Investment fee calculator
See what share of your pot the charges consume — and why the number on your statement is the smaller half of it.
Calculator
What your charges cost, and the working behind it
What the charges take from the pot
Over 30 years, charges of 1.22% a year consume
23.61%
of the pot you would otherwise have had — £147,639.55.
£625,446.04 with no charges at all, against £477,806.49 with yours.
| Charges taken out of the pot | £67,896.96 |
|---|---|
| The ongoing charge, and the growth none of it ever earned | £79,742.59 |
| What the charges cost | £147,639.55 |
The 0.22% ongoing charge is not in the first line and never will be: it is taken inside the fund before the unit price is struck, so it reaches you as growth that did not happen rather than as money that left.
This is not a forecast. It is what would happen if a single rate held exactly, every period, for 30 years. Real returns arrive as a sequence and the order changes the answer. What charges do is far more predictable than what markets do, which is the reason a page about charges is worth more than a page about returns — but the rate here is still an assumption, and you typed it.
Which charge costs what
| Charge | What you set | Costs | Share of the pot |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fund ongoing charge | 0.22% a year | £23,354.16 | 3.73% |
| Platform or account fee | 1.00% a year | £117,477.89 | 18.78% |
| Flat fee | £0.00 a year | £0.00 | 0.00% |
| All of them together | 1.22% a year, plus any flat fee | £147,639.55 | 23.61% |
The first three rows do not add up to the fourth, and that is arithmetic rather than an error. Money a charge does not take stays invested for the other charges to work on, so removing one leaves a bigger pot behind it and removing all of them is worth more than the removals added together. There is no honest way to allocate the difference, so it is not allocated.
Two identical percentages are not two identical charges. The ongoing charge reduces the return — (1 + r) × (1 − ocf) − 1 — and the platform fee is deducted from the value. They come out nearly the same on a small pot and diverge once a cap bites, which is why this calculator refuses to add them into one number and price that.
The same plan at eight platform fees
| Platform fee | Pot after 30 years | All charges cost | Share of the pot | Against yours |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0.00% | £595,284.38 | £30,161.66 | 4.82% | £117,477.89 |
| 0.10% | £582,143.23 | £43,302.81 | 6.92% | £104,336.74 |
| 0.15% | £575,697.23 | £49,748.81 | 7.95% | £97,890.74 |
| 0.25% | £563,051.20 | £62,394.84 | 9.98% | £85,244.71 |
| 0.35% | £550,723.47 | £74,722.57 | 11.95% | £72,916.98 |
| 0.45% | £538,706.75 | £86,739.29 | 13.87% | £60,900.26 |
| 0.75% | £504,437.72 | £121,008.32 | 19.35% | £26,631.23 |
| 1.00% — yours | £477,806.49 | £147,639.55 | 23.61% | — |
A platform fee is charged on the value it holds, so the gap between any two rows widens every year the pot does. That is why the same difference in percentage points is worth almost nothing over five years and a great deal over thirty — and why the cost of a charge is a fact about your term as much as about the charge.
Year by year, and the gap between what is taken and what it costs
| Year | Opening | Paid in | Growth | Taken | Closing | Taken to date | Cost to date |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | £50,000.00 | £6,000.00 | £2,526.92 | £543.45 | £57,983.47 | £543.45 | £677.82 |
| 2 | £57,983.47 | £6,000.00 | £2,905.90 | £624.97 | £66,264.40 | £1,168.42 | £1,491.23 |
| 3 | £66,264.40 | £6,000.00 | £3,299.00 | £709.49 | £74,853.91 | £1,877.91 | £2,450.78 |
| 4 | £74,853.91 | £6,000.00 | £3,706.76 | £797.18 | £83,763.49 | £2,675.09 | £3,567.72 |
| 5 | £83,763.49 | £6,000.00 | £4,129.67 | £888.16 | £93,005.00 | £3,563.25 | £4,854.06 |
| 6 | £93,005.00 | £6,000.00 | £4,568.39 | £982.50 | £102,590.89 | £4,545.75 | £6,322.43 |
| 7 | £102,590.89 | £6,000.00 | £5,023.43 | £1,080.34 | £112,533.98 | £5,626.09 | £7,986.30 |
| 8 | £112,533.98 | £6,000.00 | £5,495.43 | £1,181.89 | £122,847.52 | £6,807.98 | £9,860.06 |
| 9 | £122,847.52 | £6,000.00 | £5,985.01 | £1,287.17 | £133,545.36 | £8,095.15 | £11,958.89 |
| 10 | £133,545.36 | £6,000.00 | £6,492.83 | £1,396.40 | £144,641.79 | £9,491.55 | £14,298.97 |
| 11 | £144,641.79 | £6,000.00 | £7,019.60 | £1,509.66 | £156,151.73 | £11,001.21 | £16,897.35 |
| 12 | £156,151.73 | £6,000.00 | £7,565.96 | £1,627.18 | £168,090.51 | £12,628.39 | £19,772.32 |
| 13 | £168,090.51 | £6,000.00 | £8,132.70 | £1,749.07 | £180,474.14 | £14,377.46 | £22,943.11 |
| 14 | £180,474.14 | £6,000.00 | £8,720.56 | £1,875.50 | £193,319.20 | £16,252.96 | £26,430.19 |
| 15 | £193,319.20 | £6,000.00 | £9,330.32 | £2,006.63 | £206,642.89 | £18,259.59 | £30,255.25 |
| 16 | £206,642.89 | £6,000.00 | £9,962.81 | £2,142.66 | £220,463.04 | £20,402.25 | £34,441.31 |
| 17 | £220,463.04 | £6,000.00 | £10,618.82 | £2,283.75 | £234,798.11 | £22,686.00 | £39,012.75 |
| 18 | £234,798.11 | £6,000.00 | £11,299.34 | £2,430.10 | £249,667.35 | £25,116.10 | £43,995.35 |
| 19 | £249,667.35 | £6,000.00 | £12,005.19 | £2,581.89 | £265,090.65 | £27,697.99 | £49,416.47 |
| 20 | £265,090.65 | £6,000.00 | £12,737.31 | £2,739.36 | £281,088.60 | £30,437.35 | £55,305.16 |
| 21 | £281,088.60 | £6,000.00 | £13,496.76 | £2,902.69 | £297,682.67 | £33,340.04 | £61,692.09 |
| 22 | £297,682.67 | £6,000.00 | £14,284.47 | £3,072.09 | £314,895.05 | £36,412.13 | £68,609.72 |
| 23 | £314,895.05 | £6,000.00 | £15,101.55 | £3,247.82 | £332,748.78 | £39,659.95 | £76,092.51 |
| 24 | £332,748.78 | £6,000.00 | £15,949.06 | £3,430.10 | £351,267.74 | £43,090.05 | £84,176.92 |
| 25 | £351,267.74 | £6,000.00 | £16,828.17 | £3,619.16 | £370,476.75 | £46,709.21 | £92,901.43 |
| 26 | £370,476.75 | £6,000.00 | £17,740.03 | £3,815.28 | £390,401.50 | £50,524.49 | £102,306.88 |
| 27 | £390,401.50 | £6,000.00 | £18,685.85 | £4,018.69 | £411,068.66 | £54,543.18 | £112,436.44 |
| 28 | £411,068.66 | £6,000.00 | £19,666.95 | £4,229.68 | £432,505.93 | £58,772.86 | £123,335.70 |
| 29 | £432,505.93 | £6,000.00 | £20,684.56 | £4,448.56 | £454,741.93 | £63,221.42 | £135,053.08 |
| 30 | £454,741.93 | £6,000.00 | £21,740.10 | £4,675.54 | £477,806.49 | £67,896.96 | £147,639.55 |
30 years, rolled up from monthly periods. The CSV export contains every period, not just the year ends, and carries both running totals so the gap between them can be checked in a spreadsheet.
A worked example you can check
These are the figures the calculator above loads with, so every number in this section can be checked against it without typing anything. £50,000.00 invested today, £500.00 a month added at the start of each month, growing at 5.00% a year before charges, for 30 years. The charges are a 0.22% fund ongoing charge and a 1.00% platform fee — a very ordinary combination, and one that adds up to 1.22% a year.
| The pot with no charges at all | £625,446.04 |
|---|---|
| The pot after these charges | £477,806.49 |
| Charges taken out of the pot over 30 years | £67,896.96 |
| The ongoing charge, and the growth none of it ever earned | £79,742.59 |
| What the charges cost | £147,639.55 |
| That cost as a share of the pot you would otherwise have had | 23.61% |
Three things in that table are worth pausing on.
- 1.22% a year costs 23.61% of the pot. Not 1.22% of it, and not 36.60% of it either. A percentage charged every year is charged on a balance that is itself compounding, and on money that would have compounded, so the share it takes grows with the term rather than with the rate.
- Only £67,896.96 of that ever appears as a deduction. The rest is the 0.22% ongoing charge, which is taken inside the fund and never shows on a statement, plus the growth that every pound of charge did not go on to earn. A reader adding up their statements would find less than half the number.
- The platform fee costs £117,477.89 and the fund charge £23,354.16. The charge most readers shop on is the smaller one here. At a platform fee of 0.00% instead — everything else unchanged — the same plan ends at £595,284.38, which is £117,477.89 more.
Methodology: exactly what this calculator does
How the cost is measured
Twice, and by subtraction. The projection is run once with your charges and once with none of them, on identical inputs, and the cost is the difference between the two final values. Nothing on this page multiplies a balance by a fee rate — every figure is a difference between two schedules the engine produced, which is why the charges table and the ladder cannot drift from the year-by-year working underneath them.
The share is that cost divided by the charge-free pot. Dividing by the pot you actually keep would produce a figure above 100% for a large enough charge and would answer a question nobody asks; dividing by the pot you would otherwise have had is what the sentence “the charges took a quarter” means.
Why an ongoing charge and a platform fee are not the same thing
The ongoing charge is levied inside the fund, on the fund’s value, throughout the year. It reduces the return rather than appearing as a deduction: net = (1 + r) × (1 − ocf) − 1, not r − ocf. The two differ by the r × ocf term — the charge levied on the year’s own growth — and over decades the subtractive shortcut overstates a pot by around 2%. The multiplicative form is also what a fund’s published net return is: the unit price is struck after the charge.
The platform fee is levied on the value the platform holds and is deducted from the pot, so it appears in the charges column of the table. It divides nominally across the year’s periods, because “1.00% a year, charged monthly” means one twelfth of 1.00% a month as a matter of the platform’s own tariff. A fee schedule is a tariff, not a compounding return, and there is no annual figure it has to compound back to.
A cap applies to the platform fee only, resets at each year boundary, and is worth nothing until the pot is large enough for the uncapped fee to exceed it. A flat fee is spread across the year’s periods by difference of running totals, so the year’s fee column adds up to exactly the fee you typed rather than to twelve roundings of a twelfth of it. Neither deducted charge can take money that is not there: the balance floors at zero rather than going negative, so a pot exhausted by charges shows zero from that period on and the fee column reports what was actually charged.
Taken, against cost
The charges column of the schedule is what left the pot. The cost is larger, for two reasons that are worth separating: the ongoing charge is never in that column at all, and every pound that was taken would have gone on compounding for the rest of the term. The page reports both and the difference between them, because the gap is the part that is easy to miss and impossible to look up.
At a growth assumption below zero the second figure goes negative, and the calculator says so rather than hiding it. Money a charge took would have shrunk if it had stayed, so the charge costs less than it takes. It still costs.
Rounding
Every figure is rounded to whole pence at each period boundary, so each row satisfies opening + paid in + growth − taken = closing exactly rather than approximately. The price is a drift of a pound or two against the textbook formula over a long schedule, which is a much smaller problem than a table a reader can catch out.
Sources, and why there is no rates table
Most calculators on this site cite gov.uk, because they implement statutory rates, bands and thresholds that can be checked against a published source. This one has no statutory figures at all. The charges, the growth rate and the term are yours. There is nothing here an authority could confirm, because a charge you typed is not the sort of thing that can be verified against HMRC guidance.
So this page carries no verification stamp and it will not borrow one. The claim it makes is arithmetic only: given these inputs and the conventions stated above, the two schedules are what those inputs compound to, and every headline is the difference between them.
What this is not
It is not a forecast. A single path at a constant rate badly understates the spread of real outcomes. It does not model tax, ISA or pension allowances, dealing charges on individual purchases, fund transaction costs, or the bid-offer spread — the ETF calculator models a per-purchase dealing charge, which is the one charge here that never gets to compound at all. And it is information, not advice: it names no platform, ranks no provider and recommends nothing. It cannot know your circumstances.
Nothing you type here is transmitted or stored — there is no application server and no database. A share link is the exception: it carries your figures in the URL. What that means.
Frequently asked questions
- How much do investment fees really cost over 30 years?
Far more than the annual percentage suggests, because the charge is levied every year on a balance that is compounding, and on money that would have compounded. On this calculator's defaults — £50,000.00 invested, £500.00 a month, 5.00% a year before charges, a 0.22% fund ongoing charge and a 1.00% platform fee — the charges cost £147,639.55 over 30 years, which is 23.61% of the pot the same plan would have reached with no charges at all. Change any assumption above and the figure changes; it is arithmetic on your inputs, not a prediction.
- Why are the fees on my statement smaller than the cost shown here?
Because a statement can only show what was taken out of the account, and that is not the whole charge. A fund's ongoing charge is levied inside the fund before the unit price is struck, so it never appears as a deduction anywhere — it reaches you as a smaller return. And every pound that was deducted would otherwise have stayed invested and gone on compounding. On the default figures £67,896.96 is deducted from the pot while the charges cost £147,639.55.
- What is the difference between an OCF and a platform fee?
Where they are taken from, which changes both the arithmetic and where you can see them. The ongoing charge figure is the fund's own charge, taken inside the fund, so it reduces the return: the net rate is (1 + r) × (1 − ocf) − 1, not r − ocf. The platform fee is your provider's charge for holding the investment, taken out of the pot, so it shows in a fee column and can be capped annually — and a cap is worth nothing to a small pot and a great deal to a large one. Adding the two into a single percentage gets the cap wrong and gets the arithmetic wrong by the r × ocf term.
- Is a 1% fee a lot?
It depends entirely on the term, which is why a percentage on its own tells you very little. Over five years a percentage point costs a few per cent of the pot; over thirty it can cost a quarter of it, because a fee charged on the value is charged on a value that has been growing and takes its largest bite in the final years. The ladder on this page runs your own plan at eight platform fees so the gap between them is measured on your money rather than on an illustration.
- Does this calculator tell me which platform to use?
No, and it will not. This site names no fund, platform or provider and recommends no course of action — recommending an authorised firm would be a financial promotion, and this page knows nothing about your circumstances. What it does is put a number on the difference between one charge and another on your own figures, which is the part a comparison table cannot do for you.
- Does it include dealing charges, spreads or transaction costs?
No. It models three charges — a fund ongoing charge, a percentage platform fee with an optional annual cap, and a flat annual fee — and no others. A per-purchase dealing commission behaves differently again, because it comes out of the money going in and therefore never compounds at all; the ETF calculator on this site models that one. Fund transaction costs and the bid-offer spread are not modelled anywhere here, so a real portfolio's total cost is higher than this page shows.
- Is this a forecast of what my charges will cost?
No. It computes what would happen if one growth rate held exactly, every single period, for the whole term. Real returns arrive as a sequence rather than as an average, and the order changes the outcome. What is genuinely more predictable than the return is the charge — a percentage of the value is a percentage of the value whatever the market does — which is why the share of the pot a charge consumes is a more robust number than the pot itself.