Direct vs Regular Mutual Fund Plan Calculator
Identical holdings, different distributor commission
Direct vs Regular Mutual Fund Plan Calculator
₹
Years
Months
Days
%
%
%
%
Direct plan corpus
0
Regular plan corpus
0
Expense-ratio drag, over the full term
0
In today's money (inflation-adjusted)
0
real purchasing power after assumed inflation
Same fund, same holdings, different distributor commission
A direct plan and a regular plan of the SAME mutual fund hold identical underlying securities — the only difference is the regular plan's higher expense ratio, which pays a trail commission to whoever sold it to you (a bank, advisor, or distributor platform).
A 1% expense-ratio gap compounds into a lot over decades
Even a seemingly small 1-1.5 percentage point expense-ratio difference, compounded over 15-20+ years, typically costs far more in absolute rupees than most investors expect — this is exactly the kind of compounding drag that's easy to underestimate looking only at the annual number.
Switching from regular to direct isn't automatic
Moving from a regular to a direct plan usually requires an explicit switch request (via the AMC or an app) and may trigger capital gains tax on the "switch" depending on how it's executed — check the tax treatment before assuming it's a free change.
Both scenarios start from the same assumed gross (pre-expense) fund return, with the respective expense ratio subtracted to get the net return each plan variant actually delivers to the investor — this isolates the pure expense-ratio effect, holding the underlying investment choice constant. Real-world direct vs regular expense-ratio gaps vary by fund category (equity funds often show a larger gap than debt funds) and by specific AMC. Not investment advice.