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Avantis's first five ETFs, launched in 2019, have outperformed their benchmarks by an average of 280 basis points annually while charging only about 7 basis points more in fees than comparable passive index funds.

Thomas cites concrete performance data showing Avantis's low-cost, near-passive-fee active ETFs have delivered substantial benchmark-beating returns since 2019, explaining much of the brand's rapid growth to $150 billion in assets. ✦ AI generated

Jonathan Thomas · The Compound · 2026-07-17 · original ↗

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“What is that playbook to start a brand and have it become one of the hottest brands in terms of new money coming in almost overnight? How did you guys do it? And maybe tell us what Avantis is in the process.”

The average fee on those is 26 pips. The average looks more like passive than active. And in fact, if you look at their passive equivalent indexes, the average of that fee is 19. So you're paying seven more bips for the opportunity to outperform. And for the products that we launched, those first five, on average, we've outperformed the bench by 280 bips.

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26:51game immediately. >> 100%. So anyways, going back to Avantis, so um of the five that have been in the market since 2019, um the average fee on those is 26 pips. The average looks more like passive than active. >> Correct. And in fact, if you look at their passive equivalent indexes because in the morning star category, the average of that fee is 19. So you're paying seven more bips for the

27:17opportunity to outperform. And for the products that we launched, those first five, on average, we've outperformed the bench by 280 bips. So you're spending seven bits. >> That's remarkable. >> That's annually to get an extra 280. And then on top of that, uh those first five, every one of them now is over $10 billion and we of assets and we actually have 10 over a billion. And one of the

27:44reasons that's growing so fast, and this is something that's fairly unique to what we're doing, whether it's large cap growth, small cap value, emerging markets, we use the same exact investing philosophy across every single asset class. So if you like a particular product, call it US large cap growth, and you like the philosophy and you like the approach, you're going to like the other ones as well. the whole suite

28:12makes sense. >> Correct. And for the advisor, I think it becomes super easy to explain to their client. They don't if you have seven positions, uh you don't have to learn seven different investment philosoph philosophies. You only have to use one. And I so when you throw in you know all the benefits of ETFs plus free trading low cost the outperformance the look in the portfolio where it's not just

28:37Vanguard and and Black Rockck and then you look at the opportunity not just the opportunity the realization of the outperformance it's a real really compelling case and then the story being consistent across every asset class because that's another thing that's very very hard for asset managers going back many years everybody bought the hot ones. And that resulted in a portfolio of uh from an asset manager's perspective where you got your client

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