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Getting a decent return on your investments is hard enough, without your cash being syphoned off to line the pockets of the people who are supposed to be making you money.
Stockbrokers and fund managers are allowed to charge a fee, of course, but it can be difficult to work out how much you’re losing – and whether you could get a better deal elsewhere.
To help you see how much platform and fund charges are eating into your annual profit, use the Telegraph Money calculator below.
Investors typically pay a “platform” fee, a charge levied by a stockbroker like Hargreaves Lansdown, as well as a fund fee charged by the investment company deciding where you cash is invested.
How much will investment fees cost you?
Say you have an investment nest egg of £10,000, which you intend to make additions of £200 a month for the next 30 years, with annual growth of 5pc.
It’s not uncommon to be charged fees of 1pc, which might sound pretty cheap on the face of it. However, after these fees you’d get £139,182.76. If you could halve these fees, you could get an extra £31,000 in returns.
The same investment with a fairly cheap platform fee of 0.3pc, and fund charges of 0.11pc – the average charged by index trackers – would leave you with £193,130.50.
Bear in mind that the most expensive for one investor may turn out to be relatively cheap for someone else; it all depends on the size of your portfolio and how fees are charged.
Flat fees, for instance, tend to work out as being more expensive for those with smaller investments, as the fees take up a larger proportion of their pot. But if you have a larger portfolio, a flat fee might be far cheaper than paying a percentage of your investment.