AustralianSuper Review: Fees, Performance and Investment Options

📊 AustralianSuper performance, read honestly🔗

Start with returns, because that is where most of the noise lives. APRA puts the default at 9.25% a year over three years, 6.54% over five years and 8.48% over ten, as at 2026-06-30. Those are net returns, so fees and taxes are already taken out.

Over the same five-year window, the median for the band that option sits in, the 60%-75% growth band, was 5.90%. The default was ahead of its band median, not behind it. It holds 73.4% in growth assets, which is why APRA places it in that band.

🔧 The lever inside your own account🔗

Now the part that gets interesting. Inside the same fund, the Indexed Diversified option charges 0.24% at a $50,000 balance, holds 70.0% in growth assets and returned 7.47% net over five years. Put beside the default, that is 0.69% against 0.24%, 73.4% against 70.0% in growth assets, and 6.54% against 7.47% in net returns.

Read that slowly. Over that window, the cheaper option cost a fraction as much and returned more, at a very similar risk level. In dollars at a $50,000 balance, the fee difference alone is $345 a year against $120.

What it does suggest is smaller and more useful: the biggest lever most members have sits inside their own fund, not outside it. Almost nobody pulls it. Our Aware Super review found the same shape at a different fund, and the index option inside super covers what you are actually buying when you pull it.

💸 What the fees cost at your balance🔗

Super fees usually come as a flat dollar amount plus a percentage rate. That shape is common across the industry, and it explains why the headline percentage falls as your balance grows.

At $50,000, 0.17% of that 0.69% is administration, with the rest made up of investment fees and costs, transaction costs and the usual line items.

Notice what is happening underneath the percentages. The gap between 1.05% at $10,000 and 0.62% at $250,000 looks like a discount, and fund marketing leans on it. It is not one. A fixed dollar administration charge is being spread across a bigger balance, so the percentage shrinks while the underlying charge does not. The percentage is a ratio, not a price. Compare at a balance close to your own, or you are comparing different products.

🧺 The investment menu in one table🔗

Most members never open the investment menu. The default does the work and that is that. But the menu is the biggest dial in the whole fund, so it is worth knowing what is on it.

A few things stand out. The cost spread is wide for one fund, from 0.24% to 0.68% at the same balance. Growth asset exposure runs from 0.0% to 88.0%, which is the decision that actually matters: how much of this money can fall hard without you doing something silly.

Compare like with like. A fixed interest option holding no growth assets has not underperformed a high growth one. They are built for different jobs, and a five-year return only means something sitting next to the asset mix that produced it.

✅ What the performance test actually measures🔗

AustralianSuper's default passed. Here is what that pass does and does not mean. APRA measures each product against a benchmark built from its own asset allocation. It is not a ranking against other funds and it is not a medal. A pass says the product's net return cleared a hurdle built from its own mix. It is a floor, not a verdict, and clearing a floor means you did not fall through it.

The peer comparison works differently. The 5.90% band median is a separate lens: it sits the default against other products with a similar growth allocation and asks whether you are ahead of the pack or behind it. Two measures, two questions, both aimed backwards. Neither knows what markets do next year. Our guide to the best performing funds goes further into why a league table of raw returns misleads.

🤷 So is AustralianSuper any good?🔗

This is where the review refuses to do the thing reviews normally do. AustralianSuper is the biggest fund in the country, with 3,187,900 member accounts. Two things about that number. Size is a fact about scale, not results: it can help hold costs down and it can come with complexity, and it guarantees nothing. And those are accounts, not people. Hold two with the same fund and you are counted twice.

So, is it good? That is the incomplete question. The useful version is whether the option you are actually in, at your balance, is doing the job for what it costs. That has a real answer, and it is different for a 24-year-old on their first default account and a 52-year-old with a quarter of a million dollars in the same fund.

While you are logged in, check how many accounts you hold. Consolidating super covers the order of operations, and the insurance question comes before the fee saving. None of this needs a new fund, an adviser or a dramatic decision. It needs about ten minutes and a login.

❓ Frequently asked questions🔗