The most famous S&P 500 fund, SPY, carries a cost that most investors overlook due to its high fees. The oldest ETF in America, launched by State Street in 1993, charges more than three times the average expense ratio of 0.0945%. This difference is small in a single year, but over decades, it compounds over time. Morningstar's analysis reveals that SPY's higher fee is a result of its structure, which prevents it from reinvesting dividends between quarterly payouts. The analysis also highlights the potential for SPY to outperform its closest competitors, Vanguard's S/P 500 ETF (VOO), Fidelity's 500 Index Fund (FXAIX), and State Street's own SPDR Portfolio S-P 500ETF (SPYM). SPYM had the best 10-year annualized return through February 2026, while VOO's VOO had the highest. The study also found that SPy's dollar-volume was more than eight times that of VOO over the three months through February 2022. The cost of SPY can be attributed to its unit investment trust structure and lack of real-time reinvestmenting dividends.