General
The Case for Comps (Part 1)
Comparing Mutual Funds and ETFs with Powerful Ease
First published: Aug 19, 2026 ยท Last updated: Aug 21, 2026
Most of us routinely comparison shop for things we buy - especially the bigger things. People (myself included) will spend hours online looking at price, quality, availability, and features to ensure we're making a good decision.
Yet, I know quite a few people that won't put that same level of effort into finding investments that are best suited for them. I'll frequently hear that it's hard to find an easy way to compare, or that it feels overwhelming. Many people simply give up on it and decide to outsource investing decisions to an advisor.
Being able to comparison shop is something I think is important, and it comes down to several things:
Avoiding Bias If you visit a fund provider website, screeners and other tools for fund exploration tend to have a built-in bias: they're going to promote their funds over that of competitors. FundQuant is not affiliated or tied to any particular fund company, so all funds start out as equals.
Compare On What Matters When you own a fund, you probably care about returns, risk, expenses, and how a fund does in relationship to peers. And when you think about it, the more a company markets its funds, the worse it may be for your returns (that marketing material costs money - and that's likely an expense that the fund incurs).
Compare Across ETFs and Mutual Funds Some people are limited to certain funds they can hold (think 401k plans, etc.), but you still want to see the broad universe comparisons, and then narrow in on what you can actually hold. Why? It may make sense for you to talk to the people that manage your 401k (and limit your options) so you can explain that better options may exist!
Simple (and Free) You shouldn't have to sign up for some expensive service just to see how funds compare. Instead, doing a quick comparison should be quick, intuitive, and easy.
We've tried to factor in all of the above when it comes to comparison shopping. At it's most simple, just type in a fund on the home page, and search. We fully explain how we find comparable funds, and make it easy to see expenses, returns, and other information that goes into decision making.
If you want to limit your comparisons to a smaller universe of funds, you can easily do this as well:
- Sign up for an account. It's free. It allows you to save things like fund screens and collections
- If you want to limit your universe to a given fund company, create a screen and filter funds down to just a given fund originator.
- You can narrow that down even more (say by lowest expense ratio, etc.), or you can create a collection that will only have funds included that you can invest in. We'd include a few pics of how to do this, but I think it's intuitive enough that it would be overkill!
- Once you have saved that screen (and/or collection), navigate to the Explorer. Type in the fund that you want to find comparisons on, and navigate to the Comps tab.
- At the top of the Comps page, you can specify the screen (or collection) that you want to restrict the search to. That's all there is to it.
- Once you have comps, be sure to remember that you can dig deeper by looking at comparison charts, looking at full fund profiles, etc. Play around with what's available. And if you see something missing that you'd really like, let us know!
If you're an investor that makes your own investment choices, you now have another tool at your fingertips to help evaluate which fund is best for you. FundQuant stays out of your way, and doesn't try to provide advice. We give you the tools and the information - you take it from there to further evaluate and make decisions.
If you work with an advisor, keep them honest! Compare the funds they recommend with other funds. If you find a comparable fund with lower expenses, better risk-adjusted returns, etc., you now have a way to challenge their thinking. Maybe you'll like their answers, or maybe it will give you pause on whether the advice you're getting is best for you.
And if you are an advisor, now you've got a way to do some exhaustive comparisons yourself and to be fully aware of all the competing funds out there.
Enjoy the new tool!