It doesn't seem unusual to folks, because marketing teams circulate that number for the dozens of banks and startups salivating for your blood, I mean business.

It doesn't seem unusual to folks, because marketing teams circulate that number for the dozens of banks and startups salivating for your blood, I mean business. I'd advise you to do the compounding math in a spreadsheet to see what exactly that fee becomes after 30 or 40 years. But if you want to skip the spreadsheet, it's in the magnitude of 0.005*years as one would intuitively expect. Meaning, in 30 years, a whole 15% of your final net worth was stolen by that 0.5% fee alone. Half a percent a year at a time. Compare that to Vanguards 0.03% - or in 30 years, less than 1% of your net worth stolen. I'd rather give up 1% of my life savings than 15%. Especially when it's proven time and time again that you get nothing in return for that fee.