Calculator
A small-looking expense ratio difference compounds into a large gap over decades — see exactly how large.
The expense-ratio gap costs you ₹19,59,465 over 20 years.
Direct Plan Corpus
₹1,06,95,196
Regular Plan Corpus
₹87,35,731
Cost of the Expense-Ratio Gap
₹19,59,465
What switching to direct would have saved
Regular plans include a distributor commission built into the expense ratio, typically 0.5-1.5 percentage points higher than the same fund's direct plan, which you buy directly from the AMC with no intermediary commission.
Because it compounds. A 1.5 percentage-point gap doesn't just cost 1.5% of your money once — it reduces your effective annual return every single year for decades, and that gap compounds along with your returns, growing much larger than a simple percentage suggests over long horizons.
For most long-term SIP investors, yes — the compounding cost of the regular plan's higher expense ratio is substantial. Regular plans can make sense if you value ongoing advisory support from a distributor, which direct plans don't include.
Related tools
The underlying fund and portfolio are identical between a fund's regular and direct plans — only the expense ratio differs, because the regular plan pays a distributor commission the direct plan doesn't. Over a long SIP horizon, that difference compounds into a meaningfully different final corpus.
Disclaimer: This is an illustrative projection assuming a constant annual return net of expenses — actual fund returns vary year to year and expense ratios can change. Not investment advice.
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