Smith Barney Inc.'s existing service and Prudential Securities' planned one charge of 0.25 percentage point to be included in their supermarkets. Schwa's fees range from 0.25 to 0.35 percentage point. Merrill wants to collect as much as 0.4 percentage point of all new dollars flowing into fund companies through its new program, according to the Journal.
Index funds tend to have the lowest management fees.