Almost half of clients report increase in advice fees

NextWealth's annual Fee Benchmarking 2026 report revealed that the average ongoing advice fee charged by advisers in 2026 is 83 bps, an increase from 77 bps the previous year. This comes as almost one in five (17%) of advisers polled said that they plan to increase their initial fees in the next 12 months. NextWealth found that while advisers see AI as enhancing value, improving quality, consistency and scalability of their firm, they do not expect tools to result in a reduction in advice fees. More than half (51%) said that they expect AI to allow them to provide more value for the s...