Most people feel awkward asking what financial advice costs, but it’s one of the fairest questions you can ask us. So here’s the straight answer: at 5 Financial, every advice fee is a set dollar amount, agreed with you and put in writing before any work begins. It’s never a percentage of your portfolio, and it’s never quietly built into a product.
Here’s what advice fees typically look like across the industry, what you should expect for your money, and where our own fixed-fee model sits in the mix.
Across the industry, ongoing advice is often charged as a percentage of the assets you hold under advice, typically somewhere between 0.5% and 1.5% a year, or as a fixed annual retainer instead.
At 5 Financial, we use the fixed retainer approach only. Our advisers, including me, are paid a salary, not a commission or a cut of your assets, so our advice fee doesn’t move with your portfolio’s ups and dow.
There’s another model worth knowing about. Some advice firms also own the investment products they recommend, with fees embedded inside those products. That lets them discount the advice fee you see upfront, because they’re being paid further down the chain. It’s a structure that can distort fair comparison between firms. Our fully transparent fee can look more expensive next to a discounted headline number, when really you’re just seeing the whole cost instead of a fraction of it.That’s a critical distinction to understand before you compare advice quotes.
Whatever model your adviser uses, your fee should buy you more than a phone number to call once a year. At minimum, expect a comprehensive annual review, proactive contact when your circumstances change, and advice that keeps pace with tax law, superannuation changes, and market conditions.
It should also mean real coordination across your financial life. Your wealth, tax, lending and estate plan are working together. That’s the point of an integrated advice relationship.
We only invite someone to become a client when we’re confident we can deliver at least double the value of what we charge. If we can’t see that clearly, we’ll say so, and we won’t ask you to engage us. We’re not here for everyone, and that’s intentional.
Working out whether you fit with us is something we’ll figure out together. The only step on your end is that initial reach-out. Give us a call, or leave your details on our contact page, and we’ll take it from there.
We’re not going to pretend commissions don’t exist anywhere in our business, because that wouldn’t be honest. If we recommend an insurance policy and you take it up, we may receive a commission from the insurer. If we help arrange a home loan, the lender may pay us a commission too, a standard practice across mortgage broking.
Neither commission comes out of your pocket, and neither is hidden. Both are disclosed to you in writing before you decide whether to proceed, and neither changes the advice fee we’ve already quoted you. We’d rather you know exactly where every dollar comes from than assume we’re something we’re not.
Curious what your fee would cover? Our team can talk you through wealth management and give you a plain-language breakdown before you commit to anything.