Australian Retirement Trust Review: Fees, Options and Returns
Australian Retirement Trust review: ART fees by balance, the investment options, and what ART super performance looks like in APRA's published data.
By Timothy Hirou GaschereauPublished 9 min read
Try it yourself
This page sets out what APRA publishes about Australian Retirement Trust, usually just called ART. It does not score the fund or tell you what to do. For the same arithmetic across every fund, use our super fund comparator.
Quick answer
ART's default charges 0.70% in total fees and costs at a $50,000 balance and holds 76.7% in growth assets, returning 7.10% a year over five years against a band median of 7.52%. Its 3 index options are all priced at 0.31%, whatever risk level you pick.
In this guide
- →Why three index options share one price across wildly different risk levels
- →What the index option really gains you against the default, and what it does not
- →Why the most expensive option on the menu is not the best performer
- →What a performance test pass proves when the return sits below the band median
🏷️ Three index options, one price
Here is the most unusual number in this review. ART's 3 index options are each priced at 0.31% at a $50,000 balance, even though they hold very different amounts of growth assets: 25.0%, 81.3%, 92.5%. Inside that tier, taking on more risk costs you nothing extra.
That is worth pausing on, because it changes the question. Everywhere else on this menu, and at most funds, picking a different risk level also picks a different price, so the two decisions get tangled. In the index tier they come apart: the choice is purely about how much of your balance can fall in a bad year. Everything outside the tier sits between 0.68% and 1.42%.
⚖️ The index option against the default
Line up the two most obvious options. Balanced Index costs 0.31% and holds 81.3% in growth assets. The default costs 0.70% and holds 76.7%. That is a 0.39 percentage point fee gap, and 4.53 percentage points more risk in the index option. Not identical, just more.
Over five years, Balanced Index returned 7.14% and the default returned 7.10%. The gap is 0.04 percentage points, which is noise. Move the start date and it flips the other way, so do not build a plan on it and do not let anyone sell you one.
The fee gap, by contrast, is real and repeats every year whether markets rise or fall. In dollars at a $50,000 balance, that is $350 a year against $155. It is the reliable half of this comparison and the only half that behaves predictably. Five years is still one window, and past returns do not carry forward in either direction.
💸 What the fees cost at your balance
| Balance | Total fees and costs | Per year |
|---|---|---|
| $10,000 | 1.20% | $120 |
| $25,000 | 0.82% | $205 |
| $50,000 | 0.70% | $350 |
| $100,000 | 0.64% | $640 |
| $250,000 | 0.60% | $1,500 |
Watch the direction of travel. The percentage falls as the balance climbs, but the dollar charge does not, as the right-hand column shows. A flat dollar admin charge is a bigger slice of a small account than a large one. At $50,000, 0.22% of the 0.70% is administration.
So "ART's fee is around one percent" is a sentence that helps nobody. Tell someone with $250,000 in super that fees are about one percent and you have overstated their cost by roughly half. Convert the percentage into dollars at your own balance before you compare anything.
🗂️ The full menu
| Option | Fee at $50,000 | Growth assets | Five-year net return |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bonds Index | 0.31% | 25.0% | 0.06% |
| Balanced Index | 0.31% | 81.3% | 7.14% |
| High Growth Index | 0.31% | 92.5% | Not published |
| Balanced Risk-Adjusted | 0.68% | 74.6% | 5.02% |
| Conservative | 0.71% | 49.3% | 4.32% |
| Conservative-Balanced | 0.72% | 66.1% | 5.97% |
| High Growth | 0.73% | 90.7% | 8.77% |
| Balanced | 0.73% | 80.1% | 7.52% |
| Socially Conscious Balanced | 0.83% | 80.3% | 6.95% |
| Unlisted Assets | 1.42% | 80.0% | 7.32% |
| Lifecycle Investment Strategy (default) | 0.70% | 76.7% | 7.10% |
Notice that the cheapest option is not the one with the least risk, and the dearest is not the one with the most. Fees and risk run on separate tracks here, which is exactly why you have to look at both instead of grabbing whichever number is easiest to find.
And the expensive end did not buy the best outcome. Unlisted Assets charges 1.42%, holds 80.0% in growth assets and returned 7.32% over five years. High Growth, at 0.73%, returned 8.77%, the best on the menu. A high fee bought a different set of assets, not a better result. Which exposure suits you is a question about your circumstances, and the fee tells you nothing about it either way.
🏅 A floor, not a ranking
ART's default passed APRA's annual performance test. The test builds a benchmark from each product's own asset mix, then measures the product against that hurdle. A conservative option is judged against conservative assets, a growth option against growth assets. Pass, and you have cleared a bar set for your own risk level. It is a floor under the product, not a ladder to the top.
Which is why a pass can sit next to a below-median return, and this default is a tidy example: 7.10% over five years against a median of 7.52% for the 75%-90% band it belongs in. Both true at once, because they answer different questions. The test asks whether the product cleared its own hurdle. The median asks how it went against its peers. Our Rest review works through the same pairing, and our guide to the best performing funds explains why league tables mislead.
👥 Accounts, not members
ART reports 1,472,450 member accounts, and that figure gets quoted as "members" all over the place. Leave a second account behind from an old job with $800 in it and you are counted again. The number flatters the fund's reach, and it is worth remembering every time a comparison table throws a membership figure at you.
Size matters for one practical reason: a big fund spreads its fixed costs across more people. It still tells you nothing about whether the option your money sits in suits you. If you suspect you are one of the double counted, consolidating super covers the order of operations, insurance first.
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❓ Frequently asked questions
Is Australian Retirement Trust good?
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No brand-level answer holds, because ART's 10 options behave differently from one another. Judge the option you hold: is the fee low at your balance, is the growth weighting right for your time frame, and does the five-year return sit near its band median? The default passed APRA's performance test, which is a floor rather than a ranking.
What are Australian Retirement Trust's fees at different balances?
+
They move with your balance. Total fees on the default run 1.20% at $10,000, 0.70% at $50,000 and 0.60% at $250,000, because a flat dollar admin charge shrinks as a share of a bigger account. Your option changes it too: the menu runs from 0.31% to 1.42% at $50,000.
How has ART super performance looked over five years?
+
The default returned 7.10% a year over five years, 9.19% over three and 8.10% over ten. Across the choice options, five-year returns ran from 0.06% to 8.77%. Read each next to its growth assets rather than against a headline table.
What are the Australian Retirement Trust investment options?
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There are 10. The 3 index options are all priced at 0.31% at a $50,000 balance, across growth allocations from 25.0% to 92.5%. The rest sit between 0.68% and 1.42%. A higher fee buys different exposure, not automatically a better result.
Does ART's default pass APRA's performance test?
+
Yes. Read the result properly though: the test benchmarks each product against its own asset mix, so a pass is a floor, not a ranking. The default still returned 7.10% over five years against a 7.52% median for its growth band. Clearing the test and sitting below the band middle can both be true.
Is the cheapest option automatically the best one?
+
No, and the menu shows why. Fees and risk run on separate tracks here, so the cheapest option is not the least risky and the dearest is not the most. A higher fee buys a different kind of exposure. Compare the fee against the asset mix that produced the return, not against another fee.
📚 Recommended reading
Super Made Simple
Noel Whittaker
Super Made Simple
A focused, up-to-date guide to actually understanding your superannuation, from one of Australia's most trusted finance writers.
Retirement Made Simple
Noel Whittaker
Retirement Made Simple
Australia's godfather of personal finance demystifies super, the pension and making your savings last. The plain-English retirement handbook every Aussie should read before they stop working.
Some links above are affiliate links. If you buy through them, Snowball Invest may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. We only recommend books we'd suggest anyway.
Sources
- 1. APRA, Comprehensive Product Performance Package, as at 2026-06-30 (checked 13 October 2026)
- 2. APRA, Annual superannuation performance test (checked 13 October 2026)
- 3. Australian Retirement Trust, Fees and costs (checked 13 October 2026)
- 4. ASIC MoneySmart, Choosing a super fund (checked 13 October 2026)
General information only. This page sets out published figures and does not recommend any fund or investment option. It is not personal financial or tax advice. Figures are APRA's as at 2026-06-30 and can change.
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Try the Retirement Savings calculator →General information only. This article is educational and does not constitute personal financial advice. It does not account for your circumstances. Consider your own situation and seek advice from a licensed adviser before acting. Read our full disclaimer.
Timothy Hirou Gaschereau
Founder of Snowball Invest, not a financial adviser.
I write about what I'm learning myself, because nobody ever taught us how to take control of our own money. It's a skill, not a mystery, and it's never too late to learn it. The best day to start was yesterday, the second best is today.
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