Investment fee calculator: show how expense ratios and advisory fees erode portfolio returns over decades, with dollar cost. Free, runs locally, no signup.
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1% fee over 20 years on $100k
What this means for your numbers: The 1% fee consumed $79,128 of the worked example's final value, 17% of the no-fee result. Every 0.25% of expense ratio costs roughly $20,000 over this horizon.
Illustrative breakdown using the worked example above. The calculator computes your own numbers with the same formula.
A worked example: $10,000 over 30 years
Take $10,000 invested at an 8% gross return with a 1% annual fee, held for 30 years. The no-fee leg compounds at the full 8%: 10,000 x 1.08^30. Since 1.08^30 works out to 10.0627, the final value is $100,627. The with-fee leg compounds at 8% minus 1%, so 7%: 10,000 x 1.07^30. Because 1.07^30 is 7.6123, that value is $76,123.
The drag is the difference: $100,627 minus $76,123, or $24,504. As a share of the no-fee outcome, that is 24.35% of your final value gone. Notice the fee was only 1% per year, yet it consumed nearly a quarter of the ending balance. The gap widens non-linearly: after 10 years the same inputs give $21,589 versus $19,672, a gap of just $1,917, but by year 40 the gap grows to $67,500 ($217,245 vs $149,745). Compounding works on the fee too, which is why the calculator discounts the return rate rather than subtracting a flat dollar amount.
Where the single-fee model breaks down
The tool collapses every cost into one flat percentage, but real funds rarely behave that way. A typical index fund charges about 0.03% to 0.10% in expense ratio, while an actively managed fund can run 0.5% to 1.0% or more. On top of that sit load fees (up to 5.75% front-load on some share classes), 12b-1 marketing fees of 0.25% to 1.00%, and trading spreads. A 1% headline fee with a 5.75% front load on $10,000 removes another $575 on day one, before any compounding starts.
Two edge cases matter. First, the model assumes the fee applies every year at a constant rate; robo-advisors often tier their pricing, so $50,000 might pay 0.25% while $500,000 pays 0.15%. Second, contributions are not modeled: this calculator takes a single lump sum, so a 401(k) with monthly deposits needs a compound-growth tool with recurring contributions instead. Fees may also be tax-deductible in some retirement accounts, softening the effective drag.
