By Paul Feeney, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Otivo
Here's the thing that makes this question harder than it looks: price and licensing aren't related in the way people assume. Free doesn't mean unlicensed, and paid doesn't mean licensed. Some of the most rigorous advice an Australian can access costs them nothing, because an employer or a super fund paid for it, and some of the least accountable answers on the internet sit behind a subscription. So the useful question isn't what it costs. It's who's paying, and what that buys.
AI financial advice cost in Australia spans a wide range, from nothing for general-purpose tools and employer-funded or fund-funded licensed advice, through to subscription pricing for some digital services. Price doesn't indicate licensing status. What determines cost is what's being produced and who is paying for it.
What does AI financial advice actually cost?
It depends on which of three things is being sold. General-purpose AI tools are typically free or a modest monthly subscription, and what they produce is general information rather than advice. Licensed digital advice services vary widely, and a meaningful share of them cost the member nothing because a super fund or an employer has funded access. Licensed human advice sits at the top of the range, because it involves a person's time.
For context on that last one, Adviser Ratings' Australian Financial Advice Landscape report put the median ongoing advice fee at about $4,668 in 2025. That figure represents comprehensive, personal, ongoing advice from a registered adviser, which is a different product from anything a chat interface produces, and comparing the two on price alone compares things that aren't alike.
The four ways advice gets paid for in Australia
Someone always pays. Knowing which of these you're in tells you more than the sticker price.
- You pay directly. A fee for a Statement of Advice, an hourly rate, or an ongoing service fee. The relationship is clean: you're the client, the cost is visible, and what you're buying is time and accountability.
- Your employer or your super fund pays. Increasingly common for digital advice, and it's why some licensed services are free at the point of use. The advice is still personal advice under an AFSL, with the same duties attached. Someone has simply already covered it.
- A product pays. Commissions on most financial products have been banned in Australia since the Future of Financial Advice reforms, with limited exceptions including life insurance. Where any form of product remuneration exists, it has to be disclosed.
- You pay with something other than money. For free general-purpose tools, the exchange is your data and your attention. That isn't sinister, but it's worth naming, because it explains why those tools are optimised to be engaging rather than to be right.
A 36-year-old with a super fund that provides digital advice and a 36-year-old paying a subscription to a chatbot are in completely different positions, and neither of them is paying a fee that reflects it.
Why does licensed advice cost more to produce?
Because the licence carries obligations that have to be paid for, and they exist for good reasons.
An AFS licensee providing personal advice is subject to the best interests duty in section 961B of the Corporations Act. It has to produce and retain a Statement of Advice. It runs an internal complaints process and belongs to the Australian Financial Complaints Authority. It holds compensation arrangements, typically professional indemnity insurance. Where the advice is automated, ASIC's Regulatory Guide 255 adds requirements to monitor and test the algorithms and to employ people who can understand and review what they produce.
None of that is overhead in the pejorative sense. It's the machinery that makes the difference between an answer and advice, and it's the reason a licensed service can be held to account when an unlicensed one can't. Real advice has real costs behind it, and a service offering the same thing for nothing is usually offering something else.
Does cheaper mean worse?
Not reliably, and this is where price becomes a misleading signal. A free tool from a government source can be excellent: ASIC's Moneysmart provides calculators and guidance at no cost and is one of the better resources available to Australians. A free licensed service funded by a super fund provides genuine personal advice. A paid subscription to a general-purpose model provides neither.
What price does track is roughly how much human time is involved. Human advice costs more because a person is doing the work. Digital advice costs less because the marginal cost of the next member is small once the engine exists. That's a difference in production model rather than in rigour, and it's why the two can coexist rather than compete: many Australians find digital advice suits the recurring, well-defined decisions and a licensed adviser suits the complex, unusual or emotionally weighted ones.
What's worth comparing when you compare cost?
Four things, and price is only one of them.
Whether it's advice at all, or information wearing the shape of advice. Whether a licensee is accountable for it. Whether it works from data that's been verified or from what you typed. And what exists afterwards, meaning a record you can revisit and a complaints pathway if something goes wrong.
A free general-purpose answer and a free fund-funded licensed recommendation carry the same price and nothing else in common. Comparing them on cost gets you nowhere.
Frequently asked questions
Is an AI financial advisor the same as an AI financial adviser?
They're the same thing spelled two ways. "Adviser" is the Australian spelling and the one used in the Corporations Act and on ASIC's Financial Adviser Register; "advisor" is the American form and turns up widely in search. Worth knowing that under section 923C of the Corporations Act, "financial adviser" and "financial planner" are restricted terms reserved for individuals registered as relevant providers, and the restriction extends to terms of like import, which covers both spellings. So software can't lawfully be described as either, whichever way you spell it.
Is free AI financial advice worth using?
It depends which kind of free. Free general-purpose tools are useful for learning and poor for deciding, which is roughly how ASIC's Moneysmart frames them. Free licensed advice funded by an employer or super fund is a different product entirely, carrying the same duties as advice you'd pay for. The word "free" describes the price, not the thing.
Why is human financial advice more expensive than digital advice?
Because a person's time is the main input, and that time includes gathering and verifying your circumstances, researching, modelling, preparing a Statement of Advice and meeting continuing professional obligations. Digital advice has a high cost to build and a low cost to serve each additional member. Both are licensed, and both carry the same duties to the client.
Where does Otivo fit?
Otivo is a licensed digital advice service operating under AFSL and Australian Credit Licence No. 485665, which means it sits in the second and third of the four comparisons above rather than the first: a licensee is accountable, and the advice runs on the member's own balances, income and goals rather than on typed-in estimates. If you'd like to see what that produces, the retirement planning module and the debt advice module both start from your actual position. For circumstances more complex than a model is built for, a licensed financial adviser is worth the fee.
Sources
- Adviser Ratings, Australian Financial Advice Landscape report
- ASIC, Regulatory Guide 255: Providing digital financial product advice to retail clients, August 2016
- ASIC Moneysmart, AI and money decisions, 23 March 2026 — moneysmart.gov.au/online-safety/ai-and-money-decisions
- Corporations Act 2001 (Cth), s923C and s961B
Disclaimer
The information in this communication is current as at September 2026 and has been prepared by Otivo Pty Ltd ABN 47 602 457 732, AFSL and Australian Credit Licence No. 485665. This content is general information only and has been prepared without taking into account your objectives, financial situation or needs. It is not personal financial or taxation advice and should not be relied on as such. Before acting on any information, you should consider its appropriateness having regard to your personal circumstances. This material must not be reproduced in whole or in part, or posted on any social media platform, without the prior written consent of Otivo Pty Ltd.