Data sourced from Dakota Private Markets, the private fund performance platform powered by Dakota. Learn More | Request Access
A trustee asks the consultant a simple question at the quarterly meeting: are we overpaying? The honest answer is that it depends on which asset class, which fee basis, and which hurdle, and a single headline percentage hides all three. Public pension fee schedules make the point well. Two funds can show the same base fee and cost a plan very different amounts, and one fund can carry a different price at every plan that owns it.
That is the real story of fees in 2026. Pricing across private markets has stopped behaving like one market with a standard rate. It now behaves like three, each with its own logic. Private equity fees track the structure of the vehicle. Private credit fees track the hurdle and the risk of the loan book. Infrastructure fees track how much the plan is willing to negotiate. Plans that read fees as a single number miss most of what they are paying for, and managers who pitch fees as a single number miss most of what allocators are evaluating.
Private equity: the vehicle sets the fee, and so does the basis
Private equity has the most intuitive fee logic and the most misleading one. The more layers of selection a plan pays for, the lower the fee on the underlying exposure. Fund-of-funds and secondaries programs sit at the bottom of the range, around 0.5% to 1.0% in the schedules we reviewed. Concentrated direct buyout and growth funds sit near the top, at 1.5% to 2.0%, and several of those add a 20% performance share.
The bigger issue is the basis the percentage applies to. A fee on committed capital and a fee on invested capital can look identical on a term sheet and diverge sharply by year three, once the fund has called only part of its commitments. One schedule shows 1.00% on committed capital. Another shows 1.5% on invested capital with a 20% carry over an 8% preferred return. Sophisticated plans compare these on dollars paid over the life of the fund, and everyone else compares them on the headline rate.
Private credit: the hurdle does the work
In private credit, the base fee is the least interesting part of the schedule. Senior direct lending has settled into a low fee band because the underlying return is contractual and the risk profile is narrow. Middle market senior loan funds show base fees in the 0.45% to 0.75% range, and some evergreen direct lending structures now price at 0.65% with no carry at all.
What separates the funds is the incentive layer. Within a single plan's schedules, two direct lending funds can both charge 1.00% while one takes a 10% carry above a 4% hurdle and the other takes 15% above 8%. The base fee is identical and the economics are not. As strategies move from senior lending toward special situations and opportunistic credit, both layers rise together, with base fees of 1.50% to 1.75% common and carry of 15% to 20%. Allocators reading credit fees are really reading a story about how much risk the manager takes and how much of the upside the manager keeps.
Infrastructure: one label, three pricing models
Infrastructure is where the label misleads most. The strategy heading covers core, value-add, and thematic funds that have almost nothing in common on price. Core and core-plus vehicles sit usually under 1.00%. These funds sell stability, and their fees reflect a product that competes with public alternatives.
At the other end, value-add and thematic funds price like private equity, with base fees of 1.50% to 2.00%. Between the two extremes sits a third model, where a modest base fee is paired with a performance share. Several schedules show a base fee under 1.00% plus 10% to 15% above a hurdle of 7% to 8%. For a manager, the practical point is that "infrastructure" is not a fee category, so the comparison set has to be built at the sub-strategy level.
The trend to watch: breakpoints, not base rates
The most useful signal in the 2026 schedules is not a change in any single base rate. It is the growing attention to tier breakpoints, which is where negotiation now happens. One core infrastructure fund shows the pattern clearly. A large city park plan paid 1.60% on the first $75 million, 1.25% on the next $250 million, and 1.00% thereafter in its Q3 2025 schedule. By Q4 2025 the schedule read 1.50% on the first $75 million, 1.15% on the next $175 million, and 0.90% after that.
Other plans hold the same fund on different terms. One schedule reads 1.75% on the first $50 million, 1.65% on the next $25 million, and 1.50% on the balance. Another shows a flat 1.5%. One fund, several schedules, each shaped by the size of the plan's commitment and the leverage it brought to the table. An average fee across those plans would describe none of
Bottom line
The base fee is the sticker price. The fee basis, the hurdle, and the tier breakpoints decide what a plan actually pays.
Dakota Private Markets: Fee Schedules at the Plan Level
Dakota Private Markets lets you filter public pension fee schedules by asset class, plan, fee range, and as-of date, so you can see how a peer fund is priced at a specific plan rather than relying on a market average.
- Asset class: Private Equity, Private Credit, or Private Infrastructure
- Account type: Public Pension Fund
- Base fee and incentive fee ranges
- As-of date, to compare quarter over quarter
To see where your fund's terms sit against what plans are paying today, request access.
