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Mutual Fund Fee Calculator

With amount invested 50000 usd, added each month 500 usd, years held 30 years, return before fees 7 percent and 3 more fields, mutual fund fee comes to $164,392 — what the fees cost in the end. It is reached in 16 steps, the last of which is 1015810.4 - 851418.29, and each one is printed on the page with its numbers filled in. The formula is the one published by SEC investor.gov, not an approximation fitted to it.

What an expense ratio actually costs over the life of an investment — not the yearly fee, but the compounding that fee never gets to do.

Formula and sources checked · How we check

Amount invested 50000, Added each month 500, Years held 30 years, Return before fees 7

$164,392

What the fees cost in the end for the example below. Editing a field recomputes the calculator below; this figure holds the answer the page was loaded with.

It is written into the HTML rather than drawn by a script, so a search engine reading this page without running JavaScript still finds an answer.

What the fees cost in the end
$164,392
Return after the expense ratio
7 - 0.756.25 %
Months invested
30 * 12360
Invested after the load
50000 * (1 - 0 / 100)50,000 usd
Monthly contribution after the load
500 * (1 - 0 / 100)500 usd
Monthly rate before fees
7 / 100 / 120.006
Monthly rate after fees
6.25 / 100 / 120.005
Monthly rate on the comparison fund
(7 - 0.04) / 100 / 120.006
Value if no fee were charged at all
50000 * pow(1 + 0.0058333, 360) + (500 * (pow(1 + 0.0058333, 360) - 1) / 0.0058333)1,015,810.372 usd
Value after fees
50000 * pow(1 + 0.0052083, 360) + (500 * (pow(1 + 0.0052083, 360) - 1) / 0.0052083)851,418.292 usd
Value in the comparison fund
50000 * pow(1 + 0.0058, 360) + (500 * (pow(1 + 0.0058, 360) - 1) / 0.0058)1,006,204.847 usd
What the fees cost in the end
1015810.4 - 851418.29164,392.08 usd
Share of the fee-free result lost to fees
164392.08 / 1015810.4 * 10016.183 %
Behind the comparison fund by
1006204.8 - 851418.29154,786.556 usd
Total contributed
50000 + 500 * 360230,000 usd
Fees as a share of everything you put in
164392.08 / 230000 * 10071.475 %
Years of growth the fees ate
log(1015810.4 / 851418.29) / log(1 + 0.0052083) / 122.832 years

Arithmetic on the fee you enter. It ignores tax, trading costs inside the fund and the difference in what the funds actually hold.

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Worked example

Fifty thousand invested, five hundred a month, thirty years at 7% before fees. A 0.75% expense ratio turns $1,015,810 into $851,418 — it costs $164,392, which is 71% of the $230,000 actually contributed. Against a 0.04% index fund the gap is $154,787. The yearly percentage is not the cost: the cost is that money plus every year of growth it never got to do, which here is 2.8 years of the whole portfolio.

How to work it out yourself

  1. 1.Enter what you have invested and what you add each month.
  2. 2.Take the expense ratio off the fund fact sheet — it is stated as a percentage of assets a year.
  3. 3.Leave the comparison at a broad index fund unless you have a specific alternative in mind.
  4. 4.Read the last figure, not the first: the yearly percentage is small and the lifetime cost is not.

What each expense ratio costs over thirty years, on this plan

$0.0$149.8K$299.6K0.03 Expense ratio: $7.2K usd0.1 Expense ratio: $23.8K usd0.25 Expense ratio: $58.4K usd0.5 Expense ratio: $113.1K usd0.75 Expense ratio: $164.4K usd1 Expense ratio: $212.4K usd1.25 Expense ratio: $257.4K usd1.5 Expense ratio: $299.6K usd0.031.5Expense ratio (percent)
What each expense ratio costs over thirty years, on this plan
Expense ratio (percent)What the fees cost in the endValue after feesWhat the fees cost in the endShare of the fee-free result lost to fees
0.03$7,2141,008,596.79 usd7,213.58 usd0.71 %
0.1$23,826991,984.15 usd23,826.22 usd2.35 %
0.25$58,415957,395.21 usd58,415.17 usd5.75 %
0.5$113,131902,678.94 usd113,131.43 usd11.14 %
0.75$164,392851,418.29 usd164,392.08 usd16.18 %
1$212,424803,386.28 usd212,424.09 usd20.91 %
1.25$257,439758,371.16 usd257,439.22 usd25.34 %
1.5$299,635716,175.34 usd299,635.03 usd29.5 %

The fee column is not the fee. It is the fee plus everything that money would have earned had it stayed invested, which is why doubling the ratio does more than double the cost.

The formula

  1. Return after the expense ratio7 - 0.75
  2. Months invested30 * 12
  3. Invested after the load50000 * (1 - 0 / 100)
  4. Monthly contribution after the load500 * (1 - 0 / 100)
  5. Monthly rate before fees7 / 100 / 12
  6. Monthly rate after fees6.25 / 100 / 12
  7. Monthly rate on the comparison fund(7 - 0.04) / 100 / 12
  8. Value if no fee were charged at all50000 * pow(1 + 0.0058333, 360) + (500 * (pow(1 + 0.0058333, 360) - 1) / 0.0058333)
  9. Value after fees50000 * pow(1 + 0.0052083, 360) + (500 * (pow(1 + 0.0052083, 360) - 1) / 0.0052083)
  10. Value in the comparison fund50000 * pow(1 + 0.0058, 360) + (500 * (pow(1 + 0.0058, 360) - 1) / 0.0058)
  11. What the fees cost in the end1015810.4 - 851418.29
  12. Share of the fee-free result lost to fees164392.08 / 1015810.4 * 100
  13. Behind the comparison fund by1006204.8 - 851418.29
  14. Total contributed50000 + 500 * 360
  15. Fees as a share of everything you put in164392.08 / 230000 * 100
  16. Years of growth the fees atelog(1015810.4 / 851418.29) / log(1 + 0.0052083) / 12

Source: SEC investor.gov — mutual fund fees and expenses, SEC investor.gov — compound interest calculator and methodology

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