A financial planning practice in Australia is valued primarily on its recurring revenue — not its total turnover, not funds under management, and not what you’d earn if you ran it forever. The typical multiple is 2x to 3.2x annual recurring fees for investment and superannuation clients aged under 65. Older client demographics, risk-heavy books, and non-recurring income attract lower multiples. A well-run practice with $500,000 in annual fees from a young, fee-for-service client base could realistically sell for $1.25M to $1.6M. A book of the same size built on 75-year-old retirees might fetch less than half that.
Australian financial planning is in the middle of a structural consolidation. The Hayne Royal Commission and FASEA education requirements pushed thousands of advisers out of the industry — the registered adviser count fell from around 28,000 in 2018 to under 16,000 by 2024. That supply compression has actually been good for quality practices: there are more qualified buyers than there are quality books for sale. The question is which category your practice falls into.
How Revenue Multiples Work for Financial Planning Practices
Unlike most businesses, which are valued on EBITDA, financial planning practices are typically valued by applying a multiple directly to each revenue stream — adjusted for client demographics and revenue type. This is the dominant method for practices under $5M in revenue, and it’s how specialist brokers like Radar Results price the market.
The multiples below are from Radar Results’ April 2026 price guide:
| Revenue Type | Client Age | Multiple Range |
|---|---|---|
| Investment & super | Aged 80+ | 1.0x – 1.5x |
| Investment & super | Aged 65–79 | 2.2x – 2.75x |
| Investment & super | Under 65 | 2.5x – 3.2x |
| Risk insurance | Under 55 | 2.5x – 3.2x |
| Risk insurance | Aged 55–60 | 2.1x – 2.8x |
| Risk insurance | Aged 61+ | 1.2x – 1.8x |
| Mortgage trail | Any | 2.75x – 3.75x |
| SMSF admin fees | Any | 1.5x – 2.0x |
| Accounting fees (business) | Any | 1.0x – 1.3x |
The mechanics are straightforward. You segment your recurring revenue by type and client age, apply the relevant multiple to each stream, add the components, and that’s your base valuation. A practice with $300,000 in investment fees from sub-65 clients and $100,000 from clients aged 65–79 would calculate as ($300,000 × 2.85 midpoint) + ($100,000 × 2.475 midpoint) = $1.1M from the investment book alone, before adjusting for quality factors.
Note that these multiples can shift depending on the terms you offer the buyer, the geographic location of clients, individual account balances, and whether the buyer is a consolidator paying strategic premium or an individual adviser paying market rates.
Why Client Age Matters So Much
The reason older client books attract lower multiples isn’t that aged retirees are less valuable as human beings (which is worth saying explicitly). It’s that they represent a shrinking revenue stream. A client who’s 80 today and drawing down their super at 5% per year will have materially less capital — and generate materially lower fees — in four years. A buyer is purchasing future cash flows, not historical ones, and the maths on an aged book is less appealing.
The flip side is that younger clients in accumulation phase — professionals in their 40s still adding to their super and building investment portfolios — represent growing fee bases. That’s worth more to a buyer, and the multiples reflect it.
The practical implication: if you’ve built a practice around retirees, your valuation will disappoint you. If you’ve built it around 40 and 50-year-olds with careers ahead of them, you’re in a better position.
Fee-for-Service vs Trail Income: Which Is Worth More?
Fee-for-service income — a fixed annual fee charged to clients regardless of their portfolio size — is increasingly preferred by buyers over trail commission on funds under management. The reason is risk profile. Fee-for-service income is contractual, transparent, and survives market downturns where FUM-linked fees don’t. When markets fall 20%, FUM-linked fees fall 20% automatically. A fixed annual retainer of $3,000 per client stays at $3,000.
Post-Hayne, the industry has also moved toward explicit fee agreements that survive an adviser transition more cleanly. A buyer can demonstrate to a regulator that each client has a signed service agreement — that’s cleaner than inheriting a book of implied ongoing service relationships.
That said, the multiples in the table above already reflect current market pricing. Fee-for-service books at the high end of the multiple range are priced that way partly because buyers know what they’re getting.
EBITDA Multiples for Larger Practices
For practices with genuine overhead — employed advisers, a paraplanner, admin staff, a brand that doesn’t depend entirely on you — EBITDA multiples become relevant. Acquirers at scale (think dealer groups and PE-backed consolidators) often pay 3x to 5x EBITDA for structured multi-adviser firms.
If your practice generates $1.5M in fees and runs at a 40% EBITDA margin after paying employed staff, your EBITDA is $600,000. At 4x, that’s $2.4M — which may well exceed what the revenue multiple method produces. Worth calculating both.
The catch is that EBITDA-based buyers are selective. They want practices where the business genuinely functions independently of one person; where paraplanning, compliance, and client service are systematised; and where the adviser roster has depth. A sole operator who employs one part-time admin assistant doesn’t qualify.
Key Person Risk: The Single Biggest Value Killer
A financial planning practice is, in most cases, built on trust between a person and their clients. That trust doesn’t automatically transfer with the sale documents. This is the central challenge of every financial planning sale, and it’s where most owners leave money on the table.
I worked with an adviser in Perth a couple of years ago who had a solid practice — $420,000 in recurring fees, clean books, decent client age profile. But every significant client relationship ran through him personally. His receptionist called him by his first name; his clients called him on his mobile. When buyers ran their assessment, they modelled a 25–30% client attrition rate post-settlement. That assumption took $200,000 off the headline price before negotiation even started (which is the kind of calculation that tends to land like cold water on a summer day).
The solution — ideally started two to three years before sale — is to deliberately transfer client relationships to the business rather than to yourself. Introduce a second adviser to key clients early. Run client communication through branded channels rather than personal email. Build a service team so clients associate responsiveness with the firm, not with you specifically.
This doesn’t eliminate attrition risk, but it substantially reduces it — and buyers price that difference.
Who’s Buying Financial Planning Practices in Australia
The buyer landscape has changed significantly since the Royal Commission. You’re now dealing with at least four types of buyers, each with different motivations and different price points.
Dealer group and licensee aggregators — firms like Sequoia, Count, Centrepoint, and Insignia — are actively acquiring practices to build scale and improve their compliance-cost-per-adviser ratio. They typically pay at the top of the multiple range because they’re buying strategic fit, not just income. But they’re also the most demanding on due diligence: they want clean AFSL compliance records, no outstanding complaints, and documented service agreements.
Private equity-backed consolidators entered the sector post-2020 and are still active, particularly for multi-adviser practices. They need a minimum threshold — typically $3M+ in annual fees — to make the deal economics work at their required return. Below that threshold, you won’t get their attention.
Individual advisers buying a book to grow their own practice are the most common buyers for smaller operations. They move faster than institutions, negotiate less aggressively, and understand what they’re buying. The trade-off is they typically pay at the lower end of the range and may want the seller to remain involved for a transition period.
Accounting firms with existing client relationships occasionally acquire financial planning books as a cross-sell opportunity. If your client demographic overlaps with a local accounting practice — self-employed professionals, business owners, SMSF trustees — this can generate an off-market offer at a premium.
What You Can Do to Get a Better Price
There’s a checklist of improvements that move multiples, and none of them require spending money. They require time, which is why starting two or three years before sale is so valuable.
Segment and document your revenue. Most advisers can’t immediately tell you their revenue split by client age and type. Buyers can, because they’ve done the calculation before they’ve even met you. Build a clean revenue segmentation that shows exactly how much comes from which category and at what fee level.
Clean up your compliance record. Outstanding client complaints, unresolved AFCA matters, or a patchy FSG/SOA history are instant red flags. Address anything outstanding before going to market.
Get your accounts normalised. Three years of financial statements with personal expenses clearly separated and owner remuneration benchmarked against what a replacement adviser would cost. See our guide on increasing business value before selling for the broader preparation checklist.
Understand your tax position. The small business CGT concessions can significantly reduce — or eliminate — the capital gains tax on your sale proceeds if you meet the conditions. This isn’t something to sort out after you’ve agreed to a price. See our overview of tax on selling a business in Australia for the key thresholds and rules.
Think about deal structure. Some buyers will offer a higher total consideration in exchange for an earn-out component — typically 12 to 24 months of payments tied to client retention rates post-settlement. If you’re confident in your client relationships, this can work in your favour. If your client relationships are personal rather than commercial, don’t take the risk. Our guide to earn-out agreements in Australia covers the mechanics and the negotiation points to watch.
Getting a Realistic Valuation
The first step — before you approach any buyer, before you talk to your accountant’s mate who did a transaction once — is a proper valuation from someone who understands the sector. Not a web calculator. Not a multiple applied to your gross fees without adjustment. A valuation that segments your revenue by type and client age, assesses your key person risk, benchmarks your compliance position, and gives you a realistic range.
If you’re a financial planner in Western Australia considering an exit in the next two to five years, talk to us at Miro Capital. We work with business owners in the $1M to $20M revenue range and can give you a clear-eyed view of what your practice is worth — and what would need to change to push that number higher.
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