Are you fee-only, and what does that actually mean for the advice I get?
What financial advisory firms need to publish
Compensation structure directly shapes what an advisor is incentivized to recommend, and most clients have never been told plainly which model they are dealing with.
How customers actually ask it
The same intent arrives in wording your page probably does not use. All of these mean the same thing:
- “Are you fee-only, and what does that actually mean for the advice I get?”
- “fee only vs commission financial advisor”
- “does my advisor get commissions”
- “fiduciary vs suitability standard”
What a complete answer contains
For financial advisory firms specifically, an answer is only complete when it covers all 5:
- 1
The direct answer to which compensation model the firm actually uses
- 2
What fee-only, fee-based, and commission-based each mean, distinguished clearly since they are often confused
- 3
The fiduciary standard versus the suitability standard, explained in plain terms
- 4
Whether the advisor is a fiduciary at all times or only in certain contexts
- 5
How to independently verify an advisor's registration and any disciplinary history
A worked example
Illustrative — not a real business
We are fee-only, meaning our only compensation is the fee you pay us directly — we do not receive commissions, kickbacks, or referral fees from any product we recommend, which removes the incentive to steer you toward a product that pays us more. This is different from 'fee-based,' a term some firms use that still allows commission income alongside fees, and different again from a purely commission-based advisor who is paid by the products they sell you. As a fee-only Registered Investment Advisor, we operate under a fiduciary standard at all times, legally required to act in your best interest — this is a higher bar than the 'suitability' standard that governs many commission-based brokers, who only need to recommend something reasonably suitable, not necessarily the best option available. You can independently verify any advisor's registration, fee structure and disciplinary history for free on the SEC's Investment Adviser Public Disclosure website — we encourage you to look us up before your first meeting rather than take our word for it.
Which page should own it
How we're compensated page
What silence costs
An unclear compensation model is the root of most conflict-of-interest complaints in financial services, and clients rarely ask outright even though it changes everything about the advice they receive.
More questions financial advisory firms get
Related
industry
AI customer support for financial advisory firms
The single most consequential thing a prospective client can know about a financial advisor is how they're compensated and whether they're legally bound to a fiduciary standard — most people never ask, and the answer genuinely changes whose interest is being served. RubyRep discloses this proactively, answers general process questions fully, and never gives specific investment or allocation advice without an actual engagement.
term
What is AI customer service?
AI customer service means answering customer questions with a language model rather than a person. The useful implementations are grounded in a specific business's own content; the poor ones let a general model improvise, which produces confident answers that are wrong.
term
What is a knowledge base?
Traditionally a knowledge base is a help centre humans read. For AI support it is the source material a representative answers from — which means an ordinary website, well written, can serve as one without a separate help centre.
Does your site answer this already?
Point RubyRep at your website and ask it this exact question. If it cannot answer, neither can your customers.