Expense Ratio Calculator
Wall Street doesn't want you to do this math. See exactly how much your mutual fund or ETF management fees are destroying your long-term wealth, and how much you could save by switching to low-cost index funds.
Last updated: March 2, 2026
A 1% fee does not mean you keep 99% of your returns. Over 30 years, a 1% fee will consume up to 25% of your total potential wealth. Use the calculator below to prove it.
The Devastating Reality of "Small" Fees
Human brains are bad at calculating exponential decay. When a financial advisor pitches you a mutual fund that "only charges 1.25%", they are relying on your inability to comprehend compounding losses.
The Active Management Myth
Wall Street justifies charging 0.75% to 2.00% fees by claiming their highly-paid managers will "beat the market" to make up for the fee. Over a 15-year period, over 90% of actively managed funds FAIL to beat a simple S&P 500 index fund. You are paying a premium mathematically guaranteed to make you poorer.
The Low-Cost Alternative
Broad-market ETF index funds (like VOO, VTI, or FXAIX) are operated by computer algorithms, not human stock pickers. Because their overhead is so low, they charge expense ratios near 0.03%. If you invest in these directly, you keep mathematically close to 100% of the stock market's wealth generation.
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