The five year number
Five years of St. James's Place comes to roughly £22,000 to £29,500 in total on a £250,000 ISA. Worked on a stated £250,000 held in an ISA or unit trust, held flat with no growth and no further contributions, using SJP's published rates: 3% initial advice on the first £250,000, 0.80% ongoing advice, 0.27% product and a fund charge of 0.09% to 0.69%. Your own figures will differ. This is an illustration of published charges, not advice. Verified 21 July 2026.
Year by year
| Time held | St. James's Place | Delphina |
|---|---|---|
| After 1 year | St. James's PlaceRoughly £10,400 to £11,900 on a £250,000 ISA: a £7,500 initial advice charge plus £2,900 to £4,400 of ongoing charges | Delphina£119.88 |
| After 3 years | St. James's PlaceRoughly £16,200 to £20,700 in total on a £250,000 ISA | Delphina£359.64 |
| After 5 years | St. James's PlaceRoughly £22,000 to £29,500 in total on a £250,000 ISA | Delphina£599.40 |
Delphina Wealth Builder at £9.99 a month, held flat.
Worked on a stated £250,000 held in an ISA or unit trust, held flat with no growth and no further contributions, using SJP's published rates: 3% initial advice on the first £250,000, 0.80% ongoing advice, 0.27% product and a fund charge of 0.09% to 0.69%. Your own figures will differ. This is an illustration of published charges, not advice.
Costs that are not on the price list
These do not show up when you sign up, but they show up on your statement.
- Hidden cost: The charges are percentages, so every pound of growth increases the cash you pay
- Hidden cost: Three separate charges apply at once: advice, product and fund
- Hidden cost: The fund charge varies by fund, so the top of the range is more than seven times the bottom
- Hidden cost: Moving elsewhere later means unwinding an SJP product, so check the terms of your specific plan before assuming it is free to leave
Figures based on St. James's Place’s published prices(opens in a new tab), checked 21 July 2026.
What you are paying for
For people with a substantial portfolio who want a named human adviser handling everything, that is a fair price. You get a real adviser you can sit down with, which no software replaces. Holistic service across pensions, investments, protection, mortgages and estate planning in one relationship.
A five year total always looks large written down. Judge it against what the tool actually changes, not against the headline on its own.
Plans and tiers
This page is about the running total. For the tier structure and what each plan includes, see St. James's Place pricing.
The same five years on Delphina
Delphina's Free plan is £0 for as long as you want it, no card. Wealth Builder is £9.99 a month, so five years is £599.40 if you stay on it the whole time, billed in pounds with no FX fee.
St. James's Place sells something Delphina does not: a human adviser who takes the whole thing off your hands, and for people who want that, it is a genuine service with genuine value. The trade-off is that percentage-based charges scale with your wealth while software does not. Delphina is Free, £9.99 a month on Wealth Builder or £19.99 a month on Investor, flat, with ISAs, UK pensions, UK tax and Open Banking built in. Nothing here is advice, and for complex affairs a regulated adviser may still be the right answer.
More on St. James's Place
St. James's Place: common questions
It is worth it for people with a substantial portfolio who want a named human adviser handling everything. It is a poor buy for anyone who needs the ongoing advice charge is 0.80% a year of your portfolio value, so the cash cost rises as your investments grow, because that is not what it is built to do.
4 things are not on the pricing page: the charges are percentages, so every pound of growth increases the cash you pay; three separate charges apply at once: advice, product and fund; the fund charge varies by fund, so the top of the range is more than seven times the bottom; moving elsewhere later means unwinding an sjp product, so check the terms of your specific plan before assuming it is free to leave.
Charges are percentages of the value invested, so the cash amount changes as your portfolio does. This structure has applied since 26 August 2025. Any pound figure is an approximation at the exchange rate on the day, and that rate moves, so treat it as a guide rather than a fixed price.
Free tools in this category generally give up either the depth or the account connections. Delphina's free tier gives up the deeper scenario modelling that the paid plans carry, but costs £0 with no card and no expiry.