Similar funds, fourfold differences in cost

Among 97 interval credit funds, the 90th-percentile fund costs about four times the 10th. We separate what investors pay for the manager, for borrowing, for underlying funds and for the share class.

Cost · 5 October 2026 · 6 min read · Data as of 5 October 2026

Key findings

Among 97 interval credit funds, annual cost runs from 1.46% at the 10th percentile to 5.89% at the 90th: about four times as much for funds in the same peer group.
Borrowing is a median 57% of the headline cost of 54 credit BDCs: a median total of 10.93%, against 4.66% excluding borrowing.
In 178 funds with two or more share classes, the most expensive class costs a median 0.81 percentage points a year more than the cheapest.

Why it matters for advisors

The cost of semi-liquid or conditional liquidity alternatives varies far more within a peer group than the strategy label suggests. Two funds that look alike on a platform can differ by several points a year, and that difference compounds over a holding period of many years.

The headline figure also blends things that are not alike: what the manager charges, what the fund pays to borrow, the fees of any underlying funds, and the share class. Separating them shows what an investor is paying for.

The spread inside every peer group is wide

We grouped funds the way the Terminal does, by structure and strategy, and looked at the range of annual cost within each group. In each of the six peer groups with ten or more funds, the 90th-percentile fund costs at least twice the 10th-percentile fund. The ratio runs from 2.2 in tender equity funds to 6.8 in tender funds of funds.

Annual cost by peer group, 10th to 90th percentile

Peer group	Funds	10th percentile	Median	90th percentile
Interval credit	97	1.46%	2.80%	5.89%
Interval equity	19	1.75%	2.83%	5.33%
Interval fund of funds	15	2.00%	2.96%	4.72%
Tender equity	23	2.66%	3.22%	5.86%
Tender fund of funds	46	2.82%	4.06%	19.23%
BDC credit	54	7.30%	10.93%	19.27%

Bar = 10th to 90th percentile; dot = median. Peer groups with 10 or more funds.

The tender fund-of-funds tail has a specific cause. Funds that invest in other funds report the underlying funds’ fees, including their performance fees, as acquired fund fees. For some funds of hedge funds that one line exceeds 20% of net assets. Those figures are as filed; they describe a different kind of cost from a direct lender’s management fee and should be read separately.

Interval credit: same label, fourfold range

Interval credit funds form the largest peer group: 97 funds with a prospectus cost. The median fund costs 2.80% a year. The 10th percentile is 1.46% and the 90th is 5.89%, about four times as much. Eleven funds cost at least twice the median; nine cost half the median or less.

Interval credit funds, ranked by annual cost

97 funds; 10th percentile 1.46%, median 2.80%, 90th percentile 5.89%. Values (% a year): 0.75, 1, 1, 1, 1.21, 1.26, 1.26, 1.31, 1.31, 1.44, 1.48, 1.5, 1.64, 1.66, 1.75, 1.75, 1.75, 1.78, 1.91, 1.94, 1.94, 1.95, 1.98, 1.99, 2.01, 2.09, 2.13, 2.13, 2.13, 2.14, 2.14, 2.18, 2.25, 2.26, 2.26, 2.27, 2.29, 2.29, 2.33, 2.34, 2.34, 2.35, 2.39, 2.47, 2.64, 2.64, 2.71, 2.78, 2.8, 2.87, 2.88, 2.91, 2.92, 3.03, 3.03, 3.04, 3.11, 3.2, 3.28, 3.38, 3.41, 3.42, 3.44, 3.46, 3.52, 3.68, 3.72, 3.76, 3.85, 4.04, 4.06, 4.11, 4.22, 4.22, 4.26, 4.29, 4.31, 4.49, 4.49, 4.57, 4.61, 4.62, 4.91, 5.07, 5.25, 5.3, 5.85, 5.96, 6.19, 6.24, 6.28, 6.5, 6.9, 7.43, 8.02, 9.68, 13.37.

Each bar is one fund’s annual cost after any expense reimbursement, for its default share class.

The range is not driven by one component. Underlying-fund fees are small here (a median 0.05 points), and excluding them still leaves a 1.38% to 5.22% range. Borrowing explains part of it: among the 66 interval credit funds that state a borrowing cost separately, cost excluding borrowing still runs from 1.15% to 4.02%. The other 31 do not file that line, so that figure covers about two thirds of the group.

In BDCs, borrowing is most of the headline cost

BDCs report their costs as a share of net assets, and most borrow substantially. All 54 credit BDCs with a prospectus cost state their interest expense. Their median total cost is 10.93%; excluding borrowing, the median is 4.66%. Borrowing is a median 57% of the headline figure, with the middle half between 50% and 64%. In 41 of the 54 it is at least half.

Credit BDCs: cost with and without borrowing

Fund (ranked)	Cost excluding borrowing	Borrowing cost (interest and preferred dividends)	Total
1	1.94%	3.25%	5.19%
2	2.71%	3.58%	6.29%
3	2.41%	4.01%	6.42%
4	2.83%	3.93%	6.76%
5	2.82%	4.25%	7.07%
6	2.10%	5.18%	7.28%
7	2.95%	4.41%	7.36%
8	2.01%	5.74%	7.75%
9	2.93%	5.69%	8.62%
10	7.40%	1.34%	8.74%
11	4.31%	4.72%	9.03%
12	2.94%	6.11%	9.05%
13	3.50%	5.55%	9.05%
14	4.58%	4.61%	9.19%
15	3.10%	6.54%	9.64%
16	3.66%	6.00%	9.66%
17	3.52%	6.15%	9.67%
18	3.12%	6.65%	9.77%
19	3.59%	6.41%	10.00%
20	4.47%	5.57%	10.04%
21	3.24%	6.85%	10.09%
22	5.28%	4.96%	10.24%
23	3.37%	6.88%	10.25%
24	7.06%	3.64%	10.70%
25	5.04%	5.72%	10.76%
26	6.66%	4.17%	10.83%
27	3.94%	6.89%	10.83%
28	5.13%	5.90%	11.03%
29	4.73%	6.43%	11.16%
30	2.25%	9.30%	11.55%
31	4.84%	7.14%	11.98%
32	5.17%	6.83%	12.00%
33	4.42%	7.85%	12.27%
34	4.37%	7.92%	12.29%
35	6.03%	6.39%	12.42%
36	3.68%	8.85%	12.53%
37	6.44%	6.72%	13.16%
38	6.90%	6.30%	13.20%
39	7.22%	6.55%	13.77%
40	6.98%	7.06%	14.04%
41	9.71%	5.52%	15.23%
42	4.18%	11.14%	15.32%
43	8.04%	8.16%	16.20%
44	7.23%	9.22%	16.45%
45	7.63%	9.57%	17.20%
46	8.21%	9.39%	17.60%
47	10.07%	8.17%	18.24%
48	10.78%	8.31%	19.09%
49	10.15%	9.20%	19.35%
50	7.30%	14.48%	21.78%
51	12.03%	10.63%	22.66%
52	11.43%	12.03%	23.46%
53	15.44%	10.71%	26.15%
54	18.38%	8.50%	26.88%

Each bar is one fund, ranked by total annual cost.

Borrowing cost is not a fee paid to the manager. It pays for leverage, which also raises the income the fund earns and the risk it carries. That is why a BDC’s headline cost cannot be set beside an unleveraged interval fund’s, and why cost excluding borrowing is the closer comparison. Even on that basis the credit BDC range is wide: 2.74% to 10.13% from the 10th to the 90th percentile, a figure that still includes incentive fees and any underlying-fund fees.

For the 178 funds with two or more share classes, we compared each fund’s most expensive class with its cheapest. The median gap is 0.81 points a year, or 22% more than the cheapest class. 161 funds have a gap of at least half a point.

Most expensive share class minus the cheapest, same fund

Median 0.81 points a year.

Range	Count (points a year)
0 to 0.125	1
0.125 to 0.25	4
0.25 to 0.375	11
0.375 to 0.5	1
0.5 to 0.625	12
0.625 to 0.75	9
0.75 to 0.875	110
0.875 to 1	4
1 to 1.125	21
1.125 to 1.25	1
1.25 to 1.375	1
1.375 to 1.5	2
1.5 to 1.625	0
1.625 to 1.75	0
1.75 to 1.875	0
1.875 or more	1

178 funds with two or more share classes; cost after any expense reimbursement.

The gap is mostly the distribution and servicing fee: it accounts for at least 80% of the gap in 81% of these funds. That is by design, since the classes pay for different distribution arrangements. It still matters for portfolio construction: on the same portfolio, the class is often the single largest cost difference an advisor can control.

Many costs depend on a reimbursement that can end

123 of the 278 costs (44%) are lowered by a manager’s expense reimbursement or fee waiver, by a median 0.40 points. These agreements usually run for a stated term and can end. The cost before reimbursement is the figure a fund would charge without one.

Method and coverage

Source: each fund’s latest prospectus fee table (N-2 and post-effective amendments, read from iXBRL), part of a database built from hundreds of thousands of filings. Tables filed between August 2022 and September 2026; 4 of 140 interval, 10 of 81 tender and 27 of 57 BDC tables are more than 12 months old.

Universe: 438 covered funds, excluding funds not yet launched or terminated. 278 have a prospectus cost (57 BDCs, 140 interval funds, 81 tender funds). REITs are excluded: their prospectuses give no comparable total-expense line.

Annual cost: the fee table’s total annual expenses as a percentage of net assets, after any expense reimbursement or fee waiver the fund files, for the fund’s default share class (the class the Terminal shows first).

Borrowing cost: interest on borrowings plus preferred dividends, and any sub-item whose filed caption names interest, borrowing or leverage. Counted only when stated, never assumed to be zero.

Peer groups: structure (interval, tender, BDC) by strategy (credit, equity, fund of funds, multi-strategy, real assets); charts show groups with ten or more funds. Share-class gap: within one fund, the most expensive class’s cost minus the cheapest’s. Medians and percentiles (linear interpolation), no averages.

Every figure was reproduced two ways, from the product’s own cost code and from independent SQL.

Limitations

A prospectus fee table is the fund’s estimate of the coming year’s expenses, largely based on the last year. It is not the cost an investor actually paid, which the annual report shows.

Many listed BDCs rarely file a new prospectus, so their tables can be old while interest costs move with rates. For the 28 credit BDCs with a table filed in the last year, borrowing is a median 63% of cost: the pattern holds, but the level is not current for every fund.

Cost is one input. This note does not compare cost with returns, income or risk; a higher cost may come with a different strategy, more leverage or a different asset mix. Nothing here says a higher-cost fund is a worse investment.

31 of the 97 interval credit funds do not file a separate borrowing line; their cost excluding borrowing is unknown, not zero. Strategy labels are Kesta’s classification and can be debated at the edges.

Data in this note: 278 funds with a prospectus cost

Informational only, not investment advice. Built from the funds’ own SEC filings.