Methodology

Fund Fee & Share-Class Benchmarking

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Fund fees

Methodology & honesty rails

This tool helps you compare mutual fund fees and share classes using data fund companies file with the SEC. It answers cost questions only — never performance.

Data current as of Jun 30, 2026; updated when the app is rebuilt.

How “similar funds” groups are derived

There is no official category field in this dataset. We assign each fund series to a peer group by scanning the fund family name plus objective/strategy text from the prospectus risk/return summary. The first matching rule wins, in this order: Money Market → Target Date → Municipal Bond → Bond / Fixed Income → International / Global → Index / Passive → Sector / Thematic → Balanced / Allocation → US Equity → Other / Uncategorized.

  1. Money Market
  2. Target Date
  3. Municipal Bond
  4. Bond / Fixed Income
  5. International / Global
  6. Index / Passive
  7. Sector / Thematic
  8. Balanced / Allocation
  9. US Equity
  10. Other / Uncategorized

Known limitations: the word “index” can also catch index-linked or enhanced-index products and inflate that peer group. Ordering is a heuristic, not a taxonomy. A Tier-2 approach using benchmark-index tokens from filings is planned.

Share classes without Class A/C/I labels

In SEC RR numeric files the dedicated class column is empty on fee rows. Share-class identity is parsed from otherdims as Class=C######. We do not invent retail labels like “Class A.” Within a fund we rank versions by effective expense (net, else gross) and call them Lowest-cost version, 2nd lowest, … Highest-cost version, with the raw C-id as a secondary reference.

As filed

Headline expenses cite the SEC form and filing date when available. Rebuild the app with a new quarter’s RR data to refresh figures.