Bonus episode: The best performing super funds of 2025/26 and how to compare yours
I sit down with Chant West’s Ian Fryer to unpack the winners, what drove another strong year for super, and how to work out whether your own fund is really performing well.
The super fund performance numbers are in for 2025/26, and it’s been another very strong year.
Despite all the market volatility, geopolitical uncertainty and economic noise we’ve lived through, the median growth super fund returned around 9.5% for the year to 30 June 2026. And incredibly, that marks four consecutive years of returns above 9%.
Of course, this is also the time of year when the emails start landing in our inboxes telling us how brilliantly our super funds have performed. We see the league tables, the double-digit returns and plenty of claims about who came out on top.
But is that actually how we should be judging our super?
For this special bonus episode of Prime Time, I’m joined by Ian Fryer, General Manager at Chant West and one of the country’s most respected superannuation commentators, to help us make sense of the numbers.
We reveal some of the best-performing growth funds of 2025/26, but more importantly, we look beyond a single year. Ian explains why your 10-year return tells you far more than your one-year result, how to compare your fund properly against others taking a similar level of risk, and why a fund calling itself “balanced” doesn’t necessarily mean it’s invested like another balanced fund.
It’s important to understand how your super is really performing, rather than simply chasing whichever fund happened to top the table this year.
And with many of us needing our retirement savings to support us for decades, this is one part of our finances that’s worth understanding properly.
Make sure you scroll down to see all the performance tables too!
LISTEN TO THIS EPISODE OF THE PODCAST HERE:
Highlights of the conversation:
The 2025/26 super results are in: We share which funds came out on top.
Why one great year doesn’t tell you enough: We look at the 10-year numbers and why long-term performance is a much better measure of how your fund is doing.
How does your fund compare? The median growth fund returned 7.7% p.a. over 10 years, giving you a useful benchmark when checking your own fund’s long-term performance.
Are you really comparing apples with apples? “Balanced”, “growth” and “high growth” can mean very different things from fund to fund. Ian explains what you should actually be looking at when comparing options.
Index versus actively managed super: Index options have edged ahead recently, but Ian explains why that doesn’t necessarily tell us what will perform best in the years ahead.
Don’t chase last year’s winner: One of Ian’s biggest messages is patience. Find a strong fund that performs well over the long term and resist constantly switching in pursuit of the latest top performer.
So, who were the best-performing super funds this year?
Let’s start with the numbers most of us will be looking at.
Chant West categorises a Growth option as one with 61–80% invested in growth assets such as shares and property. And importantly, the name on the fund doesn’t always tell you what category it belongs in, which is why you’ll see some options called “Balanced” in the Growth table below.
And remember - past performance is not a reliable indicator of future performance.
Top 10 Growth super (accumulation) options — 2025/26
Source: Chant West August 2026
But here’s the number I really want you to pay attention to: the 10-year return.
As Ian explains in the episode, super is a long-term investment. A fund can have a fantastic year - or a disappointing one - without that telling us very much about how it has performed for members over time.
So before you get too excited (or worried!) about where your fund landed this year, take a look at the longer-term numbers.
Best-performing Growth options — 10 years
Source: Chant West August 2026
What about High Growth? Top High Growth Funds —2025/26
High Growth = 81% to 95% growth assets \ Source: Chant West August 2026
And once again, when we zoom out and look at the top performers over 10 years, we see a different story.
Best-performing High Growth options — 10 years
Source: Chant West August 2026
Already in pension phase?
If you’ve already retired and moved your super into pension phase, we have the numbers for you too.
Again, we need to compare like with like. So below are the best-performing Growth pension options, using the same 61–80% growth-assets category.
Top 10 Growth pension (retirement phase) options — 2025/26
Source: Chant West August 2026
And once again, I’d encourage you to look beyond one year.
Top 10 Growth pension options — 10 years
Source: Chant West August 2026
From Bec’s Desk
Hello Primetimers!
Reviewing your super is an important process, and it’s worth doing when the data drops each year. We like to provide you with useful benchmarking you can use - and here it is, courtesy of Chant West. Happy super-reviewing!
Bec Xx
