valued retirement planning, they often weren’t sure about their eligibility and they underestimated the importance of increasing their contributions.
By integrating a financial planning service, Carry was able to better understand its customers. They discovered that customers didn’t fully grasp the fact that by under-contributing, they were not only missing out on personal benefits, but they were also missing out on advantages for their business taxes as well.
As a result of Carry’s new financial planning offering, customers gained a clearer understanding of their eligibility and the business and personal benefits of increasing contributions to their Solo 401k plans. In the first year of partnership, Uprise contributed recommendations for an additional $4.9M in assets to the Carry platform.
Scaling to become the all-in-one financial platform
Carry has a bold product vision - to build the Schwab for our generation, combining smart tax optimization with a modern investment platform. Uprise embedded financial planning has been a critical tenet of that vision, driving higher customer retention and increasing the lifetime value (LTV) of Carry’s customers. Through their partnership with Uprise, Carry has unlocked new ways to support small business owners and is able to transform complex financial challenges into opportunities for growth and success.
“Our partnership with Uprise has been critical in enhancing and conveying the value of our product to our customers. We’re excited for the growth and partnership to come.”
— Ankur Nagpal, CEO at Carry
