The expense-ratio toll — a calculator
Type a balance, a monthly contribution, a hypothetical gross return, and two fees. See the dollar cost of the difference over years, not a percentage.
Nothing you type leaves the browser. No accounts, no sign-in, no saved history — a calculator that does not know who you are.
After 20 years
Same starting money, same contributions, same underlying return. The difference is the fee itself, plus the compounding that fee would have produced. The gross return above is an assumption, not a promise — this tool prices the fee, not the fund. It names no funds and recommends none.
Why this is true
An expense ratio is an annual fee, quoted as a percentage of your balance, deducted automatically from a fund’s returns. You never see a bill. The fee is subtracted inside the fund, which is exactly why it is easy to ignore and worth translating into dollars once.
The mechanics are simple: whatever the fund’s investments earn, you receive one percentage point less, every year, on the whole balance. The cost compounds — because every dollar taken in fees is also a dollar that stops growing for you. That is what this page prices, using monthly compounding and end-of-month contributions.
Two honest caveats. A low fee is not the only thing that matters about a fund; this page prices the fee itself, and recommends nothing. And future returns in the example are an assumption, not a promise — the point survives with any positive return, though the dollar figures change. Where to find yours: every fund publishes its expense ratio in its summary prospectus and on your brokerage’s fund page, usually one line labelled “expense ratio” or “net expenses”.
On Plumb Premier, connected brokerage and retirement accounts show the balance and any available position data live — the fee figures still come from each fund’s own disclosure.
Plumb is financial education, not financial, investment, tax, or legal advice.