Clear Money Guide
Guide and tool overview
See the questions covered here, then open the interactive utility.
Guides › Is an Advisor Worth It
Updated July 31, 2026. Quick answer: do it in two steps. Step one: find your all-in annual dollar cost — the advisory fee plus the expense ratios of whatever you are invested in plus any platform or account fees. Step two: compare that dollar figure to what firms actually publish at your balance. From our benchmark of published adviser fee schedules — weighted medians computed from real published fee schedules, not from a survey of opinions: $250,000: $2,000 to $2,500 a year. $500,000: $3,750 to $5,000. $1 million: $8,750 to $10,000. $2 million: $16,000 to $19,375. $3 million: $24,000 to $26,000. If you are materially above the range at your balance, you have a negotiation to open.
Check your fee against real Form ADV disclosures
Enter what you have and what you pay. The comparison is to the prices 176 SEC-registered firms actually disclose in their filings — not to a survey, and not to what other clients negotiated.
What this compares you to. Weighted percentiles of the annual cost disclosed in the Form ADV Part 2A fee schedules of 176 SEC-registered investment advisers, 145 of which publish a primary non-wrap asset-based schedule. Figures are the low endpoint of each firm’s identification interval, so they are the conservative reading: the real distribution sits at or above these numbers.
These are disclosed prices, not paid prices. Many firms negotiate, and many disclose no computable price at all. Percentiles are interpolated between five measured balances ($250,000 to $3,000,000); outside that range the tool compares you to the nearest measured balance and says so.
Method and full results: the fee benchmark · how we build our datasets. CC BY 4.0.
Getting your real number, which is not the one you were quoted
Three components, and most people only know the first. The advisory fee, which is on your statement, though often as a percentage rather than a total — the AUM fee calculator converts it. Fund expense ratios, which are deducted inside the funds and never appear on any invoice. A portfolio of active funds can easily add half a percent that no one mentions. Platform, custody and account fees, disclosed in the adviser’s Form ADV Part 2A under Item 5.C. Add the three, express the total in dollars, and compare dollars — percentages are how a large number is made to sound small.
What high actually looks like
The pattern in the measured data: at $250,000 the median works out to 0.80% to 1.00%, and by $3 million to 0.80% to 0.87%. The rate is supposed to fall as the balance rises, because the work does not scale with the money. So the clearest sign of overpaying is not a high percentage in isolation — it is the same percentage you were charged at a much smaller balance. A flat 1% that never moved as the portfolio doubled is the most common overpayment on this site’s data, and it is also the easiest to fix. Where the tiers should be: the breakpoint ladder.
Why it is hard to compare, and the sentence that fixes it
Because most firms do not publish a usable number. In our benchmark of published adviser fee schedules, at $250,000 only 28.4% of firms published a fee you could actually price; 16.8% published an “up to” ceiling and nothing else, and 25.7% published nothing usable — 42.5% combined. That opacity is the industry’s, not yours. Form ADV Part 2A Item 5.A requires an adviser to “provide your fee schedule” and to “disclose whether the fees are negotiable,” so ask, in these words: “What is my all-in annual cost in dollars, including fund expense ratios and any platform fees, and what breakpoint applies at my current balance?” How to read the answer.
If the answer is yes, you have three moves
Negotiate — the schedule says whether fees are negotiable, and at seven figures they usually are: how to negotiate and the scripts. Change model, which is usually worth more than changing firm: the break-even calculator, flat-fee fiduciary advisers, the model decision aid. Or leave, which is paperwork rather than a confrontation: how to fire an adviser, what switching costs, and the prorated refund you may be owed.
Compare dollars. Percentages are how a large number is made to sound small.
Take your all-in dollar figure to two or three other firms and ask them to beat it. The matching service below introduces you to advisers who pay to meet you.
This is free to you and there is no obligation to hire anyone — and because the advisers who see your information pay for the introduction, you start the conversation with leverage.
Before you start, what actually happens. The form is run by Kapitalwise, our advisor-matching partner. It asks about nine questions — age, investable assets, location — then your name, email and phone number, and verifies the phone by text.
Kapitalwise sends your details to advisers who pay for the introduction, so expect calls and texts. Clear Money Guide is paid when you submit the form, whether or not you ever hire anyone. Nothing loads and nothing reaches Kapitalwise until you press the button.
Compare fees, scope, conflicts, credentials and fiduciary duty before you hire anyone.
The Kapitalwise form opens here — you stay on this pa
Embed this calculator on your site
This tool is free to embed with attribution. Publishers, planners, credit unions and libraries are welcome to run it — the embed carries a visible credit link back to this page, and that is the only condition. Copy the iframe code from the embed directory, where every Clear Money Guide calculator is listed with a live preview and its snippet.
Suggested citation: “Advisor fee checker,” Clear Money Guide, 2026, clearmoneyguide.com/am-i-paying-too-much-in-advisor-fees/. Free to use with attribution and a link; no permission needed and nothing to sign.
ge.Ready to ask? The fee negotiation kit writes the letter for you, citing the same benchmark.
The full 2026 report: State of Advisor Fees 2026 — what advice costs at five portfolio sizes, and the finding underneath it: 61.4% of firms cannot give a $250,000 household a usable price at all.