September 09, 2026

Private Equity Fees Are Falling — Here's What the Data Shows

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Data sourced from Dakota Private Markets, the private fund performance platform powered by Dakota. Learn More | Request Access

Private Equity Fees: Why "2 and 20" Isn't the Standard Anymore

"Two and twenty" gets repeated so often in private equity that it functions as a default assumption. Dakota's own fee schedule data says otherwise. Across the filings where a carry number is actually disclosed, the average sits closer to 10%, not 20%. Base fee runs closer to 1% than 2% on the typical fund. The textbook structure describes a minority of what General Partners are actually charging the public pension boards that commit to them.

That gap didn't open on its own. Large pension plans carry enough capital, and enough leverage in a competitive fundraise, to push back on fee load in a way smaller allocators can't. The clearest place that shows up is in how those plans structure their access to a manager, not just the fee they pay on the primary fund. Co-investment alongside a fund commitment has become one of the standard ways a large allocator brings its blended cost down: capital deployed next to the GP's own deal, frequently with a reduced fee, and often with no fee or no carry at all.

Dakota's library holds real examples of exactly that. Several fee schedule filings in the data show a base fee of zero, public pension boards paying nothing on specific co-investment vehicles they've committed to alongside a flagship fund. Those aren't outliers so much as a visible edge of a broader pattern: the fee-free or reduced-fee sleeve has become a real, filed, negotiated term, not a hypothetical one.

For a manager raising capital from this end of the market, that changes what "competitive" actually means. A large plan weighing a commitment is not only pricing the flagship fund. It's pricing the whole relationship, including whatever co-invest or access terms come with it, against what other managers are willing to offer on the same basis. A fee-efficient structure has stopped being a courtesy extended to a big check. It's become a real part of what separates a fundable proposal from one that gets pushed to the back of the pipeline.

The Bottom Line

This is a fraction of what is actually filed in Dakota Private Markets. We hold base fee, carry, and structure data on hundreds of private equity vehicles, filed directly by the public pension boards that committed capital to them, no-fee co-invest sleeves included. If you want to see what a specific fund actually charges instead of assuming "two and twenty," that is what Dakota Private Markets is for. Request access.

Written By: Alex deMarco, Investment Research Analyst

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Private Equity Fees Are Falling — Here's What the Data Shows

Private Equity Fees: Why "2 and 20" Isn't the Standard Anymore

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