That's the Vanguard number. Over a 30-year horizon, a one-percent annual fee — the typical "industry standard" — quietly eats roughly a quarter of your portfolio's ending value through compounding. Whether that's worth it depends entirely on what you get in return. This calculator runs the actual math. Some people get told to keep their money.
A simple example. $1M portfolio, 30-year horizon, 7% pre-fee return.
That $1.9M is the compounded effect of giving up 1% per year for 30 years. It's not 1% × 30 = 30%. It's roughly 25% of the ending value — because every dollar of fee you pay is a dollar that doesn't compound with the rest.
It's stealing food from your best horse. The fee comes out of the portion of your money that's working the hardest for you.
Now — that doesn't automatically mean an advisor isn't worth it. Vanguard's own research estimates that behavioral coaching alone adds roughly 1.5% per year in net returns — more than enough to justify a 1% fee. Coordinated tax planning, asset location, withdrawal sequencing, and rebalancing add more. The question isn't whether the fee is expensive. It's whether you're getting that value back.
Test the fee both ways. A flat fee on a sizable portfolio costs far less than 1%. That's how StandUP charges. The honest comparison shows you both.
Illustration only — not investment advice. Assumes a constant 7% nominal return before drag. The "Going Alone" figure combines a behavior cost (panic-selling — you set its severity and frequency above; repeat events are modeled at declining cost as experience builds, and the total is capped so it can never exceed a realistic share of your no-mistakes outcome) with ongoing return drags drawn from your answers: portfolio construction and concentration, tax inefficiency, missed tax-advantaged space, inconsistent rebalancing, withdrawal sequencing, and performance chasing. "Fee Drag, Compounded" is the fee plus the growth that fee money would otherwise have earned — it is how much lower your balance ends up, not a sum the advisor collects. An advisor is worth paying only if they close more of the first number than they add to the second. Excludes taxes on withdrawals, Social Security, and sequence-of-returns risk.
You probably benefit from an advisor if: you have complex tax situations (entity income, equity comp, multiple states), you've made emotional investing decisions in the past (sold during a downturn, chased a hot sector), your situation involves coordination across taxes/estate/insurance, or you simply don't want to think about money and would rather pay someone you trust to handle it.
You probably don't if: your situation is simple (W-2 income, 401(k), maybe an IRA), you have the discipline to stay invested through downturns, you enjoy the work, and you're paying expense ratios under 0.20% in broad index funds.
If the calculator tells you you don't need one, that's a useful answer too.