When you sign up as an advisor on Policy Stack, you move through four steps before you land in your practice dashboard. This article describes each step factually so you know what to expect.
Step 1: Practice Wizard
The wizard captures the information Policy Stack needs to set up your practice profile and directory listing.
You enter:
- Practice name and tagline — what shows up on your public advisor profile
- Designations and licenses — credentials that appear on your directory card and profile page
- Licensed states — drives which client searches surface you in the directory
- Contact details — your business email, website, and a professional headshot
- Your slug — the URL path for your public profile (pre-filled from your name, editable)
The wizard validates as you go — you cannot advance past a step until its required fields are filled in.
Step 2: Sandbox Tour
After you click Let's Go at the end of the wizard, Policy Stack drops you into a sandbox practice with synthetic clients pre-loaded. The sandbox tour walks you through:
- The book-magnitude hero and ranked Today queue on the practice dashboard
- A seeded client workspace and its Blueprint
- Smart Paste and Smart Query for capturing and retrieving client context
- The client Banking hero, including current Net CV and recorded system metrics
- An optional handoff into the client's own Banking dashboard, policy workspace, and recorded loan activity
The sandbox uses synthetic clients — Daniel, Sarah, and other named accounts you never need to manage. Every synthetic client appears as Connected with Read & write access so you can explore the full advisor workflow. These demonstration badges do not represent real client consent, and nothing in the sandbox affects real clients or your billing.
You can step through the tour at your own pace or click End tour at any time. Both paths are valid — the tour is a guided exploration, not a prerequisite. The first-run sequence stays focused; Pipeline, Scenarios, Analytics, Timeline, Notes, and other secondary surfaces remain available outside the guided tour.
Step 3: Choose Your Plan
After the tour (or after you skip it), you land on the Choose your plan page. This is where you pick from the four advisor tiers — Practice Solo, Practice 10, Practice 25, or Practice 50 — and complete Stripe checkout.
Skipping the sandbox tour does NOT drop you into an empty practice dashboard. The choose-plan page is the gate before you can use your real practice workspace, so the flow always routes you through it. This is intentional — the trial starts when you complete checkout, not when you skipped the tour.
Each tier card shows: monthly price, included client seats, overflow availability, branded exports, and directory placement. Tier comparison is also documented in Advisor Tiers Explained.
Step 4: Practice Dashboard
After checkout completes, Stripe sends you back to your book-led practice dashboard. Your trial is active, your profile is live in the directory, and your sandbox stays available as a reference while you onboard your first real clients. The dashboard keeps the ranked Today queue alongside recorded book magnitude and Practice Depth so the operating view matches the shorter sandbox introduction.
Common Questions
What if I close the wizard mid-step? Your progress is saved. The next time you sign in, Policy Stack returns you to the step where you left off.
What if I want to revisit the sandbox tour later? The sandbox stays available from your practice dashboard until you complete your first real client setup. After that, the sandbox tour is no longer surfaced — but the sandbox data itself remains for as long as you want to reference it.
Can I change plans after I pick one? Yes. Upgrades take effect immediately; downgrades process at the end of your current billing cycle. See Upgrading Your Practice Tier.
Does Builder Pro time carry over? If you were on Builder Pro before elevating to an advisor account, the unused time on your Builder Pro billing period is applied as a prorated credit toward your first advisor charge.