It takes money to make money

While personal, your relationship with your wealth planner is also highly transactional, and understanding how these fees are structured is important when it comes to growing your money over time.

- RITIKA DUBEY

It can be confusing to pick a planner with the right credentials and investment style - as well as understand their fees, said financial educator Kelley Keehn.

The basic rule of thumb is that no service or advice comes for free.

"Nobody is working for free for you when it comes to your money," Keehn said, founder of Money Wise Workplaces. "Someone is getting paid somewhere." Generally, there are three ways wealth professionals get paid, Ian Tam, director of investment research at Morningstar Canada, said.

Commission-based advice is the oldest and most common of all, Tam said. Typically, when a consumer walks into a retail bank branch, commission-based advice is what's offered to them.

It stems from the mutual fund world where an investor pays a bundled fee and a part of it goes to an investment manager or the fund company, Tam explained. The customer in this case often invests in a banking product or fund.

"As an investor, you don't have the option to opt out of that bundled fee," Tam explained.

Fee-based advisers, who charge based on asset size, typically work better for people with more assets and dollars to invest.