Same Expertise. Different Price.

The Academy of Life Planning has launched a new Cost Comparison Calculator to show what happens when the same level of professional expertise is priced in two very different ways.

A Chartered Financial Planner can work in two fundamentally different models.

As a conventional financial adviser, they may charge an ongoing percentage of the assets they manage.

As a Total Wealth Planner, they can provide comparable professional expertise when it is needed, charging for the actual planning and support delivered rather than taking a continuing share of the client’s wealth.

The expertise may be equivalent.

The cost can be radically different.

That is why the Academy of Life Planning has launched its new Cost Comparison Calculator.

Try the Cost Comparison Calculator

The calculator translates percentage-based investment, platform and adviser charges into pounds and compares them with the cost of paying a Total Wealth Planner for fixed-fee or hourly support.

It allows people to see not merely the percentage appearing on a statement, but what that percentage may cost over time.

Because a percentage is not a price.

It is a formula.

And the larger your fund becomes, the more that formula takes.

Compare the adviser with the planner

The calculator is not comparing professional advice with doing everything alone.

Nor is it comparing qualified expertise with a cheaper, automated substitute.

It is comparing two ways of accessing high-level financial-planning expertise.

The financial adviser model

Under the conventional Assets Under Management model, the adviser commonly charges a percentage of the pension and investment assets they manage.

A 1% annual adviser charge means:

£1,000 a year on £100,000;
£2,500 a year on £250,000;
£5,000 a year on £500,000;
£10,000 a year on £1 million.

The charge rises automatically as the client’s assets rise.

It can continue every year, regardless of whether the client needs substantial one-to-one advice during that year.

The Total Wealth Planner model

A Total Wealth Planner begins from a different assumption.

The client may need expert support at important moments:

when retiring;
when receiving an inheritance;
when losing a partner;
when changing career;
when facing tax or estate-planning decisions;
when something unexpected happens;
or when reassurance is needed before a major financial commitment.

But that need is usually episodic, not continuous.

A person does not necessarily require a Chartered Financial Planner continuously standing beside their portfolio merely because money remains invested.

They may need intensive support today, little support for several years, and further help when circumstances change.

The Total Wealth Planner model prices the support around those episodes of need.

The client pays for professional expertise when it creates value.

The planner does not need to retain control of the assets in order to remain available.

The cost of continuous access

Ongoing advice is often presented as though the fee buys permanent availability, continuous oversight and peace of mind.

For some clients, that may be valuable.

But the important question is whether the level of support actually received justifies the cumulative cost.

Consider a client with £500,000 under management and a 1% ongoing adviser charge.

They may pay £5,000 in the first year.

If the fund grows, the fee grows too.

Over many years, the cumulative cost can reach tens or even hundreds of thousands of pounds, particularly once the lost future growth on deducted fees is included.

The underlying professional work may consist of:

an annual review;
portfolio monitoring;
suitability checks;
occasional correspondence;
and access to the adviser when circumstances change.

The question is not whether those services have value.

It is whether their value rises in direct proportion to the amount of money in the account.

Does a £1 million client necessarily require twice the work of a £500,000 client?

Does the planning become twice as complex?

Are there twice as many meetings?

Does the adviser incur twice the professional cost?

Usually, the answer is no.

Yet the fee may be twice as high.

Price should follow support, not wealth

Good financial planning deserves to be paid for.

The Academy is not arguing for free professional advice.

We are arguing for a closer connection between the price charged and the service delivered.

A professional fee can reasonably reflect:

the planner’s expertise;
the complexity of the client’s circumstances;
the time required;
the consequences of the decision;
the analysis undertaken;
and the support provided.

But the size of the client’s portfolio is not necessarily a measure of any of those things.

It is simply a convenient base on which to levy a recurring percentage.

This creates a structural difference between the two models.

Under Assets Under Management, revenue depends upon gathering, retaining and increasing assets.

Under Total Wealth Planning, revenue depends upon providing useful professional support.

One monetises the amount of wealth retained within the system.

The other monetises the value of the work performed.

The advice threshold is not a needs threshold

Percentage charging also helps explain why many conventional advice firms require a minimum level of investable assets.

A person may need financial help but still be refused an ongoing service because their pension or investment fund is too small.

The issue is not necessarily that their situation is simple.

It is that the percentage generated by their assets may be insufficient to support the adviser’s commercial model.

At a charge of 1%:

£30,000 generates £300 a year;
£50,000 generates £500;
£100,000 generates £1,000;
£250,000 generates £2,500.

Someone with £30,000 may be making a decision of enormous personal importance.

Someone with £300,000 may require relatively little intervention.

But the second person produces ten times as much recurring revenue.

This gives us an important distinction:

The advice threshold is not a needs threshold. It is a monetisation threshold.

The Total Wealth Planning model removes that dependency.

The client does not need to surrender an ongoing percentage of their assets to gain access to expertise.

They can buy the support they need, when they need it.

Start with the Cost Comparison Calculator

The Academy’s Cost Comparison Calculator lets you enter your own figures, including:

the value of your pension or investments;
the adviser charge;
the platform charge;
the fund charge;
and the cost of fixed-fee or hourly planning support.

It then compares the projected cost of the two approaches.

The calculator is not designed to prove that one model will always be cheaper.

For someone with a smaller portfolio who needs regular support, a percentage fee may initially cost less than paying a substantial fixed fee.

For someone with a larger portfolio who needs only occasional professional help, the difference may be considerable.

The purpose is not to force a conclusion.

It is to make the choice visible.

Compare the cost of financial advice with Total Wealth Planning

When the charges are difficult to find

The calculation is only useful if you know what you are currently paying.

That is not always straightforward.

Investment charges can be spread across:

an adviser agreement;
a platform schedule;
a fund factsheet;
a discretionary-management agreement;
a pension illustration;
a suitability report;
or the small print within a product prospectus.

Different charges may be presented separately even though the client experiences them as one total cost.

Some may be percentages.

Others may be fixed amounts.

Some may be deducted directly.

Others may be reflected in the investment price or retained interest.

If you cannot identify the charges clearly, use The Leveller™.

The Leveller helps you examine a prospectus, agreement or financial document and identify:

the charges being applied;
where value may be flowing;
obligations placed upon you;
restrictions or exit conditions;
hidden asymmetries;
and terms that deserve closer examination before you agree.

Upload or review the relevant documents first, identify the actual costs, and then enter them into the Cost Comparison Calculator.

The two tools work together:

The Leveller helps you discover the cost.
The Cost Comparison Calculator helps you understand its consequence.

Complexity protects the model

Recent criticism of the UK wealth-management industry has focused on the difficulty consumers face in understanding what they are paying.

Charlotte Ransom, founder of Netwealth, described the industry’s approach to some fees as “deliberate obfuscation”.

Nick Perrett, founder of Prosper, put the issue even more directly:

Complexity is often the product.

When people cannot understand the charges, they cannot compare them properly.

When they cannot compare, they are less likely to question the service or switch provider.

Complexity therefore does more than confuse.

It protects recurring revenue.

The Financial Conduct Authority has proposed requiring clearer disclosure of adviser, platform and investment costs and has challenged practices such as charging clients on cash while also retaining interest earned upon it.

Those reforms are welcome.

But clearer disclosure alone does not address the central question.

Even a perfectly disclosed percentage fee can remain structurally disconnected from the work being performed.

“1% a year” may be plain English.

But it does not automatically tell you:

the amount in pounds;
the cumulative cost;
the future growth lost;
what service you are receiving;
or what an equally qualified professional might charge under a different model.

Plain English matters.

Plain numbers matter more.

Support without permanent dependency

The Academy of Life Planning begins from a simple principle:

One-to-one professional support should be available when it is needed, without requiring continuous control when it is not.

You do not retain a doctor every day because you may become ill.

You do not retain a solicitor throughout your life because a legal problem may arise.

You access expertise when the circumstances justify it.

Financial planning should be capable of working in the same way.

A Total Wealth Planner can help people:

organise their financial life;
understand their options;
model decisions;
clarify what “enough” means;
prepare for major transitions;
and remain available when complexity returns.

The relationship does not have to be funded by an indefinite claim on the client’s assets.

The goal is not to replace expertise.

It is to make expertise available without making dependency the product.

Same expertise. Different economics.

A Chartered Financial Planner acting as a financial adviser may provide valuable, highly qualified support.

A Chartered Financial Planner acting as a Total Wealth Planner may provide expertise of an equivalent professional standard.

The principal difference is not necessarily competence.

It is the economic model surrounding the relationship.

One asks:

How much money can we manage?

The other asks:

What support do you need?

One charges continuously as assets remain under management.

The other charges when planning work and human support are required.

One grows its revenue as the client’s fund grows.

The other aims to help the client build enough understanding, confidence and capability to manage ordinary decisions independently.

That is the difference between Assets Under Management and Agency Under Development.

See the difference for yourself

You do not need to accept anyone’s argument about which model is better.

Enter your own figures.

Use your current charges.

Estimate the support you actually require.

Then compare the outcomes.

Use the Academy of Life Planning Cost Comparison Calculator

If your existing documents make the charges difficult to identify, review them first using The Leveller™.

The result may confirm that your current arrangement represents fair value.

It may show that a different charging model would cost considerably less.

Either way, the decision will be yours.

Because informed consent begins with understanding the agreement.

And human agency begins when people can see, compare and choose for themselves.

The Cost Comparison Calculator provides an illustration based on the figures and assumptions entered. It does not provide personal financial advice or recommend that you change adviser, provider or investment. Investment returns are uncertain, and actual charges and outcomes may differ.