It is fair to say that individuals generally have little idea about the fees they pay on the investments (mutual funds and annuities) in their retirement portfolios. Some fees, like front-loads may be apparent, but the year-to-year fees are nearly undetectable. Generally fees are reflected only in reduced share value, so you never see a line on a statement showing a change in the number of shares you own. Usually there is nothing on your statement suggesting that you pay hundreds of dollars every year to your mutual fund or annuity company.
You can be assured that you do pay fees to your investment company; these people don't work for free. If you read the prospectuses for your investments carefully you will find the expense ratios printed there. For an annuity, the prospectus will tell you also of mortality and other expenses.
Fees and expenses vary widely. For example, a common fund in most portfolios is broad stock fund, perhaps an S&P 500 fund. One investment company might charge you an "expense ratio" as little as 0.35% (or even less) for a fund of that type; you pay $35 each year for every $10000 you have in your account. If it is a "no load" fund, there will usually be no other fees.
Another company may charge 0.65% or even over 1% of assets for an essentially identical stock fund. An annuity tracking the same performance will have other expenses on top of the management fee, mortality expenses, bumping the total expense way up. One company I checked charges 1.83% for a variable annuity tracking the S&P 500; that amounts to $183 deducted each year for every $10000 you have invested.
The most expensive investments have high annual expenses (deducted from your accumulated assets) as well as a front-end load (a fee deducted up front from each contribution you make).
Before you commit to an investment program burdened with heavy expenses, you should understand that these expenses make a material difference in the amount of wealth you will have when you retire, particularly if you save your assets over a long career. You may need to invest substantially more money every month to get to the same place financially in retirement if you want to use funds with high fees.
We can experiment with scenarios using the following calculator. If you have assets already accumulated, enter that value. Then select an amount to deduct from your monthly paycheck, your years until retirement, anticipated return, and the fees of two similar investment options. When you click calculate, you will learn how each investment can be expected to perform over your hypothetical career.