AVDS vs PGRI

AVDSAAvantis International Small Cap Equity ETF

PGRIDPutnam International Stock ETF

In short

AVDS Avantis casts a wide net: roughly 3,000 non-US developed small caps, weighted with an eye on price, profitability and how much cash companies plow back in. Active management that looks a lot like an index fund with its thumb on the scale.

PGRI A Putnam stock-picking team turned loose on the world outside the US: large and midsize companies across developed and emerging markets, wrapped in an ETF that opened for business in late 2025 at 0.55% a year.

Stated mandate

AVDS The ETF seeks long-term capital appreciation by investing in a broad group of non-U.S. small-cap companies and considering valuation, profitability, and investment levels when selecting and weighting securities.

PGRI The Fund seeks capital appreciation by investing primarily in equity securities of large and midsize companies outside the United States, including issuers in developed and emerging markets.

Why people hold it

• AVDS Charges 0.30% a year, about half the typical fee in its active international peer group. Cheap is a durable edge in a corner of the market where fees usually run high.
• Roughly 3,000 holdings, so no single stock or country steers the outcome. This is small-cap breadth, not a concentrated stock-picking bet.
• The tilts are the whole design: valuation, profitability and investment levels shape both what it owns and how much of each, measured against MSCI World ex USA Small Cap.avantisinvestors.com
• Sits among the strongest builds in a crowded field of active international equity funds. Broad, systematic, low-fee: the boxes that tend to stay ticked.

• PGRI A wide passport rather than a narrow sleeve: large and midsize companies outside the US, with both developed and emerging markets in bounds, so the managers can move toward where they see the ideas.
• At 0.55% a year, it comes in under the typical actively managed international fund in its peer group. Active stock picking without the top-shelf active price tag.
• Putnam's international equity mandate inside Franklin Templeton's ETF lineup, run as a plain 1940 Act fund rather than a derivative-driven or commodity-trust structure.

Worth knowing

• AVDS Thinly traded compared with the big international names. Limit orders and a look at the spread earn their keep here.
• Launched in 2023, so the live record is short even though the approach behind it is not new.
• Costs more than Avantis' broad international fund AVDE (0.23%). Small caps abroad are pricier to research and trade, and they swing harder.

• PGRI It launched in October 2025, so there is no long record to lean on, and because the mandate is active there is no declared index to measure it against day to day.
• Index-driven neighbors in the same aisle, such as AVDE and DFIC, charge closer to 0.2%. The gap is the toll for having a human make the calls.
• Still a small, thinly traded fund, which tends to mean wider bid-ask spreads than the category giants, and payouts land once or twice a year rather than monthly.

Full AVDS profile⁠

Full PGRI profile⁠