What we will not claim
Fee-only describes how a planner is paid. It does not make a planner conflict-free.
What being paid only by clients does and does not settle, and how each way of being paid pulls somewhere.
AI-generated illustration. Not a real home or business.
What you will see advertised
“We're fee-only, so there are no conflicts of interest.”
Quoted in order to be refused: this practice never says it, and the rest of this page says why.
Fee-only means the planner is paid only by the people it works for. Every way of being paid still pulls somewhere, and the SEC has fined advisers that claimed to be conflict-free. So this site says fee-only and what it covers, names the conflicts, and never says it has none.
What the rules say
Each read against its source in October 2026.
- Nine advisers settled charges that included claiming conflict-free advisory services they could not substantiate, membership of an organization that did not exist, unsubstantiated awards and testimonials not from clients (SEC 2024-121).
- An adviser's advertisement may not include an untrue statement, a statement it cannot substantiate, a misleading implication, or benefits without fair and balanced treatment of the risks (17 CFR 275.206(4)-1).
The sources, to read in full:
What we say instead
Fee-only means the practice is paid only by the people it works for: no commissions, no ongoing payments from fund companies or insurers, and no referral fees from any attorney, accountant or insurance professional it names. It does not mean conflict-free.
Every way of being paid has a pull in it. A flat fee can reward doing less work; an hourly fee can reward taking longer; a year of planning can reward keeping you as a client. A real planner names these and tells you how it handles them: here, the scope of every plan is written down before it starts, every hours estimate is in writing, and the year of planning ends by itself.
- We do not say fee-only means conflict-free.
Why planners' websites say it, and why it doesn't hold
Fee-only is a real difference, and a planner who has given up commissions wants credit for it. The shortest way to claim the credit is to say the conflicts went with the commissions, and the sentence sounds like the natural end of the thought.
The first rule above describes advisers fined for claiming to be free of conflict when they could not show it. Giving up commissions removes one pull and leaves the others: a flat fee, an hourly rate and a fee for a year each reward something, and a planner paid a share of the money still invested is rewarded for keeping it there. A claim that nothing pulls at all cannot be shown, because there is no way of being paid that pulls nowhere.
What a planning practice can honestly say, and do
What a practice can honestly do is name the pull in each fee and say what it does about it. The fee that grows with savings is the one this practice leaves out altogether:
We don't charge a percentage of anything. A fee that grows with your savings would pull a planner toward keeping money invested, when a household may decide instead to pay off a loan, buy a home or send money to family.
And for the fees it does charge, the check on each pull is written down, in the estimate and in the end date:
Questions after a plan are $300 an hour, billed by the half hour. You get a written estimate of the hours before the work starts, and the hours are billed at the end of the month they were worked.
A year of planning is $3,000 for twelve months: two meetings, questions by e-mail, and the plan updated when your life changes. It is billed $750 at the end of each quarter, for the quarter just worked, so nothing is paid ahead. It ends after twelve months and never renews by itself: a second year is a new agreement.
What to ask any planner
Put them to any planner before you sign anything. A plain answer tells you something, and so does a vague one.
- How are you paid, in dollars, for the work you would do for me?
- Does anybody other than me pay you anything when I act on your advice?
- Which way of being paid do you use, and what does it reward?
- If you refer me to an attorney, an accountant or an agent, does any money come back to you?
- What do you do about the pull in your own fee?
The other things this site will not claim
Ask for a first meeting
A first meeting costs nothing, gives no advice and asks nothing of you afterwards: about forty-five minutes, at the office or by video. The office replies in office hours.