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Final portfolio value
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- Growth
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VOO vs VTI: S&P 500 or Total U.S. Market in 2026?
Bottom line
VOO is the pure S&P 500 bet. VTI adds small- and mid-caps for the same 0.03% fee.
The 10 universal facts
VOO Vanguard S&P 500 ETF
vs
VTI Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF
0.03%
Expense ratio
0.03%
$3
Annual cost / $10k
$3
$1.51T
AUM
$1.78T
Sep 7, 2010
Inception
May 24, 2001
518
Holdings
~3,600
~13.1%
10y CAGR (total return)
~12.4%
~1.2%
Dividend yield
~1.3%
Quarterly
Dividend frequency
Quarterly
Open-end ETF
Structure
Open-end ETF
Vanguard
Issuer
Vanguard
Performance & backtest
Investing $10,000 from Sep 2010 How this is calculated Dividends reinvested every month. Monthly adjusted-close prices from Yahoo Finance. Past performance doesn't predict future returns.
$—
Final portfolio value
- Invested
- —
- Growth
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- Total return
- —
- Per year
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What's specific to VOO vs VTI
Breadth
500 vs ~3,600 stocks
VTI holds every VOO stock plus ~3,100 mid- and small-caps. About 85% of VTI's weight matches VOO; the rest is the long tail.
Market coverage
VTI covers the full U.S. market
VOO captures ~85% of U.S. market cap (large-cap only). VTI captures essentially 100%: large, mid, small, micro. Choice depends on whether you want the long tail.
Historical return
VOO ~0.7%/yr ahead this decade
Large caps have outperformed mid and small caps over the past 10 years. In another regime, VTI catches up; the trade depends on the next decade, not the last.
Compare next
Frequently asked questions
Is VOO or VTI better?
It depends. VOO is a focused S&P 500 bet, VTI is a total-market bet. Over the past decade VOO is slightly ahead because large caps led; VTI catches up when small and mid caps lead. Most investors are fine with either as a core holding.
Can I hold both VOO and VTI?
You can, but there is heavy overlap. About 85% of VTI is the same stocks as VOO. Holding both effectively over-weights the large caps that are already in both. Most investors pick one.
Why is VTI cheaper to buy per share?
Share price has nothing to do with cost or quality. VTI lists at a lower per-share price than VOO; expense ratios are identical at 0.03%. With fractional-share brokers the share price is irrelevant.
Does VTI have higher dividends than VOO?
Slightly. VTI yields about 1.3% vs VOO's 1.2% because the small and mid caps included in VTI tend to pay slightly higher yields on average. The gap is small.
Is VTI riskier than VOO?
Marginally. Small caps are more volatile, so VTI's full-market exposure adds a small amount of risk. In practice, the 85% overlap with VOO dominates the risk profile and the two perform similarly through most cycles.