Yes. Most 401k plans pass on additional management fees on top of the fund's fees. In my current plan, a passive sp500 index would cost 1.6%, 0.6% for the fun

Yes. Most 401k plans pass on additional management fees on top of the fund's fees. In my current plan, a passive sp500 index would cost 1.6%, 0.6% for the funds expense ratio, and 1% to the plan administrator. Outside the 401k you'd pay 0.6% for the same fund. The vanguard plan that matches a similar index costs 0.17%(admiral is 0.05% with 10k balance) Unless you work at a large company. At one, I had access to the vanguard institutional funds, which were even cheaper than the admiral