Compliance firm Strategi said it was likely that it might cost about $10,000 to establish a FAP with one to three advisers, and then another $10,000 a year to operate.

That includes adviser time at a rate of $200 per hour.

Larger FAPs would be more expensive to set up, at about $15,000 to $18,000, it said.

Businesses would need to think about the size of their business, the service offering they wanted to give clients, their plans for growth, how they would handle the branding of advisers within their FAP and the structure.

But Financial Advice NZ chief executive Katrina Shanks said thinking about it in dollar terms was the wrong approach.

She said the new regime would require a new level of professionalism from advisers and their businesses.

"As a business owner you have to make choices about what your business looks like in the future."

How much needed to change could vary a lot from one business to the next, she said.

"For every business it will be different."

She said some would already be focused on customer outcomes with clear governance structures and processes in place.

For them, there might be relatively little change to meet the new requirements.

Others who had not implemented much governance previously might face a bigger shift.

Strategi's calculation was based on about 40 hours' work a year on the business, she said, and that was not much.

"Good businesses and good financial advisers should be investing continually in themselves and their businesses. It shouldn't be about what is it going to cost me to meet the regulation but what do I need to invest to get the best outcome for my clients? The discussion is much bigger than the dollar figure."

She said many advisers would find it particularly difficult to work out a system to show that their clients understood their advice.

Simpy signing a statement of advice would not be enough.