How do you calculate the expense ratio of a whole portfolio?

Weight each fund by how much money you hold in it, not by how many funds you own. Multiply each fund's expense ratio by its share of the portfolio, then add the results. A small position in an expensive fund matters far less than the headline number suggests, and a large position in a cheap one dominates the average.

Is a 1 percent expense ratio a lot?

On 10,000 dollars it is 100 dollars in the first year, which sounds survivable. The reason it is not is that the fee is charged on the balance, so it grows as the balance grows, and the money paid out never compounds again. Over a long horizon the total is usually a multiple of the first year figure rather than a simple sum of it.

Do I actually pay the expense ratio, or is it taken from the fund?

It is deducted inside the fund, so no charge ever appears on your statement. What you see instead is the fund returning slightly less than the index it tracks. That invisibility is the reason expense ratios go unexamined for years.

Which broker costs are included here?

Stock and options commissions, currency conversion on foreign trades, and the gap between the cash rate your account defaults into and the best rate the same broker offers. Every default figure comes from the broker's own published schedule and carries the date it was checked.

Why is my broker not in the list?

A broker is added only after its figures have been confirmed against its own published schedule rather than a third-party summary. Three are listed today. Anything not on the list can be entered by hand using the manual option.

Home · Tools · Expense ratio calculator

Expense ratio calculator, for a whole portfolio

Built by Jacob Shasha, private investor · Published 4 August 2026 · How we test

Short answer

Every other calculator on this subject compares two funds. Almost nobody holds two funds. This one takes everything you hold, weights each fund by the money in it, and returns the expense ratio of the portfolio itself. Then it adds what your broker charges on top, which no fund calculator does at all, because the two costs are usually researched by different people.

Your portfolio

Enter each fund and what you hold in it. Expense ratio as a percentage, so 0.03 rather than 0.0003. Nothing is sent anywhere and nothing is stored.

Added each year

Return % a year

Years

Portfolio value—

Weighted expense ratio—

Fund fees, first year—

Total cost, first year—

Balance after fees—

Balance if fees were zero—

What fees cost you over the period —

Broker figures are taken from each broker's own published schedule, not from third-party summaries, and each carries the date it was checked. Rates change without notice. The cash rate gap compares the rate an account is placed in by default against the best rate the same broker offers on the same money. Full working shown below.

Want this on your real holdings?

You just typed your funds in by hand. The free Feequity tracker does the same arithmetic on your actual portfolio, with prices that update on their own, and a tab for what your broker charges you. It is a Google Sheet, so it stays in your own Drive.

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Why the weighted number is the only one that means anything

Hold four funds at 0.03, 0.04, 0.85 and 0.06 percent and the average of those numbers is 0.245 percent, which looks alarming. If the expensive one is two percent of the portfolio, the number you actually pay is closer to 0.05 percent. The average of the ratios is a fact about your fund list. The weighted ratio is a fact about your money.

This is the calculation people end up doing by hand in a spreadsheet, because the calculators that rank for this subject all ask for exactly two funds and offer no way to enter a third.

The working

Nothing here is hidden, so you can check it:

Weighted ratio = sum of (each fund's amount × its ratio) divided by the total.
Each year the balance grows at your return less the weighted ratio, then the year's contribution is added, then broker costs are subtracted.
The zero-fee comparison runs the same loop at the full return with no deductions.
The gap between the two is the answer. It is larger than the sum of the yearly fees, because every dollar paid out also stops compounding.

The half that fund calculators ignore

A fund fee is charged inside the fund. A broker fee is charged on the account. They are researched separately, written about separately, and almost never added together, which is how people end up optimising one to three decimal places while paying more than the saving somewhere else on the same statement.

Commissions

Largely settled. Fidelity and Schwab both charge nothing on online US stock and ETF trades and 0.65 dollars per options contract. If you trade US stocks at a US broker this line is usually zero and there is nothing to optimise.

Currency conversion

The line that decides the answer for anyone outside the United States. It never appears as a charge because it is folded into the rate you receive. Interactive Brokers states it will typically add or subtract, at its discretion, 0.03 percent to the exchange rate on automatic conversion, with no separate commission. A typical retail bank or broker takes closer to half a percent, which is more than ten times as much on the same transfer.

The cash rate gap

The one nobody looks at. Brokers place uninvested cash into a default option, and the default is rarely the best option the same broker offers on the same money. The difference is paid daily, by you, for as long as the cash sits there, and moving it is a settings change rather than an account move. On the balances most people leave idle it is frequently larger than every other cost on this page combined.

The full breakdown of where broker costs actually sit goes through each of these with the numbers and the sources.

What this does not include

Being clear about the edges is more useful than pretending there are none:

Tax. Nothing here is after tax, and tax treatment differs by account type and by country. A high-turnover fund also generates taxable events a cheap index fund does not.
Bid-ask spread. Real, paid on every ETF trade, and not published anywhere you can look it up in advance.
Custody fees. Close to extinct at large US brokers and completely normal outside the United States, where they are often the largest single charge. Not modelled yet.
Your actual return. The return field is an assumption, not a forecast. Change it and watch how little the conclusion moves. That stability is the point: fee drag is one of the few things about a portfolio you can predict.

Common questions

How do you calculate the expense ratio of a whole portfolio?: Weight each fund by the money you hold in it, not by the number of funds. Multiply each fund's ratio by its share of the total, then add the results. A small holding in an expensive fund matters far less than the headline figure suggests.
Is a 1 percent expense ratio a lot?: On 10,000 dollars it is 100 dollars in the first year, which sounds survivable. It is not, because the fee is charged on the balance and so grows with it, and because money paid out never compounds again. Over a long horizon the total is a multiple of the first year figure rather than a sum of it.
Do I actually pay the expense ratio, or is it taken from the fund?: It is deducted inside the fund, so no charge appears on your statement. What you see is the fund returning slightly less than the index it tracks. That invisibility is why expense ratios go unexamined for years.
Which broker costs are included here?: Stock and options commissions, currency conversion on foreign trades, and the gap between the cash rate your account defaults into and the best rate the same broker offers. Every default comes from the broker's own published schedule and carries the date it was checked.
Why is my broker not in the list?: A broker is added only once its figures have been confirmed against its own published schedule rather than a third-party summary. Three are listed today. Anything else can be entered by hand with the manual option.

Published 4 August 2026 by Jacob Shasha. Broker figures verified against first-party sources on the dates shown in the calculator. Feequity publishes a public correction log. If a figure here is wrong, it will be corrected on the record rather than quietly edited.