Fee-for-service planning is moving out of the niche corner of the advisory world and into firms’ core operating models, according to new data from AdvicePay’s latest trend report.
The billing and payments platform analyzed more than half a million fee-for-service transactions processed in 2025 and found that 85.6% of invoices were tied to subscriptions.
Advisors using the platform – which holds a leading 15.5% market share in the specialized "Customized Billing/Payment Tools" category in T3's latest advisor software survey – have now billed more than $1 billion in planning fees overall, doubling from roughly $500 million in 2023.
In a statement, AdvicePay co-founder and CEO Alan Moore said the data show that “fee-for-service planning has moved from ‘alternative’ to operational standard.”
He added that firms are looking for “repeatable planning programs that advisors will actually use, and clients will stick with,” with subscription billing helping provide predictable revenue and clearer expectations around service delivery.
Even as more firms adopt the fee-for-service model, perceptions about who these models serve have been slow to catch up, said Shannon Beck, head of sales and marketing at AdvicePay.
“There’s definitely a misconception that fee-for-service equals ‘small clients,’” Beck told InvestmentNews. “It’s less about age and more about whether AUM is the right billing method today.”
Fee-for-service models did gain traction first among younger professionals – particularly high-earning, not rich yet clients, or HENRYs – who tend to have complex finances even before they have large portfolios.
But Beck said usage has expanded into “places people don’t talk about enough,” including clients with held-away assets, business owners in transition years, households going through planning-heavy periods, and retirees who want ongoing planning without consolidating every account.
She sees large broker-dealer home offices increasingly leaning on planning fees for more affluent relationships as well. In those cases, fee-for-service is being used “as a planning fee model for high-net-worth relationships where the work is planning-heavy, the scope is clearly defined, and the firm wants a consistent, supervised way to bill for advice.”
The volume on the AdvicePay platform last year, Beck added – with 525,000 transactions coming through – undercuts the idea that fee-for-service is a side play.
“That’s not niche behavior. That’s firms standardizing around ongoing planning relationships across a broader mix of households,” she said.
AdvicePay’s data on recurring fees also points to more sustainable career paths for younger advisors, a pressure point for many US firms facing demographic and recruiting challenges.
“This is one of the most practical advantages of fee-for-service,” Beck said. “The traditional career path forces a weird gap: you can do a ton of great planning work, but you can’t monetize it until you have assets.”
That gap, she argued, slows careers and can push younger talent out of the profession. In an industry where many firms still tie compensation to assets under management, early-career planners can end up doing extensive work for clients without a direct revenue stream attaching to their efforts.
“Subscriptions change the math,” Beck said. “When 85.6% of invoices are recurring, you’re building predictable revenue that can support a planner’s comp while they’re building their book.”
That predictability, she added, is strengthened when firms package services clearly – whether monthly, quarterly or as defined one-time engagements – and supervise those programs consistently at the home-office level.
For firm leaders, Beck sees a direct link between fee-for-service programs and the talent market.
“We’re facing a talent crunch as an industry, and younger advisors want to work at firms where they can serve their peers, build their own books, and get paid for their expertise,” she said. “Subscriptions turn planning into a career runway, not an early-career volunteer project."
Alongside the shift toward subscriptions, AdvicePay’s 2026 report found a continued trend of planners raising fees across the most common billing structures.
The average monthly subscription fee on the platform reached $291 in 2025, up 4.7% year over year. Quarterly subscriptions climbed to an average of $1,074, a 9.4% increase, while the average one-time planning engagement rose 3.2% to $1,676.
“That’s the market maturing,” Beck said. “Advisors are getting better at saying, ‘Here’s what you get, here’s when you get it, here’s what it costs.’”
She said recurring fees are helping firms manage those adjustments without shocking clients, especially as "adjustments can be made gradually and predictably instead of ripping the band-aid off every few years.”
Compared to case-based engagements, the subscription model also makes for stickier clients, Beck argued, as it "creates a regular moment to demonstrate value.
“If you’re meeting, delivering, documenting, and communicating on a cadence, the fee feels like part of an ongoing relationship, not a one-time event,” she said.
At the macro level, Beck reads the growth in planning revenue and pricing as a sign that fee-for-service is becoming an advice category in its own right, rather than the much younger stepsibling of the still-dominant AUM model. The most recent RIA industry snapshot by the Investment Adviser Association shows 45% of advisors offering financial planning, compared to 33% a quarter-century ago.
“We processed $1B+ in lifetime planning fees, and the growth accelerated fast ... Advisors are raising prices, and demand isn’t collapsing. That’s what a real service category looks like,” she said. “Rising fees are a sign that the service is being packaged, delivered, and valued.
The report also points to what is happening behind the scenes as more RIAs and broker-dealers bolt fee-for-service models onto legacy billing and compliance infrastructures.
AdvicePay’s survey data suggests firms are increasingly treating subscriptions as core infrastructure for planning at scale, rather than as one-off exceptions. Leaders are using recurring billing to standardize how planning is delivered and billed across advisors, while seeking to reduce manual processes that can create errors or supervision gaps.
“What we’re seeing in the data is simple: firms want repeatable planning programs that advisors will actually use, and clients will stick with," Moore said.
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