For twenty years the default answer to "how should I best maximally fund an RESP?" has been one of two things: drop the $50,000 in on day one, or run the Traditional Maximizer — $16,500 up front, then $2,500 a year.

Underneath that debate are two forces pulling in opposite directions.

The first is capture. The CESG is paid on contributions, not on the balance: 20% on the first $2,500 each year, to a $7,200 lifetime maximum. Put all $50,000 in on day one and you collect one year's $500 and walk away from up to $6,700 of free money. To capture more grants, you need to spread out contributions.

The second is leakage. Every dollar waiting outside the plan is taxed on its growth every year, and for many families it quietly claws back the Canada Child Benefit (CCB) too. Leakage rewards getting money inside the RESP and out of a non-registered account as fast as possible.

Every funding schedule is a different trade between the two. The lump sum and the Maximizer are simply the two extremes. So, in the first issue of Random, TIER Wealth's new planning reference series, we tested everything in between: sixteen schedules, all thirteen jurisdictions, eight return assumptions, six trading frequencies, market crashes landing in eight different years, CCB and grandparent OAS/GIS clawbacks, and a Monte Carlo layer producing 49.92 million simulated household outcomes.

The short version: it's a false binary. Across all cases summarized in the paper, the Maximizer never wins outright. The day-one lump sum never wins either, even at a 25% annual return. The winners live in between, and the answer moves in predictable ways with portfolio mix (expected returns), province, family income and the plan's eventual exit.

The paper also covers what to do with an RESP that's already underway, when grandparents should fund it, and why the finish line isn't age 18.

Six to eight is the new sixteen-five. Here's the evidence: https://www.tierwealth.com/random/optimal-resp-funding