Fee Analysis

Most investors don’t know what they’re paying in fees. Not because the information is hidden, but because it’s scattered across fund fact sheets, brokerage statements, and fine print that nobody reads.

Greenline pulls it all together. Upload your statements and you’ll see exactly what every holding costs you, across every account.

What Greenline shows you

For each holding in your portfolio, Greenline displays:

• Management Expense Ratio (MER): the annual percentage your fund charges, pulled automatically from fund data
• Dollar cost: what that percentage actually means in dollars based on your holdings
• Projected 10-year cost: what you’ll pay over the next decade if your holdings stay roughly the same

This isn’t an estimate based on your account balance. It’s calculated from your actual holdings, weighted by how much you own of each one.

Why fees matter more than most people think

A 1% difference in fees sounds small. Over 25 years on a $100,000 portfolio, it’s the difference between roughly $60,000 in fees paid versus $15,000. That’s $45,000 that either compounds for you or goes to your fund manager.

Most Canadians who hold mutual funds through their bank are paying between 1.5% and 2.5% in MERs. Switching to index ETFs with MERs around 0.2% can save tens of thousands of dollars over a lifetime, and the investment returns are often comparable or better.

Greenline doesn’t tell you to switch. It just shows you the numbers and lets you decide.

How it works across multiple accounts?

If you have investments at more than one brokerage, Greenline combines the fee picture across all of them. You might have low-fee ETFs in your self-directed TFSA but still hold a high-fee mutual fund in a group RRSP through work.

Greenline shows you the blended fee rate across your entire portfolio, so you know what you’re actually paying in total, not just account by account.

What about trading commissions?

For brokerages that charge per-trade commissions, Greenline tracks those separately from MERs. You’ll see both your ongoing fund costs and your transaction costs, so you have the complete picture of what investing is costing you.