Betterment at Work vs. Guideline
Compare 401(k) providers across fees, investments, employee experience and service & support.
| Betterment | Guideline | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fees | |||||||||
| Ongoing Administrative (Paid by employer) | Essential:
$42/month + $5/participant/month Pro: |
Core: Flex: |
|||||||
| Estimated fund fees (Paid by employee) | 0.06%1 |
0.06%2 |
|||||||
| Investment management | 0.25% on assets annually |
0.08% on assets annually ($0.80 for every $1,000) |
|||||||
| Terminated participant fee | None |
$4/month (after 90 days)2 |
|||||||
| Investments | |||||||||
| Funds | Indexed Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) |
Indexed Mutual Funds |
|||||||
| Portfolios | 610 (across 7 strategies, plus Flexible Portfolio Strategy) |
6 (1 strategy, plus customized participant strategies) |
|||||||
| Customizable risk | 101 risk levels |
6 levels |
|||||||
| Automatic allocation adjustments (Glidepath feature) | |||||||||
| Flexibility | Participants may choose their own allocation |
Participants may choose their own allocation | |||||||
| Socially responsible investments | 3 managed portfolio strategies: Broad Impact, |
2 large cap equity funds |
|||||||
| Qualified default investment | Core - globally diversified managed ETF portfolio |
1 of 6 portfolios | |||||||
| Additional investment strategies | Innovative Technology, Socially Responsible (3), Goldman Sachs Smart Beta, BlackRock Target Income |
None | |||||||
| Employee Experience | |||||||||
| Platform scope | Financial advice across all investing and savings goals: 401(k), |
Focus exclusively on retirement 401(k) , |
|||||||
| External account syncing | |||||||||
| Personalized retirement planning tools | |||||||||
| Tax coordination strategies to help maximize returns | |||||||||
| Mobile app | |||||||||
| Access to human advisors4 | |||||||||
| Service and support | |||||||||
| 3(38) Investment Fiduciary | |||||||||
| 3(16) Administrative Fiduciary | |||||||||
| Automated compliance support | |||||||||
| Online signup process | |||||||||
| Access to onboarding support team | |||||||||
| Payroll integrations | 14 |
8 |
|||||||
| Dedicated support | Yes |
Additional cost5 |
|||||||
Ready for a better 401(k) plan?
