Guideline Reviews & Ratings 2025

Q: What are Guideline's top competitors?

Human Interest , Betterment , and ForUsAll are common alternatives for Guideline.

Overview

What is Guideline?

Guideline headquartered in San Mateo offers a cloud-based 401k management software for businesses priced on a per employee basis.

In my opinion, Awful customer service — couldn’t transfer my money for over 1 month

Rating: 8 out of 10

February 28, 2024

IncentivizedVetted ReviewVerified User

They are my previous company’s 401K benefits provider

Verified user

Manager

1 year of experience

Guideline Review from a Senior Staff Researcher Point of view

Rating: 9 out of 10

January 9, 2024

IncentivizedVetted ReviewVerified User

Guideline helps us to easily administrate our 401(k). It is not easy to have visibility on the total retirement savings that each individual has accumulated and in total. It ...

Verified user

Professional

3 years of experience

Disastrous account closure process with a broken product & terrible customer support that cost us thousands of dollars

Rating: 1 out of 10

January 4, 2024

IncentivizedVetted ReviewVerified User

We selected Guideline as our 401k provider and used the integration with Rippling (our payroll provider).

Verified user

C-Level Executive

8 years of experience

Not recommended at all - Terrible customer service

Rating: 1 out of 10

November 10, 2021

IncentivizedVetted ReviewVerified User

Guideline was mainly used because it connected with the company's prior payroll vendor Gusto. All employees at the company used Guideline for 401(k) services. We were looking ...

Tom Nemcek

Director - Human Resources

Human Resources Director

Vivos Therapeutics, Inc.

3 years of experience

Jordan's Guideline Review

Rating: 10 out of 10

November 10, 2021

IncentivizedVetted ReviewVerified User

We use Guideline for our company-wide 401k platform. I go on to my account every paycheck and I love the simple to read interface to see how my retirement savings are doing. I...

Jordan Wilhelmi

Director - Professional Services

Director Media Public Relations

Unbendable Media LLC

4 years of experience

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Pricing

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Guideline

N/A

Unavailable

What is Guideline?

Guideline headquartered in San Mateo offers a cloud-based 401k management software for businesses priced on a per employee basis.

Entry-level set up fee?

No setup fee

For the latest information on pricing, visithttps://www.guideline.com/pricing

Offerings

Free Trial
Free/Freemium Version
Premium Consulting/Integration Services

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Alternatives Pricing

Human Interest

$125

per month

What is Human Interest?

Human Interest headquartered in San Francisco offers their cloud-based 401k administation platform for employers featuring flexible plan design and a dedicated account manager.

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Product Details

About
Competitors
Tech Details
FAQs

What is Guideline?

Guideline offers aims to offer a simple, affordable way to save for retirement, by providing plans presented as low cost and highly automated. This helps companies to offer a valuable benefit, and it helps companies' people to invest in their financial future with confidence.

Guideline Features

401(k) Features

Supported: Administration and Recordkeeping
Supported: Payroll Integration
Supported: Compliance Maintenance
Supported: Plan Flexibility
Supported: Filings and Disclosures
Supported: Ease of Enrollment

Guideline Competitors

Guideline Technical Details

Deployment Types	Software as a Service (SaaS), Cloud, or Web-Based
Operating Systems	Unspecified
Mobile Application	No

Frequently Asked Questions

Guideline headquartered in San Mateo offers a cloud-based 401k management software for businesses priced on a per employee basis.

Human Interest, Betterment, and ForUsAll are common alternatives for Guideline.

Reviewers rate Ease of Enrollment highest, with a score of 7.1.

The most common users of Guideline are from Small Businesses (1-50 employees).

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Comparisons

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Reviews and Ratings

(34)

Reviews

(1-5 of 11)

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Guideline Can Guide Your Company in the Right Direction as to Employee Retirement

Rating: 8 out of 10

Incentivized

November 17, 2021

Verified User

Analyst in Legal

Law Practice Company, 1-10 employees

Vetted Review

Verified User

3 years of experience

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

The guideline is used for our 401k service for all our employees and all departments. It addresses the benefits package offered to employees as to their retirement. Some of the partners also use Guideline, making it a fairly comprehensive service. One problem every business faces is a retirement (if offered) program for their full-time employees.

Pros

Easy to use
Clear and concise information
Navigation

Cons

Could be more responsive to inquiries
Could provide more upfront information when starting the process

Likelihood to Recommend

Guideline is well suited for a comprehensive 401k service to most any business, whether small (10 or fewer employees) or far larger businesses. They can help employees understand how to invest their money and provide options for them. An employee can allow the people at Guideline to invest their money based upon a simple algorithm of conservative/moderate/less moderate risk or the employee can invest as they choose. Guideline is probably not the best suited as far as the type of financial advice one might get from more established investments and financial groups.

Jordan's Guideline Review

Rating: 10 out of 10

Incentivized

November 10, 2021

Jordan Wilhelmi

Director Media Public Relations

Unbendable Media LLC (Public Relations & Communications, 1-10 employees)

Vetted Review

Verified User

4 years of experience

View profile

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use Guideline for our company-wide 401k platform. I go on to my account every paycheck and I love the simple to read interface to see how my retirement savings are doing. It is also seamless to adjust risk and strategy at the click of a button. The quarterly reports are a great way to track progress of my portfolio and fine tune my long-term financial strategy.

Pros

User interface is seamless and easy to read
Quarterly reports are detailed but not difficult to understand in terms of performance
Projection data is a valuable resource to analyze my financial planning

Cons

I'd like an app so I can track progress from my phone and iPad with ease
Two-factor authentication might be nice with all the private financial data the platform holds
A contact number or option to speak with financial advisors might be useful down the road for my retirement planning

Likelihood to Recommend

Guideline is the perfect 401k retirement platform for small businesses. The best thing about Guideline is its interface, as it is so easy to understand and use. I can't think of a scenario where Guideline would not be a great option for this use. The only thing I dislike about Guideline is that it is sometimes slow to process contributions from my paychecks, or at least confirm those contributions.

Very complete and low costs 401K option for fast growing SMBs

Rating: 10 out of 10

Incentivized

November 10, 2021

Robert Malnati

COO (Chief Operating Officer)

thatDot, Inc. (Computer Software, 1-10 employees)

Vetted Review

Verified User

2 years of experience

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Fantastic 401K option for SMB Guideline has been a great choice for our small but fast growing software company. Our employees are savvy and appreciate the range of low costs index/ETF funds as well as the super easy to use interface. Features like real-time calculation of contribution limits when assessing contribution changes and super simple allocation changes have been specifically mentioned by the team. As the administrator, I really appreciate the continuous safe harbor analysis, seamless integration with Gusto (payroll), low and predictable costs and support that answers emails and phone calls in a timely and complete manner.

Pros

Low costs investment options
Excellent customer support
Easy to use integrations and user experience

Cons

None to suggest

Likelihood to Recommend

Guideline is an excellent tool for SMBs who want to offer a complete and low costs 401k option without administrative complexity. We are especially pleased with the integration to Gusto our payroll service. Employees appreciate the options for split contributions between Roth and conventional 401k accounts. Admins like the ease of use, complete feature list and low price.

Guideline Review from a Senior Staff Researcher Point of view

Rating: 9 out of 10

Incentivized

January 09, 2024

Verified User

Professional in Engineering

Information Technology & Services Company, 51-200 employees

Vetted Review

Verified User

3 years of experience

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Guideline helps us to easily administrate our 401(k).
It is not easy to have visibility on the total retirement savings that each individual has accumulated and in total.

It also helps to understand the amount contributed before and after taxes.
This is specially helpful to understand if an emergency withdrawal would be taxed or not taxed.

For example, at the start of the year, the software projects the total contributed per year before and after taxes.

Pros

Administrate individual 401(k)
Understand the contributions accumulated in total and per year
Understand the percentage of salary being contributed per pay period.

Cons

It is not clear how to deal with the IRA accounts
In the IRA plan, it is no clear what are the risks (if any?) vs the benefits (or are all of them benefits?)
The explanations of the Portfolio should be easier to understand.

Likelihood to Recommend

I think that the good thing of it is that it is easy to follow up contributions and accumulated money for the retirement without the need to directly ask H.R. people. That saves HR resources.

On the other hand, portfolios are not easy to understand and select. The meaning of risk is not clear.
What is risk in this case?