Reviewed July 18, 2026. Use this hub to choose the shortest path from an advisor quote or planning question to a useful comparison. Start with one tool, convert fees into annual dollars, then compare the written scope before deciding what to do next.
Clear Money Guide’s financial advisor fee calculator tools are designed for decisions, not browsing for its own sake. You do not need to open every guide. Pick the question closest to yours, use the linked calculator or comparison, and keep the result beside the advisor’s written proposal.
Choose the right starting point
I have an advisor quote
Turn the percentage, flat fee, retainer, hourly rate, or project price into comparable annual dollars.
I was quoted an AUM percentage
See what the percentage costs at your balance and how a tiered schedule can change the effective rate.
I am comparing flat fee and AUM
Find the portfolio balance where a flat annual quote crosses a percentage-based quote.
I received an hourly or project proposal
Check the rate, estimated hours, cap, deliverables, follow-up, and work that would become out of scope.
I want a broad cost benchmark
Start with the range of common pricing models, then narrow the comparison to the services you actually need.
I am looking for an advisor
Compare search paths and local fee context after you know the fee model and planning scope you prefer.
Choose an advisor search path
Browse local advisor-fee guides
Compare advisor fees in three steps
- Normalize the price. Enter each proposal in the financial advisor fee calculator. Include the advisor charge and any separately stated platform, fund, custody, trading, or implementation cost.
- Compare like with like. Use the advisor rates guide and fee comparison chart to separate price from service scope. A lower number is not automatically better if the work is materially different.
- Verify the engagement. Before using the advisor search guide, ask for fiduciary status, all compensation, deliverables, exclusions, implementation responsibilities, termination terms, and the cadence of ongoing advice in writing.
Save the advisor’s answers beside the calculator result. That creates a decision record you can compare later without relying on sales-call memory.
Fee calculators and pricing guides
Calculators and comparisons
- Financial Advisor Fee Calculator — compare common advisor pricing models in annual dollars.
- AUM Fee Calculator — translate an asset-based percentage into annual, monthly, and longer-term dollars.
- Flat Fee vs AUM Break-Even Calculator — calculate where two fee models cross.
- Financial Advisor Fee Comparison Chart — compare pricing structure, scope, and common tradeoffs.
Pricing explainers
- Compare Financial Advisor Rates — use rate context without treating a broad range as a personalized quote.
- Financial Planning Hourly Rate — evaluate hourly, project, and not-to-exceed proposals.
- Financial Advisor Fee Schedule — read tiers, minimums, breakpoints, and separate service charges.
- Financial Advisor Fee Structures — understand AUM, flat annual, retainer, hourly, commission, and blended arrangements.
- Average Wealth Management Fees — compare wealth-management pricing and scope.
- How Much Does a Financial Advisor Cost? — start with the full cost landscape.
- Advisor Fee Snapshot — review an illustrative cross-model benchmark with its assumptions.
Retirement and tax decision tools
Retirement and tax tools
- Retirement Planning Guide — organize the major decisions before comparing advisor scope.
- Ancillary Probate Calculator — price the second probate that real property in another state triggers.
- Retirement Tax Windows — map years when Roth conversions, gains, or withdrawals may deserve review.
- Social Security Taxability Calculator — estimate how provisional income can affect federal taxation of benefits.
- IRMAA Brackets and Surcharges — understand the income thresholds behind Medicare premium adjustments.
- Capital Gains Harvest Window — frame a gains decision around taxable income and timing assumptions.
Choose the right planning scope
Tools can clarify a question, but they do not determine whether you need portfolio management, a one-time plan, ongoing advice, tax coordination, or implementation support.
- Which Fee Model Fits Me? — match the engagement model to the work.
- Robo Advisor vs Human Advisor Fees — compare automation, planning depth, access, and cost.
Advisor search and local fee guides
Search by service model
Browse local guides deliberately
Use local pages for regional planning context, not as a substitute for checking the individual firm, professional, fee schedule, services, and regulatory record.
- Local Advisor-Fee Guide Library — choose a state, metro, county, or nearby city path.
- Find a Financial Advisor — compare matching, directories, professional networks, and direct research.
How Clear Money Guide reviews these tools
This hub was materially reviewed on July 18, 2026. Calculator outputs are educational estimates based on the inputs and assumptions shown on each tool. Broad ranges and examples are context, not a claim about the price, quality, availability, or suitability of a specific advisor. Clear Money Guide does not rank advisors, sell directory placement, publish fake reviews, or provide individualized financial, tax, legal, or investment advice.
For sourcing, calculation standards, limitations, and updates, read the editorial policy. To report an error with the affected URL and supporting evidence, use the corrections process. Also review the site disclaimer, affiliate disclosure, and publisher information.
New: the Provisional Income Calculator — how much of your Social Security is taxable, by filing status, in dollars.
Start with the flagship: the financial advisor fee calculator turns any quote — AUM, flat, hourly, or project — into first-year dollars you can compare.
New: the Fee Drag Calculator — what a 1% fee really costs over 10-40 years, with a shareable link to your exact comparison.
New: the Will vs Trust Breakeven Calculator — the statutory probate fees a funded living trust avoids in your state, weighed against its upfront cost.
Also in the toolkit: the capital-loss harvest helper (what a realized loss is actually worth against ordinary income), the dividend vs ordinary income comparer (qualified vs non-qualified treatment side by side), the savings-rate goal forecaster (how long a target takes at your current rate), and the portfolio second-opinion checklist (what to ask before paying anyone for a review).
Compare any two states yourself
The corridor pages cover the moves retirees make most often. For any other pair, the retirement tax comparison tool runs all 51 jurisdictions: pick two states and it returns the income-tax treatment of withdrawals, both death taxes and the probate fee model side by side. Enter an estate value and it tells you whether you cross either state’s estate-tax threshold — thresholds that run from Oregon’s $1,000,000 to Connecticut’s $15,000,000, several of them unindexed for years.
Work out the number for your estate
Seven states publish a statutory percentage schedule, so probate cost there is arithmetic you can check — and in several of them the attorney and the personal representative are each entitled to the full amount, which doubles it. The probate cost calculator does that math for all 51 jurisdictions, cites the statute beside each result, and tells you whether your estate is small enough to skip full probate altogether.
Which states should you even consider?
Published “best states to retire” lists blend an annual income-tax rate with a one-off estate threshold into a single score, which produces a ranking that is true for nobody. The personalised ranker takes your withdrawals and estate value and orders all 51 jurisdictions for your situation instead — Illinois ranks third for a $300,000 estate and drops off the list entirely at $6,000,000, because of a $4M cliff no listicle mentions.
Selling a home? Price the tax before you sign
A home sale is usually the largest single taxable event a household ever has, and the Section 121 exclusion decides whether any of it is taxed. The home sale capital gains exclusion calculator returns the dollar figure rather than a yes/no, and the compound cases sit around it: downsizing in retirement, selling an inherited home, a rental converted to a primary residence, and depreciation recapture.
When to claim Social Security, on your own numbers
Published breakeven ages cluster at 78 to 82 by assuming the cheques you take early earn nothing. The claiming age calculator takes your own benefit from your SSA statement and lets you charge an opportunity cost — at 5% the 62-versus-70 breakeven moves from about 80 to about 90. The pairwise cases sit around it: 62 vs 67, 67 vs 70, 62 vs 70, and claiming as a married couple.
Which account to draw from first, this year
Withdrawal order is usually given as a rule of thumb — taxable, then tax-deferred, then Roth — and the rule inverts more often than it is stated. The withdrawal order calculator ranks your accounts by real marginal cost for a single year, deterministically. The cases where the default breaks are set out separately: when taxable-first is wrong, once RMDs have started, around IRMAA cliffs, and why Roth comes last.
Will your estate owe tax — federal or state
The federal exclusion is $15 million per person in 2026, but 13 states plus DC levy their own estate tax with exemptions as low as $1 million. The estate tax calculator takes your estate value and state and returns the federal and state exposure separately; the full exemption and rate tables sit in estate tax by state.
Should you insure long-term care, or fund it yourself
The self-insure vs LTC insurance calculator computes the pot you would need to ring-fence today against what the premiums would grow to invested — 2025 cost-survey medians built in, every input editable. The decision pages around it: 2026 premiums by age, buying at 55 vs 65, and hybrid vs traditional.
What an executor is owed, by state
Eight states set executor pay by statute; the executor fee calculator computes those schedules exactly (California, New York, Texas, Florida, Iowa, Missouri, Nevada, Wyoming) and explains how courts set fees everywhere else. Companions: the fee is taxable, the inheritance isn’t and whether to waive it when you also inherit.
Exiting a permanent life insurance policy
The surrender tax calculator computes your basis, the ordinary-income gain (including the loan-payoff trap), and what you would actually keep. The decision pages around it: the four-door test, life settlement vs surrender, and the 1035 exchange route.
The clocks that start at a death
Enter the date of death and the deadlines-after-a-death calculator computes the whole calendar: the 9-month disclaimer and estate-tax dates, the 6-month valuation snapshot, the inherited-account dates, and portability’s 5-year window — each linked to the rule behind it.
Your statutory retirement dates
The retirement milestones calculator turns your birthdate into your exact dates: 59½, the rule-of-55 year, the 7-month Medicare window (with the born-on-the-1st quirk), your Full Retirement Age, 70½ for QCDs, and your RMD age under SECURE 2.0 — including the 1959 drafting-error fix. Companion: the Medicare enrollment window.
The divorce-year calendar
The divorce timing calculator runs your decree date through both December-31 branches (including the abandoned-spouse side door), computes the two COBRA clocks, and flags the beneficiary forms a decree never fixes.
Want one of these on your own site? Six of them are available as free embeds — one line of HTML, no key, no charge: the embed catalog.
Estate tools in context: the probate, estate-tax, executor-fee, elective-share and Medicaid-penalty calculators sit inside a larger machine — see estate planning for the documents and the process each one is priced against.