The article presents a study on the costs of active management based on five different measures: the active expense ratio, the active fee, the new active fee, the active to passive fee, and the maximum acceptable fee (MAF) ratio. There are two main objectives of the article. The first one is to indicate which measure is best in estimating the costs of active management. The second one is to check whether the costs incurred are related to the value added for investors. In the study, 34 Polish equity mutual funds are evaluated. Based on the obtained results, it can be concluded that two measures, the active to passive ratio and the MAF ratio, provide the most practical information. What’s more, active management does not generate any excess returns. On the contrary, a reduction can be observed.