Investment Fee Calculator
Fees are usually quoted as a tiny annual percentage. This shows what that percentage actually costs you by the end. Results update as you type, and the link always carries your numbers.
How this calculator works
Both figures use the same compound-growth-with-contributions formula — future value equals the starting balance and every monthly contribution growing at a monthly rate for the number of months invested. The only difference is the rate: one run uses your full annual return, and the other uses that return minus the expense ratio. The gap between the two final balances is money that never left your account in a single transaction — it simply never grew, because a slice of your balance was skimmed off every year before it had a chance to compound.
Worked example
Start with $50,000, add $500/month, for 30 years at a 7% annual return. At the full 7% return the balance grows to $1,015,810.37. With a 1.0% fee (a typical actively managed fund), the net 6% return leaves you with $803,386.28 — the fee costs $212,424.09, over a quarter of the final balance. Swap in a low-cost index fund's 0.05% fee instead and the balance is $1,003,819.17, a fee cost of just $11,991.20. Same savings plan, same market return — a $200,432.89 difference in outcome, purely from the fee.
Frequently asked questions
A 1% fee sounds small — why does it add up to so much?
Because the fee doesn't just take 1% once — it takes 1% every year, including from the growth that money would otherwise have earned. On $50,000 growing at 7% with $500/month added for 30 years, a 1% fee costs $212,424 by the end — not because 1% is a big number, but because the portion of your balance lost to fees each year would itself have kept compounding. The fee compounds against you the same way your contributions compound for you.
What's a "reasonable" expense ratio?
As a factual range: many index funds charge between 0.03% and 0.20%, while actively managed funds often charge 0.5% to 1.5% or more. This isn't personalized advice about which to choose — just the typical range you'll see on a fund's fact sheet, labeled as the expense ratio.
Does a higher-fee fund ever make sense?
Only if it reliably outperforms a comparable low-fee option by more than the fee difference, net of that fee, over your holding period — a high bar that most actively managed funds don't clear consistently. That's a factual observation about the math, not a recommendation for or against any specific fund.
Is this just compound interest?
Yes — the underlying math is the same compound-growth formula used throughout this site. This tool doesn't introduce new math; it runs that formula twice, once at your full return and once at your return minus the fee, and isolates the gap as its own number so the fee's specific cost is visible rather than buried inside a single final balance.