The Fine Print Australia · PUBLISHED 28 JUN 2026 · VERIFIED 28 JUN 2026 · AU EDITION

APRA MySuper Heatmap: Fees of 2.2% Could Quietly Cost You 🇦🇺

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A super account can look “fine” while still charging 1.0%–2.2% a year in disclosed fees depending on balance, and APRA says the industry’s own heatmap has already driven $210 million in annual fee savings for members since the prior year’s heatmap.

The number that matters

APRA’s 2022 MySuper Heatmap found 8.1 million members—56% of member accounts—experienced a drop in disclosed total fees and costs, with estimated annual savings of $210 million.

How it quietly costs you

The first quiet cost is fees that fall with balance, but not enough to make all products competitive: APRA’s heatmap data, as summarized by Firstlinks, shows administration fees for a $10,000 balance typically ranged from 1.0%–1.4%, falling to 0.2%–0.4% at $250,000; total fees ranged from 1.8%–2.2% at $10,000 and 1.0%–1.2% at $250,000. APRA’s 2022 heatmap says fee reductions have already produced $210 million in annual savings, which indicates the mechanism is not theoretical: small percentage differences scale into large dollar outcomes across millions of accounts.

The second, compounding trap

The second layer is underperformance that compounds over decades: APRA said around 800,000 member accounts still remained in products with “significantly poor” investment performance in 2022, even after 350,000 fewer members were in those products than in 2021. That matters because the heatmap is designed to flag products relative to APRA’s benchmark/risk-adjusted approach, and the industry debate around the heatmap centers on whether members stay in funds that lag the reference portfolio after fees and costs.

What this looks like in practice

Sarah, 38, teacher, $85,000 income, $62,000 in MySuper, 27 years to retirement.

• She would discover that a fee difference of roughly 0.8 percentage points at her balance can be the gap between a fee profile closer to 1.0% and one closer to 1.8% at lower balances in APRA’s heatmap framework, before even considering investment returns.
• She would discover that APRA still identified about 800,000 accounts in significantly poor-performing products in 2022, meaning “being in MySuper” is not the same as being in a good MySuper product.
• She would discover that the heatmap is not just a ranking table: APRA said the tool includes investment returns, fees and costs, and long-term sustainability, so a product can look acceptable on one metric while still failing on another.

The full cost of doing nothing

For Sarah, a reasonable modelling basis is a 0.8% fee gap plus a 0.5% annual return drag across 27 years on a $62,000 balance, with contributions continuing through retirement age. Using that simplified basis, the combined lifetime shortfall is roughly tens of thousands of dollars, and the direction of the effect is consistent with APRA’s finding that fee cuts alone saved members $210 million in one year while underperforming products still held 800,000 accounts. (This is a modelled estimate, not a directly published APRA number.)

What to do about it

• Check your MySuper product against APRA’s heatmap.

• Use the APRA Superannuation Heatmap / product performance archive and find your product’s performance, fees and sustainability indicators.

• Search for your fund name and product name exactly.

• Compare your product against APRA’s fee and performance benchmarks.

• Good looks like no persistent “significantly poor” performance flag and fees that are not materially above comparable products.

• Compare your fee level against the market.

• Use the APRA heatmap fee tables and compare fees at your balance level, especially around $10,000, $50,000, $100,000, and $250,000 if shown.

• Identify your total fees and administration fees separately.

• Check whether your balance places you in the cheaper end of the disclosed fee range.

• Good looks like fees nearer the lower end of the APRA-disclosed ranges rather than the upper end.

• Decide whether to switch or stay.

• Use your fund’s MySuper/annual statement alongside APRA’s heatmap archive to confirm whether a switch is warranted.

• Compare your product’s net return and fees against the APRA benchmark view.

• Check whether your employer default can be changed if you are in a poor-performing option.

• Good looks like a product that is not in a poor-performing cohort and has competitive fees for your balance.

A myth worth clearing up

Myth: “MySuper is a government-approved label, so all MySuper products are basically the same.” Fact: APRA’s heatmap exists because MySuper products differ materially in investment performance, fees and long-term sustainability, and APRA still identified products with significantly poor performance and a large spread in disclosed fees.

Sources

• APRA
• APRA

Researched 2026-06-28.

Corrections & disclosure: an AI-assisted, human-reviewed guide. Every figure is dated and sourced above. Spot something out of date or wrong? Tell us and we’ll correct it — corrections are noted here and in the video description.