Investment Fund Fees Calculator
Investment fund fees are listed as a small annual percentage. But when applied to a growing balance over time, they can significantly reduce the value of your final portfolio. Enter your figures below to see how much wealth you could be losing to fees over your investment period.
See How Fees Impact Your Investment Growth – Adjust the values to estimate your portfolio after fees
In 15 Years You’ll Have
€1,805,662
By Year 15, your total contributions of €1,810,000 will have grown to €1,805,662. They could have grown to €2,199,395, but the total expense ratio of 2.55% robbed you of €393,732. A total of €345,975 worth of fees were paid, creating drag of 17.90%.
- Final Value (Gross)
- €2,199,395
- Wealth Lost to Fees (€)
- €393,732
- Total Fees Paid (€)
- €345,975
- Fee Drag (%)
- 17.90%
Want to find the best ETFs with the lowest TERs? Use our ETF comparison tool and save thousands on fees long-term.
How This Calculator Works
The fund fee calculator runs your inputs through a compound growth model, applying the total expense ratio (TER) and highlighting the differences in final value when fees are and aren’t accounted for.
Your Inputs
| Input | What it means |
|---|---|
| Initial Investment (€) | The lump sum you’ll invest today. A larger starting amount means greater compounding from day one. |
| Monthly Contribution (€) | How much you plan to invest each month. If you don’t plan on investing anything further, leave this at zero. |
| Investment Period (Years) | The length of time that you’ll invest for. |
| Annual Return (%) | The return your investments will earn each year. The higher the return, the greater the results. |
| Total Expense Ratio (TER) (%) | The annual fee charged by the fund to cover management and operational costs. A TER of 1% will cost you €1 for every €100 invested. The fee is deducted automatically within the fund and is reflected in the share price. You’ll never have to pay for it separately. |
Understanding Your Results
| Result | What it means |
|---|---|
| Final Value (Gross) | This is what your investment would be worth if no fees were charged. |
| Wealth Lost to Fees (€) | The true loss of wealth due to fees, calculated as the difference between the gross and net final values.
This amount is larger than total fees paid because it accounts for the growth you would have earned had fees not been charged. Every euro paid in fees is a euro that stops compounding. |
| Total Fees Paid (€) | The precise euro value of fees deducted from your investment over the period. |
| Fee Drag (%) | The total loss of wealth due to fees, expressed as a percentage. It shows how a seemingly small percentage fee can result in large losses in wealth over time. |
Assumptions of this Calculator
- The initial investment is made at the start of the first month. Monthly contributions are added at the end of the month.
- The Annual Return and TER are both converted to monthly figures. The monthly equivalent of the annual return accounts for the compounding nature of investments.
- The TER is charged each month on the opening balance plus half of the return earned that month. It excludes the contribution made at the end of the month. Half of the return is used because returns accumulate gradually across the month, not all at once.
- The annual return you enter is assumed to be constant for the full investment period. The calculator does not account for market volatility or year-to-year variations in returns.
- Only the TER is included as a cost. Platform fees, taxes and transaction charges aren’t accounted for, nor is inflation.
Total Fees Paid vs. Wealth Lost to Fees
These two figures measure the impact of fees on investment returns from different angles, and the difference between them is much bigger than people expect.
Total Fees Paid is the sum of every charge deducted from your investment over the period. It is a straightforward running total of what was taken in fees, month-by-month, across the full term.
Wealth Lost to Fees is a larger number. It takes the total fees paid and adds the return you would have earned had the money remained invested rather than going to the fund manager.
A euro paid in fees at year five does not just cost you one euro. It costs you one euro plus every extra cent of growth it could have earned over the remaining years of the investment.
What This Calculator Does Not Include
While this calculator is great at highlighting the impact of fees on your final portfolio, it is also important to take into account what this calculator does not include:
The TER covers the fund’s internal costs, but that’s not the only cost of investing. Commissions, platform fees, bid/ask spreads and fund transaction charges are other costs that can eat into returns.
Investment returns on funds in Ireland are subject to a 38% funds tax, which is not accounted for in the figures shown.
The results are shown in nominal terms. The real purchasing power of your final portfolio value will be lower depending on how the price of goods and services changes over the period.
To see the effects of inflation on investment returns, check out our inflation calculator.
The calculator applies your specified monthly contribution, annual return and TER as a fixed constant for the entirety of the investment period. It doesn’t account for changes in these values which, in practice, would occur.
Frequently Asked Questions
For passive ETFs tracking a broad index, TERs can range from between 0.03%-0.55%. Actively managed funds, along with funds offered by traditional life assurance companies, tend to charge considerably more. The TER alone does not determine whether a fund is worth holding, but it is one of the few costs you can control.
You can find the TER inside the fund’s factsheet. This is a document that’s required to be provided to investors. You can find the factsheets of leading ETFs through our ETF comparison tool or through both the fund manager’s website and the investing platform that you’re using to invest.
No. The TER only covers the management and operational costs of the fund. It doesn’t include transaction costs paid by the fund when buying and selling investments or fund-specific costs like swap fees. It doesn’t cover any platform fees, commissions, entry and exit charges, or taxes either.
The OCF (Ongoing Charges Figure) and the TER cover the same core costs and you’ll commonly see them used interchangeably. The OCF is the more ‘current’ term and may include additional costs that the TER excludes.
The AMC (Annual Management Charge) is what the fund charges to manage your money. The TER includes that plus other running costs such as custodian fees, index licensing and administration. AMC is one component of TER, not a separate charge on top of it.
The TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) goes beyond the TER. It captures transaction costs when the fund rebalances, swap fees on synthetic ETFs, and external costs like platform fees and dealing charges. Securities lending income can reduce the net figure. The TCO is never quoted on a factsheet.
TER is one component of tracking difference, being the under/overperformance of a fund relative to its benchmark due to fees and revenues.
This happens because fee drag is dependent on the rate of return, time horizon as well as the size of the investments made. A higher investment return means a larger ongoing balance which, in turn, means the same TER claims more euros each year. Two funds with identical TERs, but different returns, will produce different fee drags over the same period.
Yes, it’s great for ETFs. ETFs charge TERs in the same way as other funds. This calculator works the same way regardless of fund type.
