Expense Ratio Calculator
See the true long-term cost of fund fees
Put your fund's numbers in
Free. No sign-up. The answer updates as you type.
$
The balance you are starting from, as a positive number, for example 50000. If you are starting from nothing, leave it at zero and fill in what you add each year.
$
The same amount, once a year, paid in at the start of the year, for example 6000. If you add nothing, type zero.
The share of your balance the fund takes each year. Type 0.5 for 0.50%. The fund states it in its key information document, sometimes called the ongoing charge or the total expense ratio.
Your own assumption about the investments inside the fund, before anything is taken out. Type 7 for 7%. A flat market is 0, and a losing decade can be negative.
The fee is taken once a year in this model, so the calculator counts whole years, from 1 to 100. Type 30 for thirty years.
What this fee costs you over 30 years
$111,250
With the fee you would end up with $875,801. With no fee at all, the same money would reach $987,051, so the fee takes 11.3% of what you would have had without it.
The numbers behind that
With no fee, you would end up with
$50,000 today plus $6,000 at the start of every year, at 7% a year for 30 years.
$987,051
With the fee, you end up with
The same money, with 0.5% of the balance taken out at the end of every year. That turns your 7% a year into 6.47%, because the fee is worked out on the balance after the year's growth.
$875,801
Fees the fund takes out
One fee a year for 30 years: $299.60 in the first year, $4,401 in the last.
$53,442
Growth those fees would have earned
Money taken out as fees stops growing. Left in the fund at 7% a year, it would have added this much by the end. $53,442 plus $57,808 is the $111,250 the fee costs you.
$57,808
What would change the cost
Click an option to jump to the field you would change.
Both results use the same return, so the difference between them is the fee and nothing else. The amounts are what the account would show at the end, with no adjustment for rising prices over the years.
One column pays the fee every year, the other pays nothing. Both get the same money and the same return, so the gap between them is the fee and nothing else.
| Year | With the fee | With no fee | Fee that year | Cost so far |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | $59,620 | $59,920 | $299.60 | $299.60 |
| 2 | $69,863 | $70,534 | $351.07 | $671.64 |
| 3 | $80,767 | $81,892 | $405.87 | $1,125 |
| 4 | $92,377 | $94,044 | $464.20 | $1,667 |
| 5 | $104,737 | $107,047 | $526.32 | $2,310 |
| 6 | $117,896 | $120,961 | $592.44 | $3,065 |
| 7 | $131,906 | $135,848 | $662.84 | $3,942 |
| 8 | $146,821 | $151,777 | $737.80 | $4,956 |
| 9 | $162,701 | $168,822 | $817.59 | $6,120 |
| 10 | $179,608 | $187,059 | $902.55 | $7,451 |
| 11 | $197,607 | $206,573 | $993.00 | $8,966 |
| 12 | $216,771 | $227,453 | $1,089 | $10,683 |
| 13 | $237,173 | $249,795 | $1,192 | $12,622 |
| 14 | $258,894 | $273,701 | $1,301 | $14,807 |
| 15 | $282,019 | $299,280 | $1,417 | $17,261 |
| 16 | $306,640 | $326,649 | $1,541 | $20,010 |
| 17 | $332,852 | $355,935 | $1,673 | $23,083 |
| 18 | $360,759 | $387,270 | $1,813 | $26,512 |
| 19 | $390,470 | $420,799 | $1,962 | $30,330 |
| 20 | $422,101 | $456,675 | $2,121 | $34,574 |
| 21 | $455,778 | $495,063 | $2,290 | $39,284 |
| 22 | $491,632 | $536,137 | $2,471 | $44,505 |
| 23 | $529,804 | $580,087 | $2,662 | $50,282 |
| 24 | $570,444 | $627,113 | $2,867 | $56,669 |
| 25 | $613,711 | $677,430 | $3,084 | $63,720 |
| 26 | $659,775 | $731,271 | $3,315 | $71,495 |
| 27 | $708,818 | $788,880 | $3,562 | $80,062 |
| 28 | $761,031 | $850,521 | $3,824 | $89,491 |
| 29 | $816,619 | $916,478 | $4,104 | $99,858 |
| 30 | $875,801 | $987,051 | $4,401 | $111,250 |
What a different fee would do to the same money
Same starting balance, same contributions, same return, same number of years. Only the fund's yearly fee changes from row to row. Your own fee is the highlighted row.
| Yearly fee | What you end up with | What the fee costs you | Share it takes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0% | $987,051 | $0.00 | 0.0% |
| 0.25% | $929,653 | $57,398 | 5.8% |
| 0.5%yours | $875,801 | $111,250 | 11.3% |
| 1% | $777,869 | $209,182 | 21.2% |
| 2% | $615,713 | $371,338 | 37.6% |
Between the most expensive row, 2% a year, and the cheapest, 0%, there is $371,338 on this same plan. Nothing about the investments changes from one row to the other, only the price you pay to hold them.
An expense ratio is the yearly fee a mutual fund or ETF charges, expressed as a percentage of the money you hold in it. This calculator runs the same money twice, once paying that fee every year and once paying nothing, so you can see what the fee costs you by the end, including the growth the money taken as fees would have earned.
Fee for the year = balance after growth × yearly fee
Step 1: Type the money you already hold in the fund and what you add at the start of each year.
Step 2: Enter the fund's expense ratio as a percentage, for example 0.5 for a 0.50% (50 basis point) fee.
Step 3: Type the yearly return you assume before the fee, and the number of whole years you stay invested.
Step 4: Read what the fee costs you, the numbers behind it and the options under them. Everything recalculates while you type, so there is no button to press.
What Is an Expense Ratio?
An expense ratio is the annual operating cost of a mutual fund or exchange-traded fund, expressed as a percentage of the fund's assets. It covers the fund's management fees, administrative costs, recordkeeping, and other operating expenses. If a fund has an expense ratio of 0.50%, you pay half a percent of your invested balance every year, deducted automatically from the fund's assets rather than billed to you directly. Because the fee is netted out of performance, it never appears as a line item, which makes its true impact easy to underestimate.
The expense ratio is one of the few investment costs you know in advance and can choose. You cannot control the market's return, but you can choose funds with lower fees for the same exposure. That is why the expense ratio is worth checking first when you compare otherwise similar funds.
The Compounding Drag of Fees
Return after the fee ≈ return before the fee − yearly fee
The reason a seemingly trivial fee matters so much is compounding. Just as returns compound to grow your wealth, fees compound to erode it. Money taken as a fee leaves your portfolio for good and never earns a return again. Over a single year the difference looks negligible, but across two or three decades the gap between a low-cost and a high-cost fund can amount to a large fraction of your final balance.
This is why the calculator above reports two separate figures: the fees the fund takes out, and what the fee costs you in all. The difference between them is the growth the money taken as fees would have earned had it stayed invested. Looking only at the fee percentage understates the long-term cost, because it leaves that lost growth out.
That is what the table of fees above the article is for. It reruns your own balance, your own contributions and your own assumed return at fees either side of the one you typed, so you can see the same plan priced differently. Nothing about the investments changes from row to row, only the slice the fund takes, and the gap that opens between the rows is the whole argument for caring about the number.
Index Funds, Active Funds & Basis Points
Expense ratios differ from one type of fund to another. A fund that simply tracks an index has less work to pay for than a fund whose managers research and pick investments, and the fee each one charges is printed in its key information document. This page quotes no typical figures, because they change over time and from one country to another: look up the fee of the funds you are comparing and type each one into the calculator above.
Fees are frequently quoted in basis points, where one basis point equals 0.01%. A 0.50% expense ratio is 50 basis points; a 0.03% expense ratio is 3 basis points. Thinking in basis points makes it easier to compare funds precisely, because differences that sound tiny in percentage terms can be large in money terms over a lifetime of investing. The decision between an active fund and a comparable low-cost index alternative is, in large part, a decision about how much fee drag you are willing to accept, and whether you believe the active manager can consistently overcome that higher hurdle.
Related Calculators
Understanding fee drag works best alongside the broader mechanics of long-term growth. To see how contributions and returns build wealth before fees are considered, use the compound interest calculator. And because a fund's fees are only one part of running a portfolio efficiently, the portfolio rebalancing calculator helps you keep your asset allocation on target without incurring unnecessary costs along the way.
Frequently Asked Questions About the Expense Ratio Calculator
Because a fee works against you the same way a return works for you, year after year. Money paid as a fee is no longer invested, so it never earns anything again. Over one year the difference is small. Over several decades the growth that money would have earned can be larger than the fees themselves. The calculator above shows the two figures separately for your own numbers.
There is no single good number. The useful comparison is between funds that hold the same kind of investments: for the same holdings, a lower fee leaves more of the return with you, and the fee is one of the few costs you know in advance. Look up the fee of each fund you are comparing in its key information document, then run each one through the calculator above.
A basis point is one hundredth of a percent, or 0.01%. Fund fees are often quoted in basis points: a 0.50% expense ratio equals 50 basis points, and a 0.03% expense ratio equals 3 basis points. Using basis points makes small differences in fees easier to compare precisely, which matters because even a difference of a few basis points compounds into a meaningful sum over a long investing lifetime.
Keep track of what you own
A fee is easier to judge when you can see everything you own in one place. With a free Worthmap account, you can record what you own in each currency, see your net worth in one base currency over time, and use the stock screener and AI analysis. The free plan is in beta.
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Educational use only. This tool provides estimates for informational purposes and does not constitute financial, investment, tax, or legal advice. Results are based on inputs you provide and mathematical models, they do not guarantee future performance. Always consult a qualified financial adviser before making investment decisions.