The Super Fee Cover-Up: What Your Fund Has Been Hiding — and Where to Find the Truth in 2026

By The Fine Print editorial team  |  Last updated: June 2026  |  13 min read  |  ⚠️ Not financial advice

Until October 2024, your super fund could roll marketing campaigns, stadium naming rights, sports sponsorships and payments to union or employer bodies into the bland category of “admin fees” and hope you never asked for a breakdown. APRA’s new fund-level expenditure data blows that open. For the first time, Australians can now look up exactly how their fund spends the money deducted from their retirement savings — not just the headline investment management figure, but the advertising spend, the sponsorship budget and the industrial body payments. For some funds, the numbers are confronting. For every member, the question is the same: are you comfortable paying your fund’s actual expense profile out of your retirement savings, or would you rather be in a fund that keeps those costs down and lets compounding do more of the work? This guide explains what changed, where to find the data, and what to do with it.

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What Changed in 2024–26 — The Fee Transparency Breakthrough

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Four Ways Fees Cost You More Than You Think

1. The compounding cost of even a small fee difference is enormous

Fee discussions in super tend to get dismissed as abstract percentage points. The compounding reality is anything but abstract. A total expense ratio of 1.2% vs 0.7% of your balance — a 0.5% gap — sounds trivial. Over 30–40 years, on a growing balance, that difference compounds into tens of thousands of dollars in lost retirement savings. On a $200,000 balance growing at 6% annually, a 0.5% fee drag costs roughly $80,000–$100,000 in foregone retirement savings by age 65. On a $400,000 balance, the figure doubles. APRA’s bulletin and product-performance data show that high-fee products — particularly in the Choice and platform sector — don’t, on average, deliver investment returns that justify their extra cost. You’re paying more for less. The fee difference between a median-performing industry fund and an expensive platform product is real money, and it leaves your account every year whether or not you notice it. ^[4][5][1]

2. Marketing, sponsorships and industrial body payments come out of your retirement savings

This is the specific cost category that the 2024 fund-level expenditure data made visible for the first time. APRA’s media release on the inaugural data release explicitly states that the new reporting includes “administration and other expenditure such as advertising, sponsorship and payments to industrial bodies.” In the old regime, these costs sat inside the broad “admin” bucket on your statement — you had no way to see how much of your admin fee was funding investment operations versus how much was paying for a stadium naming rights deal or a marketing campaign. Now you can. The fund-level expenditure spreadsheet published by APRA each year shows each fund’s spending profile across categories. Some funds spend very little on advertising and sponsorship relative to their size; others spend proportionally more. Whether that spending is ultimately good for members (by attracting more members and reducing per-member fixed costs) or bad for members (diverting money from investment operations) is debatable. What’s no longer deniable is that it exists, it comes from your balance, and you now have the data to form a view. ^[6][13][1]

3. Choice and platform products charge more and deliver less, on average

APRA’s product-performance data and heatmaps — which feed into the YFYS annual performance test — show a consistent pattern in the Choice and platform sector: higher disclosed fees than MySuper defaults, with no corresponding improvement in net returns. In fact, a large share of Choice options underperform MySuper benchmarks after fees. The reason this matters in the context of fee transparency is that Choice products have historically sat outside APRA’s most detailed fee data collections. Members in these products were less able to compare the true all-in cost of their option against alternatives. This is exactly the gap APRA’s Data Transformation Phase 1 is addressing. As Choice products come under the same granular reporting obligations as MySuper, the comparison data is becoming clearer — and it suggests that for many members in platform products, the extra fee is not buying better returns. ^[5][10][11]

4. Even the improved disclosure still has blind spots

ASIC’s RG 97 and the fee disclosure instrument have significantly improved the visibility of costs in super. But the rules explicitly acknowledge limits. Some implicit transaction costs — particularly in property assets and unlisted investments — can still be partially captured in net returns rather than broken out as separate fee lines. Borrowing costs in geared strategies, property operating expenses, and certain infrastructure costs may not appear fully in the fee disclosures on your statement. This means the total fee figure you see in APRA’s data and on your statement is the regulated minimum of what must be disclosed — it’s more than was visible before, but it’s not necessarily the full economic drag on your balance. ASIC’s 2025 review of RG 97 — specifically looking at whether stamp duty and property transaction cost disclosure rules were creating unintended biases in fund investment behaviour — suggests the rules are still being refined. The practical implication: compare funds on disclosed fees, but treat them as a floor, not a ceiling. ^[2][7][3]

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The Regulatory Context: APRA, ASIC and the YFYS Performance Test

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✅ Your Three-Step Action Plan

Action 1: Look up how much your fund actually spends — not just the headline fee

Two lookups, both free and public. First: go to APRA’s annual fund-level superannuation statistics page (apra.gov.au/annual-mysuper-statistics) and find your fund’s product. The table shows your product’s administration fee, investment fee and other fees and costs relative to every other MySuper product in the country. Note whether your product is in the top, middle or bottom quartile for total fees. Second: download APRA’s annual fund-level superannuation statistics — superannuation fund expenditure spreadsheet (apra.gov.au — search “fund expenditure statistics”). Find your fund name and compare its spending across investment management, administration, advertising, sponsorship and industrial body payments against similar-sized funds. Ask yourself a simple question: are you comfortable with this spending profile coming out of your retirement savings? Is the fund’s marketing and sponsorship spend proportionate to what you’d expect from a trustee acting in your financial interests? For most members, the answer will be straightforward. But the question can only be asked now that the data exists. ^{[4][13][6][1]}

Action 2: If your fund is an expensive outlier, compare and switch with intent

If Step 1 reveals your fund has a notably higher total expense ratio, higher advertising spend, or persistently higher fees than comparable funds delivering similar (or better) investment returns, treat that as a signal to compare alternatives and potentially switch. A structured comparison has three components. First, pull your fund’s 10-year net returns from APRA’s product performance data and compare them against the top performers in the same risk category using APRA’s heatmap or the ATO’s YourSuper comparison tool. Second, note the total fee difference between your current product and the best alternatives — and run the compounding maths on your current balance over your remaining investment horizon. Third, before switching, confirm two things with your prospective new fund: the insurance terms (cover can change on a fund transfer), and that the new fund’s fee and performance data is based on the same risk profile. If the compounding difference is significant and the net returns are comparable or better in the alternative, a switch is often straightforward — most can be initiated online through your fund portal in minutes. ^[4][5][10]

Action 3: Build a once-a-year fee audit into your super calendar

APRA typically releases its Annual Superannuation Bulletin and fund-level statistics in the second half of the calendar year, with the fund expenditure update published in December each year. Set a recurring calendar reminder — “Annual super fee audit” — for each December or January. Each year the audit covers four points: has your fund’s total expense ratio crept up since last year; how does its advertising and sponsorship spend compare with peers in the updated expenditure data; did your product pass or fail the YFYS performance test; and has anything changed in your own balance or circumstances that would make a switch decision rational. For most members in well-run, low-cost funds, the annual check takes 20 minutes and confirms everything is fine. For the member in an expensive outlier product, the check catches fee creep before it compounds through another year of unnecessary drag on their retirement savings. ^[1][13][5]

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❓ Frequently Asked Questions

Where can I see how much my fund spends on advertising and sponsorship?

APRA’s annual fund-level expenditure spreadsheet (search “superannuation fund expenditure” on apra.gov.au) — updated each December — shows each fund’s spending on investment management, administration, advertising, sponsorship and industrial body payments. Find your fund and compare against peers. ^[6][13]

How much does a 0.5% fee difference cost over time?

On a $200,000 balance at 6% growth, roughly $80,000–$100,000 in lost retirement savings over 30–40 years. On $400,000, it doubles. The fee gap between expensive platform products and low-cost industry funds is often larger than 0.5%. ^[4][5]

What does ASIC RG 97 require funds to disclose?

Transactional and operational costs including stamp duty, brokerage and settlement — in a consistent format in PDSs and periodic statements. But RG 97 acknowledges blind spots: some borrowing costs and property operating expenses can still be bundled into net returns. ^[2][3]

Do high fees mean better performance?

No — APRA’s data consistently shows high-fee products in the Choice and platform sector don’t deliver better net returns than cheaper MySuper alternatives. The YFYS performance test measures net returns after fees, so high-fee products face a higher hurdle to pass. ^[5][10]

What is APRA’s Superannuation Data Transformation?

A multi-phase project to improve fee data quality and comparability. Phase 1 expands granular fee reporting to Choice products and options — not just MySuper — requiring look-through costs and indirect expense breakdowns that were previously not collected. ^[11][14]

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📚 Sources & References

1. APRA, “Annual Superannuation Bulletin,” apra.gov.au/annual-superannuation-bulletin
2. ASIC, “Fees and costs disclosure — RG 97,” asic.gov.au
3. Treasury, FOI 4119, treasury.gov.au (January 2026)
4. APRA, “Annual MySuper statistics,” apra.gov.au/annual-mysuper-statistics
5. APRA, “MySuper product performance,” apra.gov.au/mysuper-product-performance
6. APRA, “APRA increases transparency of super fund expenses,” apra.gov.au (October 2024)
7. ASIC, “ASIC to review superannuation investment requirements,” asic.gov.au (2025)
8. APRA, “Annual Superannuation Bulletin 2024–25,” apra.gov.au
9. GrowSMSF, “ASIC fees 2025,” growsmsf.com.au
10. APRA, “Your Future Your Super — frequently asked questions,” apra.gov.au
11. APRA, “APRA takes next steps to expand its superannuation data collection,” apra.gov.au
12. APRA, “Annual Superannuation Bulletin 2024–25 highlights,” apra.gov.au
13. APRA, “Annual fund-level superannuation statistics — fund expenditure,” apra.gov.au (December 2025)
14. APRA, “Topic Paper 7 — Fees and costs disclosed,” apra.gov.au

This article is general information only and does not constitute financial advice. Fee impacts depend on individual balance, contribution history, fund performance and investment returns. Before switching super funds or products, consider your insurance, investment options and personal tax situation. Consult a licensed financial adviser before making changes to your super. Information is current as at June 2026, based on APRA’s official publications and ASIC guidance. The Fine Print 🇦🇺 is not affiliated with APRA, ASIC or any fund or product mentioned in this article.