As a retail rep / IA years ago, I was mainly in managed money. Did the IA flat 1% on most products for clients above $100k. They've mainly gotten away from the old transactional and front-loaded stuff for the most part. It's largely gone to institutional shares of mutual funds, stocks, bonds, and a few other things here and there. "Trails" rather than a big upfront fee with little or no trail.
Annuities and other insurance products and certain "structured investments" (basically bonds created using options based upon baskets of stocks, commodities, etc typically with a cap and a multiplier on either the upside or downside for the client) paid out more.
The big firm BDs typically take between 50-60% - more for a lower producer, less for a higher producer. A rep / IA going independent will generally get to keep 90% without being micromanaged, but has their own office and marketing expenses, admin headaches, etc and still must follow the same regs basically.
The big firms also have ways of paying reps less per dollar of AUM. Like some only paying on accounts above $250k, only paying on money brought in that is flipped into another investment, etc. And heaven forbid you flip money they don't think you should have, at least if it's not in a managed account.
The best scenario I've found for myself is to strictly deal with accredited investors - the "private investment fund" in legal terms... i.e. "hedge fund" - a term I hate and don't use for myself. And have a limited number of investors that you know very well. Fewer expenses with a limited number of clients and minimal turnover of clients - and far fewer headaches and regs. You basically only have to worry about not running afoul of the govt... not a problem as long as you don't get greedy, lie, steal, make "guarantees" you cannot keep, or else have any nutty clients who would wrongly accuse you of any such things.
You can charge a performance fee as well as an admin fee. But I will only do that with the $ I will invest for anyone that actually requires significant effort and also likely some research expense (and certainly considerable time) on my end. I would never charge a performance fee or even an admin fee above a minimal amount for things like investmet in a conservative income portfolio (mainly local munis and investment grade corporates), insurance products, or mutual funds.
Basically doing what's right for the client, underpromising / (hopefully) overdelivering, and emphasizing things like trustworthiness, stability, integrity, etc rather than huge returns.
If somebody came to see me with $10 mil who wanted me to guarantee them double digit returns, or who wanted 50% or more a year with no losses ever or whatnot, I'd tell them straightup they were not being realistic. Anyone who can do that will end up being a trillionaire.
