Index Fund Cost Comparison

Because the holdings are identical and the costs are not. Among Nasdaq 100 feeder funds the measured annual fee — management plus custody plus service — ranges from 0.60% to 1.30%, more than double. On ¥100,000 held for five years that one line item differs by over three thousand yuan, for two funds holding the same basket of stocks. An index fund has no stock-picking skill to compare, so cost is close to the only variable you control.

Management, custody and service fees accrue daily and come straight out of the fund's NAV. Nothing is debited from your account, so there is no transaction to notice — the NAV you see is already net of them. That is exactly why they get overlooked: the one-off entry fee is displayed prominently at purchase, while the annual fee that actually erodes long-run returns is buried inside the NAV.

It depends on how long you hold. Class A charges an entry fee once and no service fee thereafter; Class C normally waives the entry fee but charges a service fee every year. So C wins over short holds and A wins over long ones, with a crossover in between. This tool computes that crossover for every A/C pair in the same series. If the entry fee is 0.12% and C costs 0.30% more per year, the crossover is 0.12 ÷ 0.30 = 0.4 years — hold beyond roughly five months and A is cheaper.

Total cost = (amount × entry fee) + (amount × annual fee × years). It is a simplified model: fees accrue against the principal on a straight line, NAV growth raising the fee base is ignored, and redemption fees are excluded (those usually taper to zero past a holding threshold). The point is to turn abstract percentages into comparable amounts so you can rank funds, not to predict your exact bill.

Funds without complete fee data are excluded rather than defaulted to zero. Showing 'unknown' as 'free' would sort that fund into the cheapest position — which is precisely the row someone is most likely to act on. Better to omit it than to show it wrong.

At least two things. First, whether you can actually buy it: when QDII quota is tight many funds are capped or suspended, and the QDII limit tracker on this site shows current status. Second, size and inception date — a fund that shrinks too far risks liquidation, and one launched recently has little track record. Both are in the table, but how to weigh them is your call.