IBD vs VTC

IBDDInspire Corporate Bond ETF

VTCAVanguard Total Corporate Bond ETF

In short

IBD The first bond ETF ever built on biblical-values screens. IBD holds intermediate-term investment grade US corporate debt from companies that clear Inspire's rules-based Impact Score, and pays monthly.

VTC Most cheap corporate bond funds sell you one slice of the maturity curve. VTC buys the whole investment-grade corporate market, short to long, for 0.03% a year, and since 2025 it owns the bonds directly instead of stacking three Vanguard funds.

Stated mandate

IBD The fund seeks to track the Inspire Corporate Bond Impact Index before fees and expenses. It generally invests at least 80% of assets in the index's component securities.

VTC The Fund seeks to track a broad, market-weighted corporate bond index, specifically the Bloomberg U.S. Corporate Bond Index. It uses an indexing approach focused on investment-grade, fixed-rate, taxable corporate bonds.

Why people hold it

• IBD The original of its kind: launched in 2017 as the first faith-based bond ETF, so it has years of live operating history behind the screen, not a back-test.yahoo.com
• The screen is rules-based, not a vibe. Inspire's Impact Score rates companies from -100 to +100 and docks points for exclusionary violations, so inclusion logic is published.website-files.com
• Plain-vanilla plumbing under the values layer: investment grade corporate bonds, intermediate maturities, at least 80% in index components, with income paid monthly.website-files.com
• Rare scale for a conviction fund: assets in the hundreds of millions and moderate day-to-day trading, where most values-screened bond funds stay tiny.

• VTC 0.03% a year against a 0.19% median for investment-grade corporate ETFs. On this exact Bloomberg index, nothing in the group charges less.
• One ticker, the full corporate curve. Top-graded rivals like VCIT, IGIB and IGSB each buy a single maturity band; VTC's index spans short, intermediate and long fixed-rate corporates.
• No overlays, no active tilts, no credit guesswork. Market-weighted indexing of investment-grade, fixed-rate, taxable corporates, and the portfolio hews tightly to that mandate.
• Income lands monthly, not quarterly, which matters if bond coupons are doing real work in your cash flow.

Worth knowing

• IBD Conviction costs. At 0.41% a year, IBD runs above the typical investment grade corporate bond ETF, and well above index staples like VCIT (0.03%) and USIG (0.04%).
• Screening out whole industries shrinks the bond universe, so sector and issuer mix can look different from a broad corporate bond benchmark.website-files.com
• Among dozens of investment grade corporate bond ETFs, it sits in the lower tier of the group, mostly on fees and trading friction rather than what it owns.

• VTC Whole-curve means long bonds in the mix, so prices move more with interest rates than a 1-5 year slice like IGSB does.
• The plumbing changed in March 2025: Vanguard moved it from holding three underlying corporate bond ETFs to buying the index bonds directly. Same objective, same index.sec.gov
• Moderately traded rather than a volume heavyweight, so spreads can run wider than the busiest corporate bond funds, particularly in choppy markets.

Full IBD profile⁠

Full VTC profile⁠