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The future of Financial Planning

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Unbiased, affordable advice-only financial planning services. Powered by Canada’s most advanced financial planning tools and technologies.

Why advice-only Financial Planning?

Canadians Pay for Financial Advice in One of Two Ways

In Canada, financial advice is most commonly priced as a percentage of assets under management. A typical advisory fee is approximately 1% annually and is charged in exchange for ongoing advice, planning, and service.This advice fee, while commonly bundled with other fees, is technically separate from the investment management costs of the investments held in the portfolio. However, because this advice fee is tied to portfolio value, it increases automatically as assets grow, regardless of whether the level of advice required changes.Advice-only financial planning uses a different pricing structure. Advice is treated as a professional service and billed using transparent flat fees. Clients engage planning services only when advice is needed, rather than paying an ongoing percentage tied to asset size.Over time, these two pricing models produce materially different financial outcomes, even when the quality of advice is comparable.

Quantifying the Difference Between the Two Models

Take the example of a $200,000 portfolio, where a 1% annual advice fee costs $2,000 in the first year. As the portfolio grows due to market performance, that cost increases proportionally.In contrast, when using an advice-only model that includes annual reviews ($250 annually) and periodic updates ($1,000 every 3 years, indexed to inflation), the cost savings are substantial. Over a 30-year period, this flat-fee structure results in an ending portfolio value that is more than $174,000 higher than the percentage-based alternative.To reiterate, this difference is not driven by market performance or investment selection. It arises solely from how the very same advice is priced.It’s a complex topic difficult to explain in a few lines, so we wrote an article about it. Here's more on advice-only vs. percentage-based pricing: Is Advice-Only Financial Planning Right for Everyone?

Our Professional Focus

At fPlan, financial planning is provided independently of investment management. We do not manage investments, receive commissions or earn referral fees of any kind.Our work is limited to advice, with fees based on scope and complexity rather than portfolio size. This structure allows us to be completely objective and impartial in all of the recommendations we make.

Who are we?

As a social enterprise, our mission is to challenge a financial industry that has remained largely unchanged for decades. In Canada, the wealth management landscape is dominated by a few traditional institutions that rely on the same high-margin, percentage-based models. We believe this status quo is overdue for a more transparent alternative. By using technology to keep our operations lean, we can provide top-tier professional advice at substantially lower costs.

Our advisory team is based out of Ontario and is comprised exclusively of experienced Certified Financial Planners® dedicated to providing unbiased, expert guidance.

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We use secure, modern tools to keep our process efficient and our advice affordable, ensuring you receive high-quality financial strategies without the traditional industry markup.

We take a minimalist approach to your data, collecting only what we need. We employ the same high-level encryption standards used by major financial institutions.

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Our firm operates virtually across Canada (excluding Quebec). We partner with you from home, using secure digital tools to achieve your financial goals without the commute.

The financial Planning process

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INITIAL DISCOVERY
Book a free 15-minute virtual consultation. This ensures our fee-only model is the right fit for your specific financial situation before any commitment.

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DIGITAL INTAKE
Action our digital intake survey to provide your preliminary financial information.

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SERVICE SELECTION
Sign the formal planning agreement and complete your purchase through our secure payment portal.

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DISCOVERY SESSION
Schedule your 90-minute financial planning discovery session. We’ll discuss your goals in depth and conduct a line-by-line data review.

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INTERACTIVE PRESENTATION
Within 10 business days of your session, we will contact you to host a 60-minute interactive virtual presentation of your completed financial plan.

Services & Fees

Financial Plan (Invididual) - $800   $499

A bespoke, comprehensive financial strategy designed to grow, protect, and simplify your wealth. This plan covers a full review of your asset allocation and savings strategies for retirement and other personal goals. We integrate general tax planning with dedicated retirement income planning to ensure your roadmap is efficient and actionable, covering these core areas and more.

Financial Plan (Couple) - $950   $625

This comprehensive plan includes everything in the individual service, with the addition of income-splitting strategies and other elements unique to couples.

Advisory Meeting (60 minutes) - $249   $150

A flexible 60-minute session with a tenured financial planner to discuss the financial matters most relevant to you. Topics can include general investment guidance, banking strategies, retirement planning, insurance, budgeting, or second opinions on financial decisions. Ideal for clients seeking targeted, expert advice without committing to a full financial plan.

FAQs

More questions? Email us directly.

Why so cheap / What's the catch?
A comprehensive financial plan powered by Snap Projections for under $1,500 is uncommon; the current median cost in Canada for a financial plan is $2,500. We are able to maintain this price point for two reasons:
  • 1: As a social enterprise, we intentionally operate with very lean margins to provide professional planning to a broader range of Canadians. We mean to be an industry disruptor.
  • 2: By automating many of our back-end administrative processes, we have removed the overhead costs that typically drive up service fees.
We use the exact same planning software as many of the country’s top-tier wealth management firms.
What is the scope of your services?
Our core planning covers retirement goals (including a savings strategy, tax-optimized decumulation, and CPP/OAS planning), an independent asset allocation review, and year-by-year cash flow and net worth modeling projected through your lifetime. We also customize plans to focus on specific needs such as RESP/Education planning, insurance analysis, estate planning, and any other financial goals unique to your situation. See the plan sample below in this FAQ for an example of the reports we produce.
Do you serve business owners or complex financial situations?
Currently, fPlan focuses on conventional financial plans to keep our pricing model accessible. We do not offer tailored services for business owners, multiple rental properties, or individuals with out-of-country tax obligations at this time. We will verify if we can assist with your specific situation during our initial 15-minute call.
What information do I need to provide?
Following our introductory call and your decision to move ahead with our services, we will send you a secure, encrypted data collection questionnaire. Requirements vary, but we generally do not require actual documents—only the relevant information within them. Occasionally, we may request documents to help you disseminate the information, depending on your level of comfort with personal finance (for example, the asset allocation of a more complex portfolio). All data is exchanged via a secure portal with enterprise-grade security (see the "Is my data safe?" question for more technical details).
Is my data safe?
Yes. Very much so. We are extremely diligent regarding the security of our systems. All client data and completed plans are shared via secure platforms within the Snap Projections and Zoho Enterprise ecosystems, which utilize AES-256 bit encryption at rest. We strictly adhere to the principle of least privilege; we do not request or retain high-risk PII such as Social Insurance Numbers (SIN) or full account numbers. To ensure Canadian Data Sovereignty, our SaaS tools are operated through Zoho’s Canadian data centers, ensuring compliance with PIPEDA and PHIPA/PIPA standards. Virtual sessions are hosted on Microsoft Teams and protected by TLS 1.2/1.3 and AES-256 bit encryption for data in transit, ensuring that your audio, video, and screen sharing remain private and secure between you and your advisor.
How long does the process take from start to finish?
Typically, the full process takes about two weeks, provided there are no delays in gathering information such as pension details or investment statements.
What if I have questions or need changes after the plan is delivered?
Please reach out to us if you have any questions about your plan. To reopen and update a completed plan within a 6-month window, a fee of $250 typically applies. After that time, current standard planning fees apply. Connect with us to discuss your individual situation.
How do I pay for your services?
If you decide to proceed after our introductory call, we will provide an advice agreement alongside your digital invoice. Payment is required prior to your 90-minute Discovery Session and can be securely completed through credit card via our Stripe portal, or if you prefer, via Interac e-Transfer.
What regions of Canada does fPlan serve?
fPlan is a virtual firm providing advice-only financial planning in Ontario, British Columbia (BC), Alberta, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, and PEI. Because we are 100% virtual, we can provide specialized fee-only financial planning to Canadians from Toronto and Ottawa to Vancouver and Calgary (currently excluding Quebec due to provincial licensing requirements).
How are you compensated?
fPlan is a fee-only firm. 100% of our revenue is derived from the flat fees we charge our clients. We do not accept commissions, referral fees, or any other form of third-party compensation.
Can I see a plan sample?
Yes, we believe in showing the quality of our work upfront. You can view a sample roadmap that illustrates the depth and structure of a typical financial plan here: View Sample Financial Plan.

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Blog

Is Advice-only Financial Planning Right for Everyone?

By Julien Bouchy-Picon, CFP®    |    January 29th, 2026    

In Canada, the dominant way financial advice is priced is by charging a percentage of assets under management (later referenced in this article as "AUM"). This model is not inherently wrong, but it ties the cost of advice to portfolio size rather than to the complexity or scope of the advice itself, as advice-only financial planning does. Over time, it's bound to result in a pricing structure that is weakly connected to how financial advice is actually delivered.

After 15 years in advisory roles across the financial industry, I’ve seen how effective financial advice can materially improve outcomes for individuals and families. The value of advice in general is certainly not in question. The question is: do the fees paid for that advice reliably reflect the work being done by the advisor and the value brought forth to the client?

That question is precisely what led me to launch fPlan.

How Financial Advice Is Commonly Priced in Canada

Under the AUM model, an advisor’s compensation increases automatically as a client’s portfolio grows. If equity markets rise and a portfolio increases by 20% in a good year, the fee paid for advice rises by the same amount, even if the client’s financial situation is unchanged.

The issue is that portfolio size and financial complexity are not the same thing. A portfolio commonly grows due to market performance alone, without any increase in planning complexity. Yet the advice fees charged scale regardless. From a pricing standpoint, this creates a direct mismatch between fees and the value of the advice.

Why Performance Does Not Justify Advice Fees

I've heard investment performance being cited too often as justification for higher fees. This rests on a fundamental misunderstanding of how advice is priced. In many retail investment products, particularly mutual funds, the reported fee (known as the Management Expense Ratio or "MER") combines two separate components:

  • The investment management fee

  • A trailing commission that compensates the advisor for advice and service.

In other words, the advice fee is completely unrelated to the performance of the portfolio. Investment returns and advisory work are economically distinct services. In fact, many fund providers offer versions of their funds that exclude the ~1% advisor fee, but they're not made available on all platforms.

A Useful Analogy: Real Estate Commissions

If a home sells for $1,000,000 one year and $1,200,000 the next, a percentage-based commission paid to a real estate agent increases by 20%, even if the transaction itself is materially the same. Were services underpriced in the first year, or overpriced in the second? It is difficult to argue that the value of the service scaled precisely with the sale price. The same logic applies to advice fees in financial industry that rise solely due to market appreciation.

Transparency Is Improving — and That Matters

Canada’s Client Relationship Model (CRM) reforms which mandate greater disclosure requirements from financial services providers have made great strides over the years. The next phase, expected in 2026–2027, will further expand reporting on total costs which will be visible on client statements. As investors see the total fees paid, expressed in absolute dollar terms as opposed to ambiguous percentages, it becomes easier to evaluate whether those costs are proportionate to the advice received.

Let's Quantify It

To illustrate the long-term impact of advice fees, consider a $400,000 portfolio earning a 6% average annual return over a 20-year horizon.When using a traditional 1% AUM model, the total fees paid over two decades amount to $139,314, resulting in a final portfolio value of $1,049,255. In contrast, an Advice-only structure (which includes a $250 annual review fee + a $1,000 triennial financial plan update) costs just $14,707 over the same period, allowing the final portfolio to grow to $1,256,655.The resulting difference is staggering: by choosing an advice-only model under these assumptions, you would save $124,607 in fees for the same level of advice, and generate an additional $207,400 in total wealth. This wealth gap of over $207,000 occurs because of the "opportunity cost" - every dollar not spent on a commission remains in your account to compound over time.And this example does not even consider recurring investment contributions which would further increase the savings from a fee-only / advice-only model.

Why Advice-Only Financial Planning Aligns Cost With Value

Flat-fee financial planning is about aligning price with work. Fees are linked to complexity rather than market performance, similar to how accountants or real estate lawyers charge for their expertise. A larger portfolio does not necessarily imply a more complex financial situation, just as a smaller portfolio does not imply simple planning needs.

The Reason fPlan Exists

The purpose of fPlan is not to criticize traditional models, but to give Canadians a clearer way to evaluate whether the fees they pay are commensurate with the advice they receive.As investors become more aware of the true dollar cost of advice, I believe demand will grow for pricing models that are easier to understand and more directly linked to the service provided.That belief is the reason fPlan exists

Our Advisory Team

Julien Bouchy-Picon, CFP®

Julien is a Certified Financial Planner with 15 years of experience in Canada’s financial industry, most of it spent advising high-net-worth clients at RBC Royal Bank. His work has focused on retirement strategy, tax efficiency, investment structure, and estate planning.

In 2026, Julien founded fPlan Advisory Inc. after early-retiring from RBC at age 38. The decision was deliberate: to step away from product-driven advice and build a planning-first practice centered on clarity, independence, and long-term decision quality. fPlan operates on an advice-only basis, with no asset management, commissions, or embedded conflicts.Julien has a particular interest in early retirement planning, retirement income design, and evidence-based investing. His philosophy is pragmatic and analytical, with a strong bias toward passive portfolio construction and disciplined financial systems.Julien is currently completing an MBA in Business Analytics at the Sprott School of Business. Outside of work, he spends his time hiking with his wife and dog, and on track days at Calabogie.

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