Home Fees and tax

The fee, the tax and the paperwork

What it costs you, all in

A flat fee you know in advance, your broker’s charges, a tax rate set by law, and what changes on your tax return. Here is each of them, with the figures this site publishes.

In short

The fee is flat: MultiAsset is free, and LargeMidcap 250 is ₹11,988 a year and SmallMicro 500 ₹17,988 on the monthly plan, less on the longer plans, and never a share of your money.
Every gain is taxed as short-term, at 20% in the year it is booked, because the books rebalance monthly. Every after-tax figure on this site has already paid it.
Your tax return changes: ITR-2 instead of ITR-1, one summary from your broker’s Tax P&L, and advance tax if this year’s tax beyond your salary TDS reaches ₹10,000.

The fee: a flat number, whatever you hold

A subscription is a fixed number of rupees. It does not grow with your money, it is never a percentage of it, and it is the only thing MindForge charges.

MultiAssetFree, for everyone: no card, no plan to choose, and it updates every month.

LargeMidcap 250₹11,988 a year on the monthly plan.

SmallMicro 500₹17,988 a year on the monthly plan.

Longer plans cost less, and update themselves

The 3-, 6- and 12-month plans cost 5%, 10% and 20% less per month. On them the new book replaces the old one on your dashboard on the 1st, and we e-mail you when it lands. A 1-month plan is one book, the one current when your access starts; to get the next month’s, you renew. New members currently get their first month free.

Each plan’s price is in the Pricing section of the homepage.

Billing, cancellation and refunds are set out in section 9 of our Terms of Service. Stopping changes nothing you hold: the shares were always in your own demat.

The fee against a fund’s, at your size

A fund’s expense ratio is a share of everything you hold, every year, so it grows with you; a flat fee does not. That makes the flat fee the dearer of the two on a small book and the cheaper on a large one. The comparison here uses each book’s best comparable fund on the strategies page.

LargeMidcap 250At ₹10,00,000, the fund’s 0.75% expense ratio comes to ₹7,500 a year, against our ₹11,988. The two cross at ₹15,98,400: below it the flat fee costs more, above it less.

SmallMicro 500At ₹15,00,000, the fund’s ~0.4% expense ratio comes to ₹6,000 a year, against our ₹17,988. The two cross at ₹44,97,000: below it the flat fee costs more, above it less.

Each book also has a floor, the smallest amount at which every name in this month’s book can be bought in one whole share: ₹10,000 for MultiAsset, ₹7,15,000 for LargeMidcap 250 and ₹65,000 for SmallMicro 500. It is not a view on how much of your money belongs in a book.

What decides between a book and a fund is the return each leaves you after its own tax, not the fee. Two calculators do the arithmetic on your own numbers:

Fee calculator: a flat subscription against a percentage-of-assets fee, at your own portfolio size.
MindForge vs your fund: a book against the fund you hold, with the tax and any exit load of switching taken off first.

Your broker’s charges come on top

You place every order in your own account, so each trade carries your broker’s usual delivery charges, paid to them and not to us: securities transaction tax, exchange and regulatory charges, stamp duty on what you buy, GST on the charges, brokerage if your broker charges it on delivery, and at most brokers a depository charge on each sale. Your contract notes list every one.

One set-up choice before your first sale: a DDPI lets your broker deliver the shares you sell without asking you each time, for a one-time charge (at Zerodha ₹100 + GST). Without one there is no charge, but you approve each selling day with your depository’s TPIN and an OTP. How selling works

They are small per order, and they add up with the count. Month one is the full list; after that a book trades only what changed, which in the backtests has been about half of it: typically 14 orders a month on SmallMicro 500 and 12 on LargeMidcap 250.

The backtests charge a flat one-way cost on turnover instead of these items one by one; Disclosures states the rate and what it leaves out.

The tax: every gain is short-term

All three books rebalance every month, so no position is ever held twelve months. Every gain is short-term and pays 20% in the year it is booked: section 196 of the Income-tax Act, 2025 (section 111A before April 2026), on shares and Indian equity ETFs. A fund you buy and hold pays 12.5% once, at exit, on gains above ₹1,25,000 a year, and nothing in between, which is the part that compounds. That is why every return on this site is published after its own tax, and the funds beside them after theirs.

What the tax took in the backtests

Each book, before and after tax

LargeMidcap 250

Backtest on ₹10,00,000, Oct 2021 → Oct 2026 · 61 months

Before tax: 29.4% a year
After 20% short-term tax: 18.6% a year
After tax and our fee: 17.8% a year
Short-term tax paid: −₹8,32,912
Our fee, same months: −₹60,939
Ending value, after tax: ₹23,81,414

SmallMicro 500

Backtest on ₹15,00,000, Oct 2021 → Oct 2026 · 61 months

Before tax: 65.4% a year
After 20% short-term tax: 44.3% a year
After tax and our fee: 43.6% a year
Short-term tax paid: −₹33,25,716
Our fee, same months: −₹91,439
Ending value, after tax: ₹96,81,794

MultiAsset

Backtest on ₹5,00,000, Mar 2023 → Oct 2026 · 44 months

Before tax: 17.6% a year
After 20% short-term tax: 11.6% a year
Our fee: none, it is free
Short-term tax paid: −₹1,37,645
Ending value, after tax: ₹7,47,714

One thing works in your favour, and these figures deliberately do not claim it: under the actual rules a losing month offsets gains, and the tax here is modelled at 20% on every month that books a profit, with no set-off, the harshest reading. Your real outcome should therefore be better than the figures shown, not worse.

Backtested, not live trading; past performance is not indicative of future returns. Rupee figures assume the capital shown on each card, and the fee is the monthly plan’s. Risk figures elsewhere on this site (Sharpe ratio, deepest fall) are measured before tax, as is standard. This is not tax advice: your own rate, slab and set-offs will differ.

MultiAsset is the exception to the 20%. Short-term gains on its Nasdaq-100, gold and silver ETFs are taxed at your income-tax slab, 31.2% at the 30% slab with cess, and gains on its bond ETF at your slab however long it is held. For an investor in the 30% slab its real after-tax figure is therefore lower than the one published. Why the published figure uses one rate

What changes on your tax return

If your income has so far been a salary, holding a book changes these things. Your broker’s reports do most of the work.

The formITR-1 becomes ITR-2. With short-term gains you can no longer file ITR-1, and a salaried filer usually moves to ITR-2.

Capital gainsEvery gain a book realises goes in the return, taxed at 20% in the year it is booked.

Paying the taxYour salary TDS no longer covers it all. If this year’s tax beyond it reaches ₹10,000, the rest is due as advance tax, in four instalments (below).

Your recordsForm 16, plus your broker’s Tax P&L. It lists every trade a book realised, roughly 170 a year on SmallMicro 500 and 140 on LargeMidcap 250, and you carry one summary into the return, not one line each. On Zerodha it is in Console, under Reports → Tax P&L.

Losing tradesThey offset gains in the same year, and a net loss can be carried forward for eight years.

DividendsAny a stock pays come to you, and are taxed at your slab.

Advance tax, in four dates

Your salary TDS is worked out on your salary alone, so it does not cover these gains. If this year’s tax beyond it comes to ₹10,000 or more (₹50,000 of short-term gains is ₹10,000 of tax at 20%), it is due as advance tax, in instalments by 15 June, 15 September, 15 December and 15 March. Tax on a gain paid by the next instalment after you make it costs no interest; a missed instalment costs 1% a month. It is paid on the income-tax portal, under e-Pay Tax → Advance Tax (100).

Members do not have to work it out by hand: the dashboard puts the next date in front of you three weeks before it falls, works out the instalment once you enter the gains your broker’s Tax P&L shows, and adds the four dates to your calendar.

General information, not tax advice: your slab, your other income and your set-offs are yours, and a tax professional can confirm how the rules apply to you.