Fee-Only Advice

How is Your Advisor Compensated?

Many investors do not understand how their financial adviser is compensated and what their financial advising relationship is truly costing them. It is important to us that all clients fully understand how we, at Vantage Wealth Planning, are compensated.

Commission Based Advisors
Primarily a salesperson, the advisor is compensated for the sale of investments, insurance, or other financial products. Commission based advisors are typically employees of a larger corporations. They often report to Sales Managers and are obligated to meet firm minimums. Clients should ask themselves, “who is my advisor working for?”

Fee-Based
Meant to confuse clients, fee-based is distinctly different from fee-only. Fee-based advisors charge clients a fee for the advice they give, however, they can also receive commissions from the products they sell their clients. These fees and commissions are far from transparent and are usually buried in paperwork and complicated payment formulas. Most clients will never truly know what their total fee paid to their advisor is.

Fee-Only
The advisor only charges a fee for the services rendered. Fee-only advisor's only product is their knowledge. Fees may be hourly, flat or retainer based, or based upon a percentage of the assets under advisement. As fee-only, we are upheld to the fiduciary standard which means our recommendations are always in the best interest of our clients.

Why We Choose to Be Fee-Only?
Unfortunately, most financial advisors are employees of large corporations and, in fact, sellers of financial products. In our opinion, it would be almost impossible to receive objective, unbiased advice from someone whose compensation is directly tied to the products they sell.

Fee-only advisors do not have this inherent conflict of interest because they are paid by the client, not the financial product provider. We are free to suggest the best investment vehicles and financial products for each client’s individual situation. Having this flexibility, as well as the fiduciary duty to put our client's interest ahead of our own, truly allows us to sit on the same side of the table as our clients and provide objective and unbiased advice.