Coinbase vs. Guideline

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Coinbase
Score 7.5 out of 10
N/A
Coinbase is a digital currency exchange (Coinbase Pro) and crypto-oriented software solution suite for businesses, including hosted checkout pages, payment buttons, invoicing, and multiple ecommerce integrations (Coinbase Commerce), a turnkey solution for brokerages, exchanges, and fintechs enabling them to offer customers crypto (Coinbase Prime), crypto asset custody (Coinbase Custody), and a wallet to self-store crypto (Coinbase Wallet).
$0.20
taker fee
Guideline
Score 8.5 out of 10
N/A
Guideline headquartered in San Mateo offers a cloud-based 401k management software for businesses priced on a per employee basis.N/A
Pricing
CoinbaseGuideline
Editions & Modules
$100K-$1M
$0.20
taker fee
$10-50K
$0.35
taker fee
<$10K
$0.50
taker fee
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
CoinbaseGuideline
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
CoinbaseGuideline
Features
CoinbaseGuideline
401(k)
Comparison of 401(k) features of Product A and Product B
Coinbase
-
Ratings
Guideline
6.3
3 Ratings
20% below category average
Payroll Integration00 Ratings5.62 Ratings
Compliance Maintenance00 Ratings6.02 Ratings
Plan Flexibility00 Ratings7.52 Ratings
Filings and Disclosures00 Ratings5.12 Ratings
Ease of Enrollment00 Ratings7.43 Ratings
Best Alternatives
CoinbaseGuideline
Small Businesses

No answers on this topic

OnPay
OnPay
Score 9.9 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies

No answers on this topic

No answers on this topic

Enterprises

No answers on this topic

No answers on this topic

All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
CoinbaseGuideline
Likelihood to Recommend
8.4
(28 ratings)
6.5
(11 ratings)
Usability
9.0
(1 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Support Rating
6.4
(2 ratings)
1.0
(3 ratings)
User Testimonials
CoinbaseGuideline
Likelihood to Recommend
Coinbase
I think Coinbase is extremely suitable for people who are just starting to get into crypto-related activities. Based on how easy it is to use along with the brand recognition I think it offers beginners a better sense of security. Just like all trading platforms, it is extremely easy to get carried away as you only have to confirm your purchase twice and it goes through. It would not be very suitable for those who have little self-control.
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Guideline
I believe that the only thing more broken than Guideline's product is their customer support. From initial contribution dates to the disastrous account closure that cost us personally thousands of dollars, this has been by far the worst SaaS and customer experience I've ever had in my career. If only 1) Guideline's product or 2) customer support had individually been broken, we would not have ended up in this state. I sent dozens and dozens of emails inquiring about oddities I was seeing in the product, but Guideline's reps only gave more conflicting and what ended up being grossly inaccurate feedback and status updates. I hope this review reaches anyone who is thinking of closing their Guideline account. Be extremely wary of what Guideline says and does in the account closure process and exact for detailed and exact timelines (you'll have to follow up many times...). For those of you who haven't yet selected a 401k provider, I'd recommend staying as far away from Guideline as possible.
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Pros
Coinbase
  • Coinbase has a really nice looking design which offers for a better user experience.
  • Coinbase is extremely easy to use.
  • Coinbase does a great job delivering company news/changes to its users.
  • Coinbase offers frequent updates which makes you feel more secure using their services.
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Guideline
  • Administrate individual 401(k)
  • Understand the contributions accumulated in total and per year
  • Understand the percentage of salary being contributed per pay period.
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Cons
Coinbase
  • Just like other apps(venmo, cashapp, PayPal) it keeps all your trade portfolio under coin based. Not transferable
  • Even though, they give you a starting balance of $10. They do wants you to put at least $10 of your money
  • The training video are simple. Learn about US dollar coin, USD, and bitcoin. But it doesn't teach you how to be a savvy trader. That will take additional education
  • You can't add small cryptocurrency like BAR to your portfolio. It certain amount to trade with.
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Guideline
  • I feel that the customer support was abysmal - In my experience, we were consistently given conflicting advice and statuses as we closed our account with Guideline. Despite many, many follow-ups attempting to clarify our current status and remaining steps to close the account, Guideline's reps continued to provide, I believe, misleading and inaccurate steps. This cost us thousands and thousands of dollars given Guideline was not able to appropriately pull the funds before closing the account.
  • Guideline's integrations - I believe there is clearly a broken pipeline between Guideline and Rippling. In my experience, contributions were not funded as expected when we first opened the account, and when we closed our account, there was no communication between Guideline and Rippling. Guideline continued to expect contributions into perpetuity despite closure of the account
  • I feel that Guideline's product itself is just broken in critical places - most importantly, statuses of contributions were reflected incorrectly in the software (Guideline thought funds were transferred, but they were not and Guideline never attempted to pull the funds from our bank). This, combined with the terrible customer support, cost us thousands and thousands of dollars after we closed our account. There are many absolutely critical features that are broken -> to give just one of many examples, it was not possible to update the bank account information and no error message was thrown. I was told that our account ended up in an exceptional state given our last payroll contribution date and account closure, but these seem like very basic things a 401k provider has to get right if there are going to manage people's money.
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Usability
Coinbase
Great UI, Great tools for education learning with freebies, eqsy onboard, site and app are pretty good. Good API documentation. The opposite is high fees and slow support when needed. Overall it is good for its simple use and balance between beginners and professional traders making it a great choice and this is why it is one of the most famous site out there.
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Guideline
Well thought out and intuitive user experience for employees and administrators. Educational documentation has been a plus
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Support Rating
Coinbase
I haven't needed to contact support for Coinbase yet—it's probably because it is super easy to use and very intuitive. If I were to use the support, it would probably be better than these other companies because most of the other ones come from foreign markets or aren't as big as Coinbase.
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Guideline
The few questions that we've had have been answered quickly and helpfully. The implementation was a breeze and the onboarding contacts were really helpful. There was some stuff I had to learn about 401(k)s in making the decision to implement Guideline, but the Guideline team was helpful in pointing me in the right direction.
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Alternatives Considered
Coinbase
Coinbase is just better overall, with access to investments that can be traded for USD. As well as the crypto that can gain interest, Coinbase is amazing at educating the user along with providing real-time data, that allows the user to make the best decision they can when making this kind of risky investment. Coinbase takes the risk out of Crypto.
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Guideline
We selected Guideline due to their relationship with Gusto, our payroll service. However, we did review alternative options for our 401k program and found them very competitive as to price and quality. We were thinking about going with one of the bigger companies like Schwab, E*TRADE, Ally, etc., but found Guideline to be the best choice for us based on price and ease of use.
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Return on Investment
Coinbase
  • It's saved time from figuring out how to buy and sell cryptocurrencies
  • It makes monitoring market prices and fluctuations in the value of crypto holdings very easy and simple. Which also saves time.
  • We don't do as high of volume so the lower transaction costs even though there is a slight premium saves us a lot of money in contrast to many of the exchanges that can charge 4-5+% transaction costs.
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Guideline
  • Allow small employees to enhance benefit package
  • Great recruitment tool for new employees
  • Connection with payroll vendor allowed for less manual work
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ScreenShots