Pathfinder is paid directly by clients. We don’t receive commissions for recommending investments, insurance products, or anything else. That removes the most common conflict in financial advice: getting paid more to recommend one product over another.
It does not remove every conflict. And it’s worth being direct about the ones that remain.
Fee-only doesn’t mean conflict-free.
- Assets-under-management fees can bias advice toward keeping more assets invested.
- Hourly fees can reward complexity and extra work.
- Flat retainers can reward doing too little.
The standard at Pathfinder is not to pretend those conflicts don’t exist. It’s to reduce them where possible, name them when they remain, and give advice that can stand on its own merits — whether or not it leads to more work for us.