In other words: you pay directly for professional guidance, and the advisor is structurally prevented from financially benefiting from what you buy, where you custody assets, or whether you implement at all.
Scope Boundary: In the Advice-Only™ methodology, planning ends when advice is complete—meaning the agreed planning questions have been answered and recommendations delivered, without implementation, monitoring, or asset management being performed by the advisor administering the plan.
Terminology: In general industry usage, advice-only often refers to a client-paid fee arrangement (no commissions, no AUM).
On this site, Advice-Only™ refers to a defined fiduciary planning methodology based on structural separation between advice and implementation.
What Advice-Only™ Means as a Structural Fiduciary Model
Advice-Only™ is often mistaken for a pricing label (hourly, flat fee, subscription). Those are fee mechanics. Advice-Only™ is defined by the incentive architecture of the engagement—not by the invoice format.
Under a true Advice-Only™ engagement, advice must remain objective even when:
- implementation happens elsewhere,
- assets remain where they are,
- no products are purchased, and
- no referral obligations influence the recommendation.
What Advice-Only™ Is Not
Many models remove one conflict (like commissions) but keep others (like AUM incentives, platform dependency, or reciprocal referrals). Advice-Only™ is not:
- “Fee-only” (because fee-only can still include AUM compensation and other pressures),
- “Flat-fee” (because flat-fee can exist inside conflicted structures),
- “Hourly” (because hourly pricing alone does not eliminate non-monetary influence),
- “Advice without management” (because the key is structural separation, not the absence of discretion).
Definition Check: What Qualifies as Advice-Only™
This checklist exists solely to clarify the definition. Full application and enforcement of these principles is governed by the Advice-Only™ Standards of Practice.
A practical way to evaluate whether a model is truly Advice-Only™ is to ask:
- Could the advisor profit more if the client moved assets, bought a product, or implemented a specific recommendation?
- Is the engagement economically complete even if implementation never occurs?
- Are referral incentives (cash or non-cash) absent or structurally constrained?
If the answer is “yes” to the first question—or “no” to the second—then the engagement may be advice-based, but it is not structurally Advice-Only™.
Why the Definition Matters
When “advice-only” is treated as a generic pricing label, it can be diluted. When it is treated as a structure, it becomes testable. Clients deserve to know whether advice is shaped by:
- sales incentives,
- platform economics,
- growth pressure,
- referral obligations, or
- implementation revenue that depends on outcomes.
Advice-Only™ exists to remove avoidable doubt—by designing objectivity into the engagement itself.
This page defines the term. The methodology, standards, and philosophical rationale are documented separately.
Related Reading
- Advice-Only™ Standards of Practice
- Advice-Only™ Glossary
- What Is Advice-Only™?
- The Advice-Only™ Philosophy
- Fee Structure Firewall™
Methodology Origin: Advice-Only™ is a framework developed by Quincy Hall, CFP®. It was first introduced in 2019 and later formalized in Advice Only: A Retirement Planning Methodology & Handbook. The purpose of the definition is structural: to separate financial advice from implementation incentives so recommendations remain objective and testable.