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See the true dollar cost of a high expense ratio versus a low-cost index fund over 10, 20, or 30 years. Most investors are shocked by the number.
Default inflation rate for Europe: 2.5% per year, based on Eurostat (HICP) data (2026). You can override it in each calculator’s advanced options. See data sources for full citations.
Fee drag is calculated by comparing two growth paths at the same gross return, differing only by their annual fee:
Where r = gross return − expense ratio. The key insight is that the fee compounds every year — you lose not just the fee, but also all future returns that fee would have generated. This is why the fee drag in dollar terms is far larger than the expense ratio percentage suggests.
Starting with $100,000 and adding $6,000 per year at 8% gross return: a 0.05% expense ratio (index fund) grows to about $972,000 over 30 years. The same portfolio in a 1.25% expense ratio fund grows to about $728,000. Fee drag: $244,000 — roughly 25% of total wealth.
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