tl;dr: Knudge is moving away from our direct integration with the Redtail CRM integration. We have a plan for existing customers, and will be reaching out if you use Redtail and Knudge together. Also, Knudge’s support for MCP has advanced, with both Claude and ChatGPT officially supported. See your Integration settings for setup instructions.

A Surprise

On October 1st, in an email titled “Important: An Update to Data Access at Orion”, Knudge received a request from the parent company of Knudge’s longest-running integration partner, Redtail CRM. The full email is included at the end of this post. Orion, a privately-traded company, acquired Redtail in 2022 for an undisclosed amount. Our integration with Redtail just turned 6 years old, with the initial buildout in the latter half of 2020.

From the subject, the email looked like a routine Privacy Policy update. We’ve seen so many of these come through with services introducing LLMs to their normal operation that the email was almost ignored. A notification like that would be nothing to publicize, or concern ourselves with. However, this was no routine Privacy Policy update. Instead, the third paragraph included a $2000/month “Connected Ecosystem Support Fee” which, the email states, will be charged to Knudge starting a couple weeks from the notification (mid October advance payment for November, email sent October 1st). The stated reason for this fee is Orion expanding their API, including the introduction of an MCP endpoint. These fees are arbitrary price points, and vary wildly.

This is an entirely Knudge-built, Knudge-maintained integration. Redtail engineers, at some point, built an API — a programmatic interface which allows an external company, like Knudge, to interact with it. This one-time cost on their end (which was incurred at least 6 years ago) provides a standard way for other apps to interact with Redtail, without Redtail engineers having to do any additional work. The Knudge app uses this interface to sync data from and push activity back into Redtail. An advisor using both Knudge and Redtail can utilize this connection to interact more richly with their Redtail contacts using Knudge, and those enhanced interactions are reflected back into Redtail. All of this functionality was built, and continues to be maintained and enhanced, by Knudge engineers — likely amounting to hundreds of engineering hours over the years. We’ve had to work around severe limitations with the Redtail API, including:

  • A lack of OAuth support for login/connection. OAuth is an industry standard for authentication for these types of APIs.
  • Slow, cumbersome endpoints with limited filtering functionality. These shortcomings forced us to do significantly more work than any of our other integrations.

Open Minds Now Close

This action goes against everything we believe in. Knudge is a tool, and in using that tool, data is generated: templates are set up; messages are sent and received; knudges are created, delivered, and marked complete. That data doesn’t belong to Knudge — it belongs to the people that made it, our users, and always will. Knudge has no right to silo that data, or in any way impede an advisor from using or sharing that data in any way they see fit. We maintain a Public API (including MCP access) which any integration partner or LLM user can use to extend and enhance the Knudge app, empowering advisors to do more with that data. That is, and always will be, a free service, because we believe that Knudge’s data and utility does not belong in a silo. Knudge’s functionality enriches, and is enriched by, our connections with the outside world.

The latest move by Orion to close down and profit off of such connections goes against our philosophy. In the age of AI, we want more connectedness of tools and data. Knudge started on the idea that more advisors wanted to automate the boring (but important!) stuff, so they could get back to providing the best possible service to their clients. We want our users to be enabled and empowered by what they can do with Knudge, what new, complex workflows they can automate, and how they can do better for their clients without bogging themselves down. If we continued our relationship with Redtail CRM / Orion, we would be forced to either a) eat a cost that directly opposes our philosophy, or b) pass that cost off onto our Knudge⨯Redtail users. Neither of those is a fair outcome for anyone.

For all these reasons, Knudge leadership has decided to move away from our direct integration with Redtail CRM. We have no plans on directly supporting any product in the Orion ecosystem in the future. We will happily restore this link, provided that Orion upholds the industry-wide standard of free and open public APIs — dropping these fees, not only for Knudge, but for all their integration partners. We are continuously improving and expanding our integrations at Knudge, believing that a connected ecosystem of apps makes each one more useful.

Here are some of our existing and upcoming efforts to advance our own interconnectedness, which are available to all Knudge users and integration partners (at no cost):

  • We recently added official support for ChatGPT and Claude to use Knudge as an external connection via MCP.
  • We are rolling out an integration with Calendly.
  • We maintain a Public API, which allows any external integration partner to build an integration with Knudge.
  • We continue to maintain and support official integrations Wealthbox, Quin, and Salesforce, and Zapier.
    • Our Salesforce integration supports any Salesforce-based CRM, including official support for Quivr, XLR8, and Silentica.
  • We have a couple other direct integrations in the works, which we’ll announce soon. Let us know if you’d like to see Knudge connect with your favorite CRM or tool!

 

Thanks for reading! If you are an existing Knudge user and have any concerns, questions, or ideas: please don’t hesitate to reach out! We are hard at work on a migration plan for our Knudge⨯Redtail users, and will be reaching out in the coming weeks with next steps.

— Logan (Knudge Engineering)

 

 

Full Email Notification

In the spirit of transparency, the full message we received is included below, emphasis theirs. Names have been omitted for privacy. Also of note, though not included in the below email, are:

  1. The Connected Ecosystem Terms and Conditions, updated in unison with this email. This makes mention of the fees, insofar as what happens when they are not paid.
  2. The official Orion announcement of the change, though this makes no mention of the new fees.
From: _____________ <noreply@orion.com>
Date: Thu, Oct 1, 2026 at 2:10 PM
Subject: Important: An Update to Data Access at Orion
To: <______@knudge.com>

Dear ______,

Orion has a long history of championing powerful industry integrations and providing a leading data architecture. Today, we’re excited to announce the next evolution in Orion’s flexible ecosystem, offering stronger ways to connect. Our new connected ecosystem brings Orion Connect and Redtail CRM into one unified experience, with broader access, clearer standards, and a stronger foundation for what we build together next.

While we remain committed to helping advisors access data effectively and work with the providers they select effectively through Orion, two forces are changing what a modern ecosystem needs to deliver. The first is cybersecurity. Client data is highly valued in our industry, and every connection between firms within our ecosystem must be protected accordingly. Advisors and investors rightly expect every technology provider who touches their data to meet that expectation, and Orion is committed to keeping client data safe. The second is AI, which is dramatically increasing the volume, frequency, and complexity of data requests across our ecosystem. Meeting that demand securely and reliably requires modern authentication, continuous monitoring, and consistent standards for how every technology provider connects. This requires significant and sustained investment and is the right investment for our industry.

What’s changing

To support this new stage in our industry, we are introducing a Connected Ecosystem Support Fee to help fund continued investment in the security, reliability, and scale that this environment requires. Beginning November 1, 2026, you will pay a flat monthly fee based on your current assigned level of data access. Your monthly fee will be $2,000.00. Continued access to data through Orion will depend on this fee.

What’s included

Expanded access for you across Orion, including Redtail CRM and Orion Connect APIs

MCP access for integrations, rolling out in the coming weeks, and building on our recent MCP announcement, so AI-enabled tools can connect to Orion securely

Continued support for existing connection methods, including Redshift and Snowflake

What the transition looks like

Your first monthly fee will be billed in advance for the period of November 1 through November 30. You will be invoiced in mid-October, with payment due November 1, 2026. After that, monthly fees will be billed in advance of each billing period. We will send communications in the coming days to set up the process.

During Q1 2027, we will move from the flat fee to a support fee and usage-based pricing model that reflects your organization’s data accessibility and expected usage. Before the end of this year, we will share early insights into your current usage and how it will be treated under the new structure. Alongside that, we will bring our APIs and MCP together behind a single, unified gateway that provides integrations with a secure front door to Orion. Our teams will work with yours to optimize usage, reduce overhead, and identify the right integration points for the advisors we both serve.

Our commitment

Our commitment to our clients, our flexible ecosystem, and a secure, scalable infrastructure is stronger than ever. Today, that ecosystem supports $6.6 trillion in assets under administration, $211 billion in wealth management assets, and 8.6 million technology accounts, and every connection strengthens it. We are excited to build this together with the hundreds of firms committed to driving advisor and investor success.

If you have questions about your fee, current usage, or the move to usage-based pricing, please contact connectedecosystem@orion.com.

Thank you for building alongside us and for helping to keep innovation strong in our industry.

______________
President, Orion Advisor Tech
orion.com