Mutual Fund Calculator

This projects a mutual fund holding with its costs in it, which is what separates it from a plain compound interest sum. Enter a lump sum, a monthly contribution, the return you expect before fees, the fund's expense ratio and any front-end sales load, and it returns the balance at the end alongside the balance the same money would have reached in a fund that charged nothing. The gap between those two is what the fees cost, and over a long holding it is usually far larger than the annual percentage makes it look. A second tab sets two expense ratios against each other on the same gross return, so the whole difference in the result is the fee.