# What a fee really costs you over 30 years > See why a 0.75% fund fee costs far more than it sounds: $10,000 over 30 years at 0.03% vs 0.75%, worked through on real dated ETF data. Data as of Nov 10, 2026. Rebuilt every trading night. ## What a fee really costs you over 30 years Data as of Nov 10, 2026. Rebuilt every trading night. Over 30 years at SPY's 10.7% pace to Nov 10, 2026 , $10,000 hypothetically grows to about $209,400 after a 0.03% fee, $172,100 after 0.75%. Money Basics · Lesson 4 of 7 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Move the fee sliders. See how two fees pull apart over the years. VOO's fee (0.03%) Amount you put in $10,000 Years held 30 Low fee 0.03% High fee 0.75% After 30 years: $209,362 at a 0.03% fee, $172,130 at 0.75%. The higher fee costs $37,232. Hypothetical: a steady 10.7% a year before fees, SPY's pace since 1993. ### The question "A fund charges 0.75% a year. That's less than 1%. Why would it matter?" ### The idea - A fund's yearly fee is its expense ratio : the percent of your money the fund keeps each year to run itself. It comes quietly out of the fund's value, so you never see a bill. - The fee looks tiny because it is a small slice of one year . But it comes out every year , and every dollar it takes can no longer grow. Over decades, a small yearly gap becomes a large gap in what you end up with. ### Worked example We need a yearly return. We'll borrow a real one: SPY, an S&P 500 fund, grew 10.7% a year on average from Jan 29, 1993 to Nov 10, 2026 , with dividends put back in. We'll treat that as the return before fees, arriving every year. Real returns jump around; this is a what-if. Two fees: - 0.03% : what VOO and IVV, two S&P 500 funds, charge. - 0.75% : not rare. Of 5,101 US ETFs with a stated fee, 1,730 charge 0.75% or more. Step 1. Subtract each fee from the return. - 10.7% − 0.03% = 10.67% a year - 10.7% − 0.75% = 9.95% a year Step 2. Year one on $10,000 : - Fee: $10,000 × 0.03% = $3 , against $10,000 × 0.75% = $75 - Growth: $10,000 × 10.67% = $1,067 , against $10,000 × 9.95% = $995 A $72 gap. Easy to ignore. Step 3. Let it run 30 years. Each year's growth is added on, and the next year grows on the bigger total. That is compounding : growth on top of growth. Here's how it works: $10,000 × (1 + yearly return)³⁰, where the small 30 means "multiplied by itself 30 times": - $10,000 × 1.1067 ³⁰ = about $209,400 - $10,000 × 1.0995 ³⁰ = about $172,100 Step 4. The gap is now $37,200 , about 18% of what the low-fee fund ended with. A fee gap of 0.72 percentage points (0.75 minus 0.03 ) cost far more than 0.72% of the money, because it also took the growth those dollars would have earned. ### The common mistake "It's less than 1%, so it's small." People compare the fee with their whole balance, once. Compare it with your growth , every year. In year one, the 0.75% fee took $75 of about $1,070 in growth, roughly 7% of what the money earned. Over 30 years, with each lost dollar no longer compounding, that becomes $37,200 . A higher fee can be worth paying if a fund does something a cheaper one can't, but the fee is the one cost you know in advance. ### Check your understanding Pick an answer to see why. Two of three right passes the lesson. 1. What is an expense ratio? A A one-time charge when you put money in B The percent of your money a fund keeps each year to run itself C The fund's yearly return D A tax on your gains Answer: B. The percent of your money a fund keeps each year to run itself. it is a yearly fee, taken from the fund's value. Not A: it comes out every year you own the fund, not once, which is why it adds up. 2. On $10,000, how much is a 0.75% fee in the first year? A $0.75 B $7.50 C $75 D $750 Answer: C. $75. $10,000 × 0.0075 = $75. Not B: $7.50 would be 0.075%, a tenth of the fee. 3. Two funds own the same stocks. One charges 0.05% and the other 0.50%. Over 30 years, the gap in ending balances will be: A About 0.45% of the money B Much more than 0.45%, because the fee also removes the growth on those dollars C Zero, because they own the same stocks D Smaller each year Answer: B. Much more than 0.45%, because the fee also removes the growth on those dollars. the fee gap compounds like returns do. Not A: 0.45% is the gap for one year only. ### Takeaways - Read the expense ratio first on a fund page. It's the one cost you know in advance. - Compare fees with your growth, not your balance, and multiply by the years you'll keep it. - For funds that own the same thing, the fee is often the whole difference. ### Do it on ETFIQ Compare your fund's fee with a like fund ### Where to next --- Source: ETFIQ, independent ETF data. Recomputed nightly from public filings and prices. Cite: ETFIQ, What a fee really costs you over 30 years, data as of Nov 10, 2026. https://etfiq.com/academy/money-basics/what-a-fee-costs/ Licence: https://etfiq.com/license/ Data ETFIQ computes is free to use with attribution: ETFIQ (etfiq.com). Issuer data stays under its owner's terms. HTML: https://etfiq.com/academy/money-basics/what-a-fee-costs/