Adviser matching service Unbiased is set to shake up its subscription options next week but has assured existing customers there will be no change to their current plans.
In an email sent to advisers today (July 9) Unbiased said the new plans would be unveiled on July 13 and promised "greater choice and flexibility".
But existing customers will not see any changes to their current subscriptions, and will only be affected by the update if they take out any additional plans after this date.
New subscriptions will be selected from the updated plans, which will no longer include the service's "plus" and "lite" products.
The "plus" service currently offered costs £59 plus VAT a month with a cost of £45 per enquiry and provides advisers with performance statistics and analytics.
The "lite" plan costs £29 a month plus VAT and £45 per enquiry, but does not include the analytics feature and only offers email addresses as a contact detail.
Unbiased said: "We will also be retiring the 'location plus' add-on from this date. All currently active 'location plus' purchases will continue as normal throughout their paid-for period."
Last year the company increased the price paid by advisers for enquires through its online directory, warning it could not longer absorb the "steadily increasing" cost of delivering the service itself.
Unbiased increased the cost for each enquiry from £30 plus VAT to £45 plus VAT with assurances the new price still represented "outstanding" value in the market.
At the same time it halved the time advisers could use their enquiry credits on its online directory to an expiration date of six months.
But the changes were not well received by some advisers who felt Unbiased's matching service favoured those who were quickest to respond to enquiries, rather than those best suited to the client's needs.
Advisers also faced matching problems when the service upgraded its dashboard in October, with one adviser saying he had purchased an enquiry which was submitted by a consumer two years ago.
But Unbiased has seen rapid growth over the past few years and now more than 27,000 professionals use the platform, managing more than £14bn of assets between them.
In January the company revealed it had secured more than £5m of funding through a private equity firm as it sought to expand its team, technology and scale.
rachel.mortimer@ft.com
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