ITOT vs VOO

ITOTAiShares Core S&P Total U.S. Stock Market ETF

VOOAVanguard S&P 500 ETF

In short

ITOT The S&P family's answer to total-market indexing: large, mid and small U.S. stocks in one 0.03% wrapper, running since 2004. Same fee as the Vanguard and Schwab giants, a different index rulebook.

VOO Not a standalone ETF but a share class of Vanguard's flagship 500 Index Fund: the same roughly 500 large US companies, 0.03% a year, in a wrapper you can trade all day.

Stated mandate

ITOT The fund seeks to track the performance of the S&P Composite 1500, representing U.S. stocks across market capitalizations.

VOO The fund invests in stocks represented by the S&P 500 Index and seeks to closely track that index's return as a measure of overall U.S. stock performance.

Why people hold it

• ITOT 0.03% a year, matching the category's biggest names (VTI, SCHB) and sitting below what the typical fund in this group charges.
• One index, no tilts: U.S. stocks across market caps in cap-weight order. The mandate it prints is the mandate it runs.
• Trading since 2004 and now a multi-billion-dollar fund with active daily volume, so spreads are rarely the story.
• Plain 1940 Act fund structure, cash paid out quarterly.

• VOO 0.03% a year against a 0.15% median for S&P 500 trackers. On a fund this size, that fee gap is the whole product.
• Holds the index outright, all roughly 500 names, and its tracking record sits among the tightest in the S&P 500 group.investor.vanguard.com
• One of the most actively traded ETFs in the market, which tends to keep the cost of getting in and out small.
• It is the ETF share class of Vanguard's 500 Index Fund, and Vanguard is owned by its own funds, so no outside parent takes a cut.personal1.vanguard.comsec.gov

Worth knowing

• ITOT Cap weighting puts the megacaps in the driver's seat; the long tail of smaller names is a thin slice of the basket.
• SPTM tracks the same declared index at the same 0.03% fee, so the pick comes down to platform, spreads and existing tax lots.
• All-equity and all-U.S. by design: no bonds, no foreign stocks in the wrapper.

• VOO Large US companies only, weighted by size, so the biggest few names carry the most weight and drive much of the move.spglobal.com
• Membership is not purely mechanical: an S&P index committee decides which companies come in and go out.spglobal.com
• SPYM tracks the same index for 0.02%. A rounding error for most, but real if cost is your only tiebreaker.

Full ITOT profile⁠

Full VOO profile⁠