Every ETF that tracks the S&P 500, compared on cost, trading, structure and the return gap fees create, plus the funds with “S&P 500” in their names that hold something different.
29funds compared
4S&P 500 trackers
9reweighted or screened
16style and factor slices
Oct 27, 2026data as of
Every fund in the first table owns the same 500 US companies in the same proportions. When the products are identical, the differences that remain are the fee, how the fund is built and how much it trades. Over decades, the fee is the one that compounds.
Many other ETFs carry “S&P 500” in their names but hold something different: the same companies in equal amounts, the index minus companies that fail a screen, or only its growth, value or dividend slice. They appear in the tables further down, each measured against VOO, so you can see what the difference has meant for returns and for a retirement withdrawal test.
Funds that track the S&P 500
The same 500 companies in the same proportions. The differences that remain are the fee, how each fund is built and how much it trades.
These 4 funds hold the same 500 companies in the same proportions, so their results differ only by cost, structure and small tracking differences.
Costs run from 0.01% (SPYM) to 0.09% (SPY): $10 to $95 a year on $100,000.
Over the ten years to Oct 27, 2026, IVV returned +15.58% a year and SPY +15.52%: a gap of 0.06 points a year, close to their fee difference of 0.06 points.
SPY trades far more than the others, about $32.36B a day, which matters to traders and options users more than to buy-and-hold investors.
Funds that start from the S&P 500 but weight it differently (equal weight, by revenue, only the top 50) or drop companies that fail a screen (fossil fuels, ESG scores, religious rules).
9 funds. Their 5-year returns ranged from +8.6% a year (RSP) to +15.0% (SPUS), against +12.7% for VOO.
Their holdings overlap with VOO from 44% (RSP) to 96% (SPYX).
In the 2022 bear market, 4 of 9 fell less than VOO’s -24.5%.
Funds that hold only part of the index: its growth or value half, its highest-dividend or least volatile stocks, or the ones with the strongest recent momentum.
16 funds. Their 5-year returns ranged from -6.9% a year (NOBL) to +18.7% (SPMO), against +12.7% for VOO.
Their holdings overlap with VOO from 4% (SPHD) to 83% (QVML).
In the 2022 bear market, 12 of 16 fell less than VOO’s -24.5%.
A fee difference that looks trivial is charged every year on your whole balance, in good markets and bad, including in retirement when every dollar of drag comes out of what you can spend.
SPY is built for traders
SPY is the oldest and most traded ETF, with the deepest options market. It is organized as a unit investment trust, which cannot lend out its shares or reinvest dividends between payouts. Long-term holders pay for trading features they rarely use.
Share price doesn’t matter
A fund with a lower share price is not cheaper to own. With fractional shares at most brokers, the price of one share makes no difference to what you get.
Equal weight is a different bet
Equal-weight funds hold the same companies but give each the same weight, which tilts them toward the smaller companies in the index. In a decade led by the largest companies, that made a large difference.
The fund is the easy part
Picking a low-cost index fund takes minutes. Knowing how much you can spend from it each year is harder. ReadyAimRetire runs your own numbers, with your accounts, Social Security and taxes.
In our data, SPYM has the lowest expense ratio, at 0.01% a year, followed by VOO (0.03%), IVV (0.03%), SPY (0.09%). At these levels the difference on $100,000 is a few dollars to tens of dollars a year.
Is VOO or SPY better?
They hold the same companies. VOO costs 0.03% a year and SPY 0.09%, and VOO is an open-end fund while SPY is a unit investment trust. SPY trades far more and has a deeper options market, which matters to traders. For buy-and-hold investors the lower cost usually matters more.
Is VOO the same as IVV?
For practical purposes, yes. Both track the S&P 500 as open-end funds, both charge 0.03% a year, and their returns have been nearly identical. The choice usually comes down to which fund family your brokerage or plan offers.
Should retirees own an S&P 500 fund?
An S&P 500 fund is a common core holding because it is cheap and broadly diversified across large US companies. On its own it is all stocks, so it can fall by half in a severe bear market. Retirement portfolios usually pair it with bonds or cash for spending money in down years.
How we built this list
Which funds: US-listed ETFs with “S&P 500” in their names and at least $200 million in net assets. Leveraged, inverse, option-income and single-sector funds are left out. Funds whose holdings overlap at least 95% with VOO’s are treated as trackers of the index itself.
Overlap with VOO: from each fund’s latest N-PORT report filed with the SEC: for every holding both funds own, the smaller of the two weights, added up.
Per $100K and daily trading: the expense ratio applied to $100,000; daily trading is the average of daily volume times price over the 30 trading days to Oct 27, 2026.
10-year gap: each tracker’s annualized 10-year return minus the best tracker’s, to Oct 27, 2026. These are market-price returns, so very small differences can reflect trading timing as well as cost.
4% rule test: $1,000,000 invested at the start of Oct 2016, withdrawing 4% a year in monthly amounts that rise with US inflation (CPI-U), before taxes.
Net assets: from the N-PORT report; † marks Vanguard funds, whose reports cover all share classes, including mutual fund shares.
Figures computed Nov 3, 2026. For education only, not a recommendation to buy or sell any fund. Past results do not predict future results.
