⏱ 18 min read

Searching for "Perplexity Orion"? You're in the right place. Orion is the wealth-tech backbone behind roughly 2,400 RIA firms — about 100,000 wealth professionals running performance reporting, billing, Eclipse rebalancing, Redtail CRM, and the new Denali AI layer across more than $5.9 trillion in assets under administration. Orion exposes its data through three different surfaces depending on audience: Orion Advisor for the wealth professional, Orion API for developers building integrations, and Orion Advisor Client Access for end clients who log in to see what their advisor manages.

By Scott Blandford, Founder & CEO of Truthifi | Reviewed by Mike Young

Truthifi covers all three. This guide walks through the Perplexity Orion connection for advisors using portfolio.orionadvisor.com, the developer path at developer.orion.com, and the client portal at client.orionadvisor.com. Whichever variant matches your role, you end up with the same outcome: read-only, live Orion data exposed to Perplexity through MCP, with no credential storage and no ability to move money. Truthifi rebuilds historical data on connection, normalizing tickers, reconciling cost basis, and filling Yodlee-side gaps so Perplexity Orion analysis runs on uniform data.

This guide explains setup for each variant (about 5 minutes each), shows what Perplexity can and cannot do with your Orion data, and gives example prompts tuned to your role.

What You Need

Requirements depend on which Orion variant maps to your role. The Perplexity side is constant: a free Truthifi account and Perplexity Pro at $20/mo. The Orion side changes per audience.

• Orion Advisor — Active advisor login at portfolio.orionadvisor.com or orion.com, MFA enabled, and authority to authorize third-party read access. Catalog source: BAA #98548.

• Orion API — Developer account at developer.orion.com, OAuth 2.0 client ID and secret, and a registered redirect URI. Catalog source: BAA #110527.

• Orion Advisor (Client Access) — Client portal credentials at client.orionadvisor.com, MFA enabled, and an invitation from your advisor. Catalog source: Yodlee #14154.

• Perplexity Pro plan at $20/mo with custom connectors enabled

• Free Truthifi account at truthifi.com

• About 5 minutes per variant for setup

• Looking for ChatGPT or Claude? See chatgpt-orion and claude-orion. Comparing platforms? See perplexity-envestnet and perplexity-tamarac.

Connecting Orion Advisor (for advisors)

The Orion Advisor path is the right route for RIAs and wealth managers operating their book of business on Orion Advisor Solutions. This is the connection behind the "orion ai" and "orion connect" queries — advisors looking to use Perplexity for research-driven analysis of their book, fee benchmarking, and competitive intelligence on the wealth platforms. Truthifi pulls this through BAA (catalog #98548), which covers Orion Advisor including the Eclipse rebalancing context and Redtail CRM surfaces.

1. Sign in to Truthifi — Open truthifi.com and sign in. From your dashboard, click Add Institution and search for "Orion Advisor."

2. Authenticate at Orion — You'll be redirected to portfolio.orionadvisor.com. Sign in with your advisor credentials and complete MFA. Truthifi never sees your username or password.

3. Authorize read-only access — On the Orion consent page, confirm read scopes for accounts, positions, performance, and transactions. Firms with role-based access controls may need compliance approval first.

4. Select households — In Truthifi, pick which households or rep codes Perplexity can see. Advisors at multi-branch firms can scope by office.

5. Connect Perplexity — In Perplexity: Settings → Connectors → Add custom connector. Name: Truthifi. URL: https://api.truthifi.com/mcp. Click Add, sign in to Truthifi, authorize.

6. Verify — In a new Perplexity thread, ensure the Truthifi connector is enabled. Ask: "Summarize AUA across my Orion households and benchmark my effective advisory fee against the latest industry survey data." Perplexity's blended answer — Orion data plus cited external research — confirms the link is live.

What makes Perplexity distinctive on this path is that it cites sources. Where ChatGPT or Claude give you analysis, Perplexity gives you analysis with citations linked to industry research, regulatory filings, and academic studies. For advisors benchmarking against Envestnet, Tamarac, or Black Diamond, that combination of your live Orion data plus cited competitive intelligence is uniquely powerful.

Connecting Orion API (for developers)

The Orion API path is for engineers building against developer.orion.com — RIA-internal developer teams, ISVs, and fintech teams. This is where "orion api," "orion advisor api," and "orion connect login" search intent converges. Truthifi pulls this through BAA (catalog #110527) and normalizes raw API responses into the MCP schema Perplexity consumes.

1. Register at developer.orion.com — Sign up for a developer account and complete firm association. Orion API access is tied to a sponsoring firm; solo developers need an RIA or ISV sponsor.

2. Create an OAuth 2.0 client — In the developer portal, create a new application, generate client ID and secret, and register https://api.truthifi.com/oauth/callback/orion-api as the redirect URI.

3. Request scopes — Truthifi needs read-only scopes covering accounts, holdings, performance, and transactions. Sandbox grants are immediate; production grants typically require Orion partner review.

4. Bind credentials in Truthifi — In your Truthifi dashboard, choose Add Institution → Orion API, paste your client ID and secret, and complete the OAuth 2.0 authorization flow. Truthifi stores the refresh token in a hardware-backed key vault.

5. Connect Perplexity — Same custom connector flow: Settings → Connectors → Add → Name: Truthifi, URL: https://api.truthifi.com/mcp.

6. Verify with a developer prompt — "Compare my Orion API rate-limit headroom over the past 30 days to documented Orion best practices for API consumption. Cite the relevant Orion developer docs." Perplexity will pull your live metrics and cite the public documentation alongside.

Worth knowing: Perplexity is especially valuable for developers because of its ability to ground answers in public documentation. When debugging Orion API behavior, Perplexity will pull your live API metrics through MCP and cite Orion's public developer docs in the same response — collapsing the time between "what's happening" and "what should happen." That's a workflow ChatGPT and Claude can replicate, but Perplexity does natively.

Connecting Orion Client Access (for end clients)

The Orion Client Access path is for end clients whose advisor has provisioned a login at client.orionadvisor.com. The dominant search intent is "orion client portal" — clients trying to find sign-in instructions, often because they want to do more than view a static PDF report. Truthifi pulls Client Access through Yodlee (catalog #14154), which is the appropriate aggregator for end-client logins versus firm-level OAuth.

1. Confirm portal access — Make sure you can sign in to client.orionadvisor.com with credentials from your advisor. If you've never logged in, ask your advisor to re-send the invitation. Truthifi cannot provision Client Access for you.

2. Sign in to Truthifi — At truthifi.com, click Add Institution and search for "Orion Advisor Client Access." Pick the Yodlee result, not the advisor-side variant.

3. Enter credentials at Yodlee — Yodlee presents Orion's login form inside a secure aggregation flow. Enter username and password and complete MFA. Credentials pass to Orion, not Truthifi.

4. Pick accounts for Perplexity — Most clients see investment accounts custodied at Schwab, Fidelity, or Pershing through their Orion login. Choose which to expose; revoke individual accounts at any time.

5. Connect Perplexity — Settings → Connectors → Add custom connector → Truthifi → https://api.truthifi.com/mcp → authorize.

6. Verify — "What is my total portfolio value across my Orion-managed accounts as of yesterday's close, and how does my YTD return compare to the S&P 500 and the typical balanced portfolio? Cite the benchmark sources." A correct answer with citations confirms the connection plus Perplexity's research layer are both live.

If you also hold accounts your advisor doesn't manage, add them to Truthifi separately and Perplexity will see your full picture. The Perplexity advantage for end clients: when you ask "why is my advisor recommending this," Perplexity can pull your Orion data plus academic and industry sources that explain the reasoning — turning vague advisor-speak into something you can verify independently.

Example Prompts for Perplexity

Prompts are split by variant because the data, audience, and decisions differ. Pick the section matching your role.

Advisor prompts (Orion Advisor)

• Benchmarked Fee Audit — "Calculate my effective advisory fee weighted by AUA across my Orion book. Compare to the latest Kitces Research, Fidelity, and Cerulli surveys on RIA fees. Cite the source for each benchmark and flag where my book sits versus the median."

• Competitive Intelligence on Wealth Platforms — "Summarize my Orion book composition by household size and complexity. Then research how Envestnet, Tamarac, and Black Diamond are positioned in 2026 — pricing, features, AI strategy — and rank them as potential alternatives for the high-end of my book. Cite sources."

• Concentration Risk With Context — "Identify Orion households with single-position concentration over 10%. For each top holding, pull recent analyst commentary and any material company news from the past 90 days. Cite sources for each."

• Regulatory Watch — "Scan SEC and FINRA enforcement actions from the past 60 days. Identify any that involve practices Orion-using RIAs commonly engage in. Tag any households where the issue might apply based on portfolio composition."

Developer prompts (Orion API)

• Doc-Grounded API Debugging — "Pull my Orion API error rate by endpoint for the past 14 days. For the top 3 error sources, cite the relevant section of Orion's developer documentation and explain whether my usage matches the documented patterns."

• Best-Practice Benchmark — "Compare my Orion API call patterns against published Orion best practices and against any community discussions on Orion's developer forum. Cite each source and recommend the top 3 improvements."

• Schema Migration Research — "Orion API recently added new fields to the accounts endpoint. Find any blog posts, release notes, or community threads explaining the change. Cite sources and explain the implied migration path for downstream consumers."

Client prompts (Orion Client Access)

• Sourced Performance Story — "Explain how my Orion portfolio performed over the past 12 months. Compare to a 60/40 benchmark and to the median balanced fund. Cite the benchmark sources and explain what likely drove the gap or outperformance."

• Researched Fee Audit — "Calculate what I paid through my Orion-managed accounts last year — advisory fee, fund ERs, platform fees. Compare to industry norms cited in publicly available studies. Show the dollar total and the percentile."

• Question Set With Evidence — "Based on my Orion allocation and recent academic research on portfolio construction for my age and risk profile, generate 5 specific questions for my next advisor meeting. Cite the research behind each question."

Why Truthifi?

7.1. Security

Your Orion username and password never touch Truthifi's servers, regardless of variant. For Orion Advisor and Client Access, authentication happens directly on Orion's domain through the aggregator's OAuth flow. For Orion API, you supply OAuth 2.0 credentials that produce a refresh token Truthifi stores in a hardware-backed key vault. Every path produces a read-only, protocol-enforced connection secured with AES-256 encryption. Perplexity receives only scoped data tokens. You maintain complete control and can revoke access anytime from Orion or your Truthifi dashboard.

7.2. Privacy

Your Orion data stays under your complete control when using Truthifi. We never store login credentials from portfolio.orionadvisor.com, developer.orion.com, or client.orionadvisor.com. You decide which households, applications, or accounts Perplexity can access. Data is not sold to third parties, and authorizing Perplexity does not extend the same scope to ChatGPT, Claude, or any other AI tool. Perplexity's enterprise privacy posture aligns with this read-only approach — your queries and the underlying Orion data are not used to train external models.

7.3. Audit Trail

Every MCP data request is logged with full session details — which Orion variant served the data, which scope was used, which accounts were touched, and what Perplexity asked for. Because Perplexity also cites the external sources behind its answers, each session leaves two complementary trails: what Orion data was accessed, and what external research was cited. Advisors and compliance teams can reconstruct exactly how any analysis was built.

7.4. Data Quality

Orion's raw data is already cleaner than most aggregator output — Eclipse reconciles performance, and household roll-ups are pre-computed. Truthifi still normalizes across the three variants so Perplexity sees one consistent schema. Cost basis is reconciled across custodians, ticker mismatches between Orion-managed and outside accounts are resolved, and Yodlee-side historical gaps are filled. Perplexity operates on uniform data, whether the source is the Advisor, API, or Client Access path.

About Perplexity

Perplexity is an answer engine — a conversational AI that grounds every response in cited sources. Through MCP, Perplexity Pro connects to live data — your Orion accounts among them — and weaves that real data into responses alongside cited external research. The result is uniquely different from ChatGPT or Claude: Perplexity's answers come with footnotes, which matters when you're benchmarking against industry norms, debugging against documentation, or simply wanting to verify advisor advice against the academic literature.

For Orion users specifically, Perplexity's value is the blend of "your data" and "the world's data" in a single response. An advisor asking about fee compression gets both their book's fees and the latest Cerulli study citing the trend. A developer asking about an API quirk gets both their live error rate and the relevant section of Orion's developer docs. A client asking about asset allocation gets both their current weights and the academic research that argues for or against them.

About Orion

Orion Advisor Solutions, headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska, has been the connective tissue of independent wealth management since Eric Clarke founded the company in 1999. What started as a portfolio accounting platform has expanded into a full wealth-tech stack: Orion Advisor for performance reporting and billing, Eclipse for rebalancing, Redtail CRM (acquired 2022) serving more than 100,000 wealth professionals, and Orion Risk Intelligence for risk analytics. As of 2026, Orion supports approximately $5.9 trillion in assets under administration across roughly 2,400 advisory firms.

Orion's 2025 launch of Denali AI marked an inflection point. Denali is positioned as advisor-facing generative AI built on Orion's own data, with a publicly stated commitment that client data is not used to train third-party models. That stance distinguishes Orion from several competing wealth platforms with broader training rights. Orion's API has been the engine of a partner ecosystem of hundreds of fintech ISVs, ranging from CRM integrations to portfolio analytics overlays. Within the competitive set — Envestnet's Tamarac, Advent's Black Diamond, Addepar — Orion is generally seen as the most extensible thanks to its open API posture.

Orion website → · About Orion → · Orion developer portal →

Frequently Asked Questions

Which Orion variant should I use through Truthifi?

If you are an advisor running a book of business on Orion Advisor Solutions, use the Orion Advisor variant (BAA #98548). If you are a developer building against the Orion API, use Orion API (BAA #110527) — the OAuth 2.0 client path gives you the deepest data scope. If you are an end client logging in at client.orionadvisor.com because your advisor invited you, use Orion Client Access (Yodlee #14154). You can run more than one variant from the same Truthifi account.

Can advisors and clients both use Truthifi against the same Orion data?

Yes. The advisor connection and the client connection are independent. An advisor can connect through Orion Advisor and analyze the household; the client can separately connect through Orion Client Access and analyze the same accounts from their side. Scopes do not cross over.

Is it safe to connect my Orion account through Truthifi?

Authentication happens directly on Orion's domains — portfolio.orionadvisor.com, developer.orion.com, or client.orionadvisor.com — depending on variant. Credentials never traverse Truthifi servers. The resulting tokens are read-only and protocol-enforced; Perplexity cannot move money, place trades, change advisory agreements, or modify Eclipse rebalancing rules. Every request is logged. Complete security details at https://truthifi.com/security.

Truthifi security overview →

What does Truthifi allow with my Orion data — and what does it block?

Allowed: reading accounts, holdings, performance, transactions, billing data, model assignments, and (for API users) integration metadata. Blocked: trading, money movement, advisor-of-record changes, fee schedule changes, household creation or merging, and any write operation against the Orion API. The read-only architecture is enforced at the token level — neither you nor Perplexity can override it.

What about my Orion-affiliated advisor?

Perplexity is a complement to your advisor, not a replacement. Clients use Perplexity to prepare evidence-backed questions, sanity-check fees against cited industry data, and explore allocation tradeoffs. Advisors use Perplexity to benchmark their book against the published competitive set. Neither replaces fiduciary advice.

What Orion account types does Truthifi support?

Across all three variants, Truthifi supports investment accounts (taxable, IRA, Roth, SEP, 401(k) rollover), trust accounts, advisor-managed model portfolios, and the related billing and performance data. For Orion API users, custom report definitions and batch job histories are also surfaced.

How does Truthifi compare to other options?

How do I disconnect Perplexity from Truthifi?

Settings → Connectors → Truthifi → Disconnect. You can also revoke access directly from Orion: portfolio.orionadvisor.com → Settings → Connected Apps; developer.orion.com → your application → Revoke; client.orionadvisor.com → Profile → Linked Apps.

Do I need a paid Perplexity plan?

Yes. Custom MCP connectors require Perplexity Pro at $20/mo or higher. Free Perplexity accounts cannot add custom connectors.

Where is my data stored?

Perplexity does not persist your Orion portfolio data between threads. Data flows through the MCP connector to the active session and is not retained. Truthifi maintains a normalized cache for performance but cannot read or share it outside your scoped authorization.

How do I enable the Perplexity connection with Truthifi?

In any new thread, enable the Truthifi connector from your Connectors panel. The Pro plan keeps the connector available across threads.

Does this replace my Orion-affiliated advisor?

No. Truthifi delivers data; advisors deliver advice. Perplexity can deliver evidence-rich analysis of the data your advisor manages, but it does not replace fiduciary judgment.

What is Truthifi?

Truthifi is an independent financial data platform that connects AI assistants — Perplexity, ChatGPT, Claude, Grok, OpenClaw — to your financial accounts through a read-only MCP layer. We earn revenue through subscriptions only.

Who can see my Orion data?

Only Perplexity during an authorized thread, and only within the scope you granted. Truthifi staff cannot read your portfolio. Your Orion advisor (where applicable) sees the same data they always have through their normal access.

Subject to Perplexity privacy policy.

Can I connect both Perplexity and Claude to my Orion account?

Yes. Each AI connection through Truthifi is independent. Connecting Perplexity does not expose data to Claude, and revoking one does not affect the other. See claude-orion.

How does Perplexity compare to Denali AI?

Denali AI is Orion's native, advisor-facing assistant — tightly coupled to Orion data and embedded in the advisor workflow. Perplexity through Truthifi serves a different purpose: it pulls Orion data plus public research, regulatory filings, and academic literature into a single cited answer. Many advisors run Denali for in-platform tasks and Perplexity for research-grounded analysis.

Can Perplexity help with tax-loss harvesting against my Orion accounts?

Perplexity can surface candidates — positions with unrealized losses, wash-sale risk, and estimated tax savings — and back the analysis with citations to relevant IRS guidance and current rate schedules. The actual trades happen through Eclipse, your advisor, or your custodian, not Perplexity.

What types of accounts can I connect beyond Orion?

Truthifi supports over 18,000 US financial institutions plus the major wealth platforms — Envestnet, Tamarac, Black Diamond, Addepar, Advent — and crypto wallets where API access is available. Perplexity can then analyze your Orion accounts alongside everything else for a unified, cited financial picture.

Continue learning

For developers, the Orion API + MCP intersection deserves dedicated treatment. Model Context Protocol is becoming the standard way AI assistants connect to live data, and Orion's open API posture makes it one of the cleaner wealth platforms to expose through an MCP server.

Truthifi's MCP layer wraps the Orion API into a normalized, read-only schema that any MCP-compatible client consumes — Perplexity, plus ChatGPT, Claude, Grok, and emerging open-source clients like OpenClaw. This is what "mcp api" search intent is about: developers asking whether they can build an MCP server in front of a SaaS API without re-implementing auth, rate limiting, and schema normalization. Truthifi has done that work for Orion.

For ISVs building their own MCP connector against Orion data, practical patterns: cache aggressively at the household level (Orion's batch jobs are the source of truth, not the live API), expose data at the granularity Perplexity can reason about (positions over raw transactions), and gate every endpoint at the OAuth scope level rather than via application logic. Rate limits reward connectors that batch reads — single-position queries burn quota fast.

For internal RIA developer teams, the MCP integration path enables Perplexity-driven internal tooling: a Slack bot that answers questions about firm-wide AUA with cited industry context, a CRM overlay that pairs household alerts with relevant external research, a compliance dashboard that asks Perplexity to compare advisor behavior to current regulatory commentary. These are mcp connector and mcp integration use cases where Perplexity's citation layer adds a uniquely valuable dimension — your team isn't just getting answers, they're getting answers with sources.

Worth flagging: Orion's developer.orion.com terms require partner review for production scopes, so plan for review time beyond sandbox. Truthifi's existing BAA aggregator relationship covers most read scopes without separate partner approval for end users.

Connecting Perplexity to your Orion account through Truthifi turns a reporting platform into a research surface. Advisors get cited benchmarks alongside their book metrics. Developers get cited documentation alongside their live API behavior. Clients get cited academic research alongside their personal performance. As Perplexity's research capabilities expand and Orion's API surface continues to grow, the answer-with-evidence pattern becomes increasingly valuable.

Congratulations! With your Orion account connected through Truthifi, Perplexity can analyze real portfolio data with cited external context. Start with a simple question — "What is my current asset allocation and how does it compare to industry standards for my age?" — and grow from there. Data flows through a read-only MCP connector that cannot trade, move money, or alter your Orion configuration.

Note: MCP connections require a Pro subscription ($20/mo).

⚠️ Important note about AI accuracy Perplexity cites sources, but it can still make mistakes — including misattributing claims to sources or pulling from outdated material. Always verify important financial numbers independently. Consider sharing Perplexity's analysis with your financial advisor for a second opinion. Read Perplexity's accuracy disclaimer →

• How to Ask AI About Your Real Investment Accounts

• How to Track Your Investments Like a Pro

• AI Portfolio Analysis: Expense Ratios, Asset Allocation & Retirement

• Are Your Financial Firms Working Together?

• Getting Everything in One Place

• The Fear of Linking Accounts

Informational only. Not financial advice. Consult a qualified financial advisor before making investment decisions. Truthifi is an independent platform. This guide reflects current product functionality as of June 2026.

About the author

Scott Blandford is Founder & CEO of Truthifi, where he leads the company’s vision for transparent, AI-powered financial intelligence. Before founding Truthifi, Scott spent 25+ years in financial services, including senior roles at Fidelity Investments, Merrill Lynch, Bank of America, and TIAA, building the data infrastructure that institutions rely on to manage wealth at scale. He writes about the technology reshaping how people connect with and understand their financial lives.

Reviewed by Mike Young, Head of Product at Truthifi. Mike has 20+ years building digital investment platforms at Merrill Lynch, TIAA, JP Morgan, and Vanguard.