Assuming performance parity, let us concentrate on total expenses and comfort level. This includes costs such as overhead, advisory fees, management fees and 12b-1 fees. Brokerage costs are a function of commissions and turnover. If commissions are low and the contents of the portfolio rarely change, trading costs will be low. An aggressive, small cap fund will generally have higher trading costs than an index fund.
Discounts often are available at certain dollar levels.
These dollar levels are called break points. Lastly, other expenses is a catch-all category and include items such as outside financial advisory fees. No-load funds can have higher expense ratios than load funds. No-loads often depend on expensive advertising to market product. This increases the 12b-1 fees.