A 0.75% expense ratio looks harmless. But it is charged on your whole, growing balance, every year — so over decades it silently removes a big slice of your ending money. This calculator shows that slice.
How to read it: the “given up” number is the difference between two identical investments that only differ by the fee. It is not a forecast — it is the arithmetic of compounding with your inputs.
Each year you earn the return, pay the fee on everything so far, and then compound the remainder. Year after year the missing slice itself never gets a chance to compound. That is why the gap looks tiny at year 1 and enormous by year 30 — it is not the fee, it is the fee compounded.
Two funds that hold essentially the same index (for example a plain S&P 500 fund at 0.03% vs 0.75%) usually deliver nearly the same gross return — so the fee is most of the difference you keep. This is why SeeFund shows expense ratios on every fund, and why our backtests run net of fees.
Over 20–30 years, yes — on the same growth it can take roughly a quarter to a third of your ending balance compared with a 0.03% fund.
No — it is compounding arithmetic with your chosen inputs. Real returns vary every year.
Because the fee is charged every year on an ever-larger balance, so the small drag compounds for decades.
More: Guide: expense ratios explained · Drawdown recovery calculator · Annualized vs cumulative · All tools