401(k) advisory offer · Seven campaigns, eleven sequencer groups · Analysis stage

Every employer with a 401(k) plan of 50 to 999 participants is assigned to one of seven campaigns. The messages below are what would go to each.

Built 4 November 2026 from a fresh pull of the Department of Labor Form 5500 and 5500-SF datasets, with Schedules H, I and C, for the 2024 and 2025 plan years. The 2025 filings landed in July and October of this year, so every fact in the copy is weeks old, not a year old. Nothing on this page is loaded in a sequencer, no contact has been enriched and no credit has been spent. Every count is from the filings; every claim is in the register at the bottom with its source.

102,450employers in the market: single employer, not union, a 401(k) feature, 50 to 999 participants with a balance, 2025 plan year
16.7Mparticipants with a balance across them, holding $1,506B in plan assets
98,238matched to their 2024 filing (95.9%), so headcount, provider and deposit changes are measured, not guessed
37,953carry a flag the filing itself reports (37% of the market); 12,728 of them reported a late deposit, the first campaign

What this page is for

The 401(k) brief of 4 November set the offer: a licensed advisor takes over as advisor of record on employer 401(k) plans, found by cold email from facts in their own Form 5500. This page is the map for finding those employers. It counts the market, breaks it into campaigns the way the pension and Section 125 maps do, writes the custom fields and the copy each campaign would use, and prices the enrichment per employer, so the volume decision is made on numbers. It is the same map whether the sender is our own firm, our brand under a host firm, or an advisor's firm (options 1, 1.5 and 2 in the brief). Only the sender block, the booking link and the revenue split change.

Decisions this page is built to support

  • Which campaign goes first, how many employers it holds, and what each of them did on its last filing that makes it worth writing to.
  • Which fields from the filing carry into the copy, with their coverage, and which need the paid tier.
  • What one employer costs to reach, at the vendor prices observed for the Section 125 map, before any purchase.
  • How many replies, meetings and signed plans a given daily volume projects, with every rate editable, and what those plans are worth in advisory fees.

What is deliberately not here

  • No sender, firm name, domain or inbox. The brief leaves the structure open; the copy carries {{firmName}} and {{senderIntro}} as fields and the compliance lock applies to whichever firm's registration the emails go out under.
  • No performance claim, no fee-saving promise, no legal conclusion. Every line about a plan is a fact from its own filing, stated as the filing states it.
  • No contact names. 82.7% of the market carries the filing signer's name, which is the only person level field in the data.
  • Nothing from the pension or Section 125 businesses. Separate files, separate scripts, separate page, as the method requires.

102,450 employers, each assigned to one campaign

Rows are what the employer's own 2025 filing shows, in the order the assignment rule runs: an account lands in the first row that is true of it and nowhere else. Columns are participants with an account balance, the count the audit rules use. The grid is read from the universe file; nothing in it is typed.

How the file was cut

Filter, in orderEmployers
All 2025 plan year filings in the DOL files (Form 5500 and 5500-SF)961,994
Plans with a 401(k) feature (pension code 2J)782,937
Single employer plans (line A: code 2 on Form 5500, code 1 on 5500-SF)778,466
Not a final return749,907
Not collectively bargained747,179
US address745,517
One plan per employer (largest plan per EIN)737,765
50 to 999 participants with an account balance: the universe102,450

Source: DOL EFAST2 F_5500 and F_5500_SF 2025 "Latest" files dated 25 October 2026, pulled 4 November; script build.py. Participants with a balance is line 6g of Form 5500 and line 5c of 5500-SF. One plan per EIN keeps the largest.

What is above and below the market

BandEmployersWhy it is out
Under 50 participants627,916Median assets too small to pay an advisor's fee. Recordkeeper bundles and payroll providers own this band.
1,000 to 4,9995,438Committee buying, formal RFPs, consultants. A different motion, later.
5,000 and above1,364Same.

Coverage of the real market

Firm size (Census SUSB 2022)US firmsOn a 2025 401(k) filing
50 to 99 employees133,38854,740
100 to 499 employees93,34130,061 + 11,438
500 and above21,0416,211 + 6,802

The gap between firms and filers is employers with no plan, SIMPLE IRAs and SEPs that never file, employers inside a multiple employer or pooled plan (entity codes 3 and 4, excluded above), and firms whose plan has fewer participants than the firm has employees. Census figures as quoted on the Section 125 map.

The four bands

ParticipantsEmployersPer employerMedian assetsFull Form 55005500-SF
50 to 9954,74069$4.1M4,87949,861
100 to 24930,061153$9.7M22,1047,957
250 to 49911,438348$23.4M11,290148
500 to 9996,211695$47.8M6,17932

The form matters more than the band. 44,452 employers file the full Form 5500 with Schedule C, so their fees and every paid provider are visible. 57,998 file the short form, which reports assets, fees paid, late deposits and corrective amounts but no provider names. 5500-SF filers at 100 to 249 are plans using the 80-to-120 rule to stay on the short form.

Where the assets sit

Plan assetsEmployersWhat it means for the advisor
Under $1M11,463Fixed costs dominate the fee ratio; the fee line is dropped from the copy.
$1M to $5M29,000Entry plans. At 30 basis points, $3,000 to $15,000 a year.
$5M to $25M46,639The core. $15,000 to $75,000 a year at 30 basis points; the brief's $30,000 plan lives here.
$25M to $100M13,743Committee plans; fees quoted in basis points; consolidators present.
$100M and above1,599In the band by participant count only. Worked by hand, not by sequence.

Assets are net assets at year end from Schedule H, Schedule I or the 5500-SF. Median assets per participant run from $61K in the 50 to 99 band to $71K at 500 to 999.

The market from first principles

1. Who can act

A single employer sponsor is the plan administrator or appoints one, and either way the company's officers hire and fire the plan's advisor. A multiple employer or pooled plan cannot act plan by plan, and a bargained plan cannot act without the union, so entity code 2 and no bargaining flag define who can say yes.

2. Who is visible

Every 401(k) plan with assets files, down to one participant. That is the opposite of the health plan market, where nothing under 100 is seen. What changes at 100 participants is the form: the full Form 5500 with Schedule H and Schedule C, which name the providers and what each was paid, and an independent audit. Below 100 the 5500-SF still gives assets, fees paid, late deposits and corrective amounts, so the 50 to 99 band is in the map with a thinner copy set.

3. What size means

At 50 to 99 the owner decides and the plan is a payroll item. At 100 to 249 the plan has an audit, a Schedule C and a CFO who signs the audit engagement; one owner or CFO still decides. At 250 to 999 there is a committee, minutes, and usually a named advisor already; the sale is a benchmark the committee is obliged to run anyway. The copy sets follow those three situations.

4. When they decide

98.6% of the market runs a calendar plan year, so the clock is the same for nearly everyone: the Form 5500 lands in July (19,105 filed) or on the 15 October extension (38,243 filed in October); nondiscrimination testing runs January to March with corrective refunds due by 15 March to avoid the excise tax; the audit is engaged in spring for a July filing; fee disclosures to participants go out once a year. Three of the seven campaigns sit on one of those dates. The rest run on the filing itself: it is public now, and nobody at the company has read it the way this page has.

5. Where the money sits

The advisor is paid in basis points on plan assets, and the market holds $1,506B. Median plan assets run from $4.1M in the 50 to 99 band to $47.8M at 500 to 999. Reported fees paid from plan assets have a median of 0.37% of assets at 100 to 249 participants and 0.24% at 500 to 999, which is the number the employer is legally responsible for and almost never looks at, because it comes out of employee accounts rather than the company's own accounts.

6. Who is in the way

Of the 44,452 full-form filers, 25,051 (56%) name an investment advisor on Schedule C. 4,993 of those are consolidators (CAPTRUST, OneDigital, Global Retirement Partners, NFP, SageView, HUB, Gallagher, Marsh and the like) and 4,053 are wirehouse or bank teams; the two together are the incumbent track, 9,046 employers who get the benchmark copy and a lower score. 4,333 name the recordkeeper's own advice arm (Fidelity's Strategic Advisers, Voya, Morningstar, Wilshire, ADP), which is a managed account product, not an advisor of record, and is written to as if no independent advisor exists. The TPA and the auditor are channels, not obstacles.

7. What has changed

Matched to the 2024 filing: 12.9% of the market reported a late deposit this year and 7.9% reported one two years running; 9.5% of the market returned money as corrective distributions (the flag is read on full-form filers only, where it is 22.3% of Schedule H filers); 4.5% crossed 100 participants; 22.9% of plans with a named advisor changed advisor or recordkeeper; 10.9% lost a tenth of their headcount and 23.1% grew by 15% or more. Those flags rank the list and write the first line.

8. What it costs to find them

The filing names the employer, the city, the signer of the filing (82.7% coverage) and, on full-form filers, the auditor and every paid provider. It does not name the owner, the CFO or the HR lead, and it carries no email address. Each employer needs a domain and two or three named people, priced below at the vendor rates observed for the Section 125 map. That is the only spend between this page and a send list.

The custom fields

Every merge field the copy uses, where it comes from, how much of the market has it, and whether the employer can be written to without it. Fields from the filing cover 100% of the market unless a coverage figure says otherwise.

FieldFromCoverageRequired
{{firstName}}Enrichment, the decision maker's first name. Falls back to {{signerName}} where the signer is an officer.0% todayEvery contact
{{companyName}}Sponsor name as written on the filing, DBA preferred where present (0.9% carry one).100.0%Every contact
{{participants}}Participants with an account balance at year end (line 6g; 5500-SF line 5c), rounded to the nearest 10.100.0%Every contact
{{planAssets}}Net assets at year end from Schedule H, I or the SF, written as "about $8.4 million".100.0%Every contact; dropped under $1M
{{feeDollars}}, {{feeRate}}The higher of Schedule H line 2i total administrative expenses and total Schedule C compensation; on the SF, lines 8c plus 8d. Said as "reported fees", never "total cost".97.2%Campaign D; one sentence elsewhere, dropped where zero
{{bandMedianFee}}This page's own median reported fee rate for the employer's band, from the table under Pain.100%Campaign D and the incumbent track
{{advisor}}, {{priorAdvisor}}Schedule C Part I Item 2 provider with service code 26 or 27, the one paid most; the 2024 filing's for the prior.21.8%Campaign E; routes the incumbent track
{{recordkeeper}}Schedule C provider with code 15, 64 or 13, the one paid most.35.3%"Your recordkeeper stays" line; dropped if missing
{{auditor}}Schedule H line 3, the accountant's firm.38.7%Campaign A email 2; the CPA channel
{{lateAmount}}Schedule H or I line 4a amount, 5500-SF line 10a. Only where the filing answers yes.12.9% flaggedCampaign B trigger line
{{correctiveAmount}}Schedule H line 2f or Schedule I line 2g corrective distributions. Never from the SF, whose line 8b mixes in deemed loan distributions.9.5% flaggedCampaign C trigger line
{{filedDate}}Date the DOL received the filing, written as 14 October.100.0%HR email 1, the plain trigger line
{{planYearEnd}}The plan year end on the filing; December 31 for 98.6% of the market.100.0%Non calendar plans only
{{participationRate}}Participants with a balance at the start of the year over all participants at the start of the year, written as 61%.99.3%Trigger line where under 60%
{{employeeContributions}}, {{employerContributions}}Contribution lines from Schedule H, I or the SF.99.7% / 94.7%Trigger line where the employer line is zero
{{headcountChange}}Percent change in total participants, 2025 over 2024.95.3%Trigger line where 10% down or 15% up
{{industry}}, {{stateName}}NAICS business code mapped to a plain name; sponsor state spelled out.100.0%LinkedIn connect line
{{triggerLine}}Chosen per employer from the strongest flag, table under the campaigns.100% (plain filing line as default)Email 1, all three roles
{{senderIntro}}, {{firmName}}, {{senderSig}}Set per deal structure. Option 1 and 1.5: our firm's name and one line. Option 2: the advisor's firm, name and credentials. Nothing else in the copy moves between senders.Not setEvery email
{{reviewLink}}, {{bookingLink}}The one-page plan review built from the filing, and the advisor's calendar.Not setReply templates only; no links in cold emails
Two fields need a human check before a row is loaded. "Advisor" on Schedule C is the provider carrying code 26 or 27; on 3,328 plans an advisor-like name appears only in Part I Item 1 (indirect compensation only, no service codes) and those rows are marked "indirect only", not "none". And {{feeDollars}} is what the filing reports paid from plan assets; fees inside fund expense ratios never appear on a Form 5500, so the copy says "reported" every time and never calls it the plan's total cost.

Pain, ranked and measured

What the sponsor feels (the 401(k) brief and the advisor research, 4 November)

  • Nobody inside the company owns the plan. HR runs enrollment, the controller runs deposits, the owner signs the filing, and the fee comes out of employee accounts so it is on nobody's budget.
  • The audit, the testing and the Form 5500 arrive every year as a scramble, with a correction or a refund at the end of it.
  • Fee litigation has moved down market since Cunningham v. Cornell (April 2025), and the sponsor has no file showing the fee was ever benchmarked.
  • The advisor they have, if they have one, was inherited with the recordkeeper or the payroll provider and has never been chosen.
  • High earners lost their catch-up contributions in 2026 if the plan has no Roth option; the people who complain about that are the owners.

What the filings show (measured on 102,450 employers, 98,238 matched to 2024)

FlagShareReads as
Late deposit of employee money reported (line 4a)12.9%A correction the DOL program asks about every year; median amount $28K
Same flag two years running7.9%Nobody fixed the payroll feed
Corrective distributions reported (read on full-form filers only)9.5%The test did not pass, or someone deferred over the limit; 22.3% of Schedule H filers, median $8K
Reported fees above the line for the band6.2%At or above 1.00% of assets (under 250) or 0.75% (250 to 999), plans over $1M
Crossed 100 participants4.3%1,381 are above 120 and must audit; 3,013 are in the window where it is a choice
Advisor or recordkeeper changed3.4%They just ran a process, or someone ran it for them
No advisor named on Schedule C13.1%Nobody advising, or paid outside the plan; either way, no file
Participation under 60%18.6%The plan most of the staff skips is the one that fails testing
Employee money in, no employer money10.6%The design most exposed to testing trouble
Headcount down 10% or more10.4%Every fixed fee dollar is heavier
Headcount up 15% or more22.0%The plan is outgrowing its fee schedule
First filing on record4.1%New plan, new everything
No automatic enrollment code (2S)60.3%A design lever, not a pain; one sentence in the review, never a trigger

Shares are of the whole universe unless the row says otherwise. Late deposits are reported by 23.3% of Schedule H filers, 6.6% of 5500-SF filers and 2.0% of Schedule I filers; the form, not the behaviour, drives much of that gap, which is why the 50 to 99 band is its own group in campaign B.

Reported fees, by band

BandPlans with a feeMedian75th pct90th pctThe line
50 to 9952,5490.40%0.67%1.06%1.00%
100 to 24929,5790.37%0.61%0.94%1.00%
250 to 49911,3140.31%0.52%0.80%0.75%
500 to 9996,1360.24%0.43%0.72%0.75%

Reported fees as a share of year-end assets. The line is set at roughly the 90th percentile and written as a round number so it can be argued about. These are the plan's own medians, computed from the universe file, and the copy compares an employer only to them.

How the flags rank an employer (the score column)

ComponentPointsComponentPoints
Late deposit reported20100 to 249 band10
Reported fees above the line20250 to 499 band5
Corrective distributions (H or I)15Assets $5M and above10
Crossed 100 participants15Assets $2M to $5M5
Advisor or recordkeeper changed15Same late flag two years running10
No advisor on Schedule C10Recordkeeper's own advice arm only5
Participation under 60%10Headcount up 15% or more10
No employer contribution5Headcount down 10% or more5
Corrective or deemed amount on the SF5First filing on record5
Consolidator or wirehouse advisor of record-10

Additive, so anyone can recompute a row by hand. Across the market: 2,575 employers score 70 or more, 8,655 score 50 to 69, 24,622 score 30 to 49 and 66,598 under 30. 68,713 (67%) carry at least one flag that scores. Within a campaign the 70-plus band is enriched first and written to first.

Three emails over fifteen days, to three people

DayWhat
1Email 1 to the owner or CEO, email 1 to the CFO or controller, and email 1 to whoever signed the Form 5500 (HR, benefits or the controller), separately, same day, same subject. A LinkedIn connect to whoever is active there.
8Email 2, sent as a reply in the same thread. It reads on its own.
15Email 3, a reply in the same thread. Then the employer is left alone until there is a new reason to write.

One pass. An employer gets up to three passes a year, at least 60 days apart, each with a new reason: the filing, the calendar, the next filing. Nine emails a person a year at most. A reply from any of the three stops everything to that company, and the one who replied gets the review and the calendar link.

Rules

  • No links and no attachments in a cold email. The reply templates carry the review and the calendar link.
  • Every fact about the plan is from its own filing and is said the way the filing says it: "reports", "names", "shows". Never "you failed", never "you are in violation", never a penalty figure.
  • Fee, advisor, recordkeeper, auditor and amounts only where the filing gives them; the sentence drops out cleanly where it does not.
  • Incumbent track accounts (a consolidator or wirehouse advisor named on the filing) get the benchmark copy. Nothing in it says anything about the incumbent.
  • One person holding two roles gets the CEO emails only. The 5500 signer who is also the CEO or CFO gets that role's emails, not HR's.
  • The sender changes {{senderIntro}} and the signature. Nothing else in the copy moves between senders, and nothing goes out that the advisor would not say on a call.
The compliance lock. Every email is an advertisement of a registered investment adviser under the SEC Marketing Rule (Advisers Act Rule 206(4)-1), whichever firm's registration it goes out under, and that firm's compliance reviews every template, trigger line and reply before anything is loaded. No performance claim, no "guarantee", "free", "risk-free", "best", "outperform" or "save you $X". No fee saving is promised; the only fee figure in a cold email is the plan's own, from its own filing, next to this page's median. No statement that a plan is out of compliance: late deposits and corrective distributions are reported as what the filing reports. No fiduciary role is claimed in a cold email; 3(21) and 3(38) are discussed in the meeting and defined in the agreement. No tax or legal advice: the TPA, the auditor and the ERISA counsel stay. No participant data is used anywhere, only sponsor-level facts from the public filing. Every email carries the physical address and the opt-out the sequencer adds. Where the agency is paid by an advisor for these introductions, the written promoter agreement and the prospect disclosure the Marketing Rule requires exist before the first send.

The emails, campaign by campaign

Seven campaigns. A to F are employers whose own filing reports something, in the order the assignment rule runs; G is everyone else, split by band. B and G are split by band into sequencer groups because the short form changes what can be said. Each campaign uses one of three copy sets by band plus the incumbent track; the trigger first line is chosen per employer from the strongest flag. The base set is written in full; the others are written as the changes against it, so they can be reviewed as changes.

Trigger first lines (one per employer, highest flag wins)

Flag, in priority orderFirst line of email 1
Late deposit reported{{companyName}}'s 2025 Form 5500 reports {{lateAmount}} of employee deferrals deposited late, on line 4a. It is among the first lines the plan's auditor and the Department of Labor read, and it is correctable.
Corrective distributions (H or I filers){{companyName}}'s filing reports {{correctiveAmount}} returned to employees as corrective distributions, which is what a failed nondiscrimination test looks like on paper.
Crossed 100, now above 120{{companyName}} reported {{participants}} participants with a balance this year, up from under 100 last year. The next filing has to carry an independent audit, and the auditor has to be engaged before spring.
Crossed 100, in the 80 to 120 window{{companyName}} crossed 100 participants with a balance on its last filing. Between 80 and 120 the audit is a choice the company makes this year; above 120 it stops being one.
Reported fees above the lineOn its 2025 filing {{companyName}}'s plan paid about {{feeRate}} of assets in reported fees, against a median of {{bandMedianFee}} for plans its size.
Advisor changed{{companyName}}'s filing names {{advisor}} as the plan's advisor this year, where last year's named {{priorAdvisor}}. The first year is when a new arrangement is easiest to read.
Recordkeeper changed{{companyName}} moved the plan to {{recordkeeper}} this year. Conversions are when fee schedules get reset and when deposits go late, so this is the year to read both.
No advisor on Schedule C{{companyName}}'s Schedule C lists {{recordkeeper}} and no investment advisor. Either nobody is advising the plan, or the company pays them outside it; either way, the fiduciary file should say who.
Participation under 60%Roughly {{participationRate}} of {{companyName}}'s eligible employees have a balance in the plan. The plan most of the staff skips is the one that fails testing.
Employee money, no employer money{{companyName}}'s plan took in {{employeeContributions}} from employees last year and nothing from the company, which is the design most exposed to testing trouble.
Headcount down 10% or more{{companyName}}'s participant count came down about {{headcountChange}} on the last filing, so every fixed dollar in the plan's fee schedule is heavier than it was.
Headcount up 15% or more{{companyName}} added about {{headcountChange}} to its participant count last year. Growth is when a plan outgrows the fee schedule it was sold.
First filing on record{{companyName}}'s 401(k) filed its first Form 5500 this year, which puts the plan in public view for the first time.
None{{companyName}} filed its 2025 Form 5500 on {{filedDate}}, reporting {{participants}} participants and about {{planAssets}} in the plan.

Reply templates

Re-entry. Sixty days after email 3 with no reply, an employer re-enters with the next pass's angle: pass 2 is the calendar (the audit engagement, the 15 March correction deadline, the fee disclosure), pass 3 is the next filing ("your 2026 Form 5500 posted on {{filedDate}}"). Three passes a year, then the account rests until the following filing. Incumbent track accounts that go silent for two passes move to the base copy on the third, with the opener "I wrote to you twice about the benchmark; this is the last time this year."

Volume, replies, meetings and signed plans

Every rate is an input. The reply rate is 1% on purpose, the same placeholder the pension and Section 125 maps use, and the close rate is a placeholder; replace each with the measured rate once 20 events sit behind it. The defaults reproduce the brief's illustration: 720 emails a day is about 20,000 employers a year, which at these rates is about 20 signed plans. Daily volume is whatever the practice provisions; nothing is provisioned today.

What it costs to reach them

The filing identifies the employer. Reaching a person needs a domain and two or three named people with verified addresses. Prices below are the vendor's as observed on 25 October 2026 for the Section 125 map; no purchase has been made and no credit has been spent on this market. Credits per employer come from the 27 October pension run (44 attempts, 28 accepted, 83 credits including discovery). Three roles are tried here, not two, because the 5500 signer is a third recipient.

Plan or add onPriceCredits$ per credit
Starter, monthly$492,000$0.0245
Growth, monthly$995,000$0.0198
Pro, monthly$24915,000$0.0166
Add on$10500$0.0200
Add on$201,000$0.0200
Add on$362,000$0.0180

A search credit is charged whether or not a person is found; an email credit is charged only on a verified address. Domains are not charged by this vendor but have to exist first. 82.7% of the market carries a filing signer's name that can be matched without a search, and on full-form filers the auditor's firm is named, which is a second route to a person.

The next twelve months, campaign by campaign

Each campaign is placed by its clock. B and C go first because their flag has a date on it: the 2026 deposits the DOL program will ask about, and the 15 March correction deadline. A goes in January because the auditor for a 2026 audit is engaged in spring. D, E and F run through the first half. G runs after the flagged campaigns, by band, and gets its third pass when the 2026 filings post in July to October 2027. A pass is three emails over fifteen days to three people; a second pass needs a new reason and 60 days. Months run November 2026 to October 2027.

Passes and reasons

  • Pass 1, the filing. The copy on this page. The trigger line, the three numbers, the review.
  • Pass 2, the calendar, 60 days later. B: the 2026 deposits and the correction program. C: testing season and the 15 March deadline; the 4% nonelective safe harbor that can still be adopted for 2026 until the end of 2027. A: the auditor engagement letter. D: the annual fee disclosure to participants. E and F: the committee's annual review.
  • Pass 3, the next filing, July to October 2027: "your 2026 Form 5500 posted on {{filedDate}}; here is what changed." The only way to touch G1's 47,618 employers with something new.

Tests and breakouts

  • One split test at a time. B2 email 1 opener: the late deposit line against the plain filing line, half each, judged on replies, twice as many to win. At 1% that is about 24 replies an arm.
  • Incumbent track (9,046 in the market, 2,228 in B): benchmark copy, scored ten lower, never a word about the incumbent.
  • Said later: one email on the date named, nothing else.
  • Met, not signed: three emails over six weeks from the advisor, the fee quote in writing.
  • The CPA channel: 38.7% of the market names its auditor; the top ten audit firms between them audit thousands of plans on this list. Every auditor who sees a review is a referral partner for the rest of their book. A decision for the first readout, not a campaign.
  • The TPA channel: the same logic for the firms carrying code 13 on Schedule C.

Behind the page

Claims register

Claim in the copySource
{{participants}} participants, about {{planAssets}}Form 5500 line 6g or 5500-SF line 5c; net assets at year end from Schedule H line 1l, Schedule I line 1c or 5500-SF line 7c. Always "about".
Reported fees of about {{feeDollars}}, {{feeRate}} of assetsSchedule H line 2i total administrative expenses or total Schedule C compensation, whichever is higher; 5500-SF lines 8c and 8d. Said as "reported"; fund expense ratios are not on the filing.
Against a median of {{bandMedianFee}} for plans its sizeThis page's medians by band, computed from the universe file (table under Pain). Never an outside benchmark in a cold email.
{{lateAmount}} deposited late, on line 4aSchedule H and I line 4a, 5500-SF line 10a: "failure to transmit participant contributions timely", the form's own words. Only where the filing answers yes.
Among the first lines the auditor and the Department of Labor readLate deposits are the item the DOL's Voluntary Fiduciary Correction Program is most used for and a required auditor inquiry; stated as "read first", never as a penalty.
{{correctiveAmount}} returned as corrective distributions; what a failed test looks like on paperSchedule H line 2f, Schedule I line 2g. Corrective distributions are the standard remedy for ADP and ACP failures under IRC 401(k)(8) and 401(m)(6), and also for 402(g) excess deferrals, so "looks like", never "you failed". The SF figure (line 8b) is never used because it includes deemed loan distributions.
The next filing has to carry an independent audit; between 80 and 120 it is a choice29 CFR 2520.103-1(d): large plan status counted on participants with account balances from the 2023 plan year, and the 80-to-120 rule. "Has to" is said only above 120.
Corrective refunds due by 15 MarchIRC 4979: a 10% excise tax on ADP/ACP corrections made more than 2½ months after plan year end.
A 4% nonelective safe harbor can still be adopted for 2026 until the end of 2027IRC 401(k)(12)(F) as added by SECURE Act section 103: 3% until 30 days before year end, 4% until the end of the following plan year.
Names {{advisor}}; no investment advisor on Schedule CSchedule C Part I Item 2 service codes 26 (participant advice) and 27 (plan advice). "No advisor" means neither code appears and no advisor-like name sits in Part I Item 1; the copy says "lists no investment advisor", never "you have no advisor".
Comes out of employee accounts, not the company'sOnly where Schedule H line 2i or 5500-SF line 8c is above zero. Where fees are paid by the employer the sentence drops.
ERISA makes the company responsible for it being reasonableERISA section 404(a)(1)(A) and 408(b)(2). Phrased as responsibility, never as violation.
A five-figure audit feeAssumption, from advisor and auditor trade sources, not a quote; to be replaced by the range in the first auditor conversations. Never a number in a cold email.
The design most exposed to testing troubleAssumption: plans with no employer contribution lack the safe harbor and the match that lift non-highly-compensated deferrals. Labelled as the pattern it is; a measured reply rate on that line is the test.
High earners lost catch-up contributions in 2026 without a Roth optionIRC 414(v)(7) as added by SECURE 2.0 section 603, effective for plan years from 1 January 2026 for prior-year FICA wages above $150,000 (indexed). Used in the review, not in a cold email, because the filing does not show whether a plan has Roth.
About 20 plans a year; $30,000 a year a planThe 401(k) brief's illustration: 20,000 employers, 1% reply, 30% booked, one in three signed; $30,000 is roughly a $10 million plan at 30 basis points (Fi360 Advisor Fee Benchmark, 2025: 35 bps median at $5M, 17 at $25M).
Consolidators, wirehouses, recordkeeper advice armsName patterns in build.py applied to the Schedule C advisor name; the table of the top named advisors is below. A misclassified name moves an employer between tracks, not out of the market.

Sources

  • DOL EBSA Form 5500 datasets: F_5500, F_5500_SF, F_SCH_H, F_SCH_I, F_SCH_C_PART1_ITEM1, F_SCH_C_PART1_ITEM2 and its CODES file for plan years 2024 and 2025, "Latest" files dated 25 October 2026, downloaded 4 November 2026. 77% of the 2025 universe was received by the DOL between July and October 2026.
  • 2024 Form 5500 instructions (DOL/IRS/PBGC): plan characteristic codes 2J, 2K, 2S, 2T; Schedule C service codes; line definitions.
  • 29 CFR 2520.103-1 (small plan audit waiver and the 80-to-120 rule); 29 CFR 2550.408b-2; ERISA section 404(a).
  • IRC 401(k)(8), 401(m)(6), 402(g), 4979, 401(k)(12)(F), 414(v)(7); SECURE Act section 103; SECURE 2.0 section 603.
  • SEC Investment Advisers Act Rule 206(4)-1 (the Marketing Rule); the state solicitor rules summarised in the 401(k) brief.
  • Fi360 Advisor Fee Benchmark, January 2025 update, for the $30,000 illustration only. No outside benchmark is used in copy.
  • Census Bureau SUSB 2022 firm counts, as quoted on the Section 125 map.
  • Vendor pricing and credit usage as recorded on the Section 125 map (25 and 27 October 2026).
  • Method: the campaign map guide; shape and voice: the pension map; data method: the Section 125 map; offer and deal structures: the 401(k) brief.

Files behind every number

  • k401-universe-scored.csv, 102,450 rows with every field, flag, score, campaign, group and track.
  • k401-A-ranked.csv through k401-G3-ranked.csv, one per sequencer group, sorted by score.
  • build.py reproduces the funnel, the joins, the year-over-year diff, the flags and the score from the DOL files; render.py fills this page from stats.json. Both are in the repository beside the page.
  • stats.json, every number on this page, generated 2026-11-04 22:18 UTC.

The named advisors, most plans first

Advisor on Schedule CClassPlans in the market
Strategic Advisers Llcbundled862
Global Retirement Partners Llcconsolidator726
Wilshire Advisors Llcbundled430
Merrill Lynch Pierce Fenner & Smithwirehouse409
Onedigital Investment Advisors Llcconsolidator365
Ubs Financial Services Incwirehouse342
Voya Retirement Advisors Llcbundled335
Morgan Stanleywirehouse292
Morningstar Investment Management Lbundled289
Creative Planning Llcconsolidator255
Mma Securities Llcconsolidator252
Schwab Retirement Plan Services Incbundled248
World Investment Advisors Llcconsolidator230
Capfinancial Partners Llcconsolidator216
Wealthspire Retirement Advisoryconsolidator195

Fidelity's Strategic Advisers is the largest name on the list and is a managed account product, not an advisor of record; it is classed "bundled" and those plans are written to as if no independent advisor exists.

Recordkeepers and auditors

Recordkeeper on Schedule CPlans
Fidelity Investments Institutional6,555
Principal Life Insurance Company3,568
Empower Annuity Insurance Company O2,776
Adp Inc.2,129
Empower Annuity Insurance Company1,643
The Vanguard Group Inc.1,495
John Hancock Life Insurance Company817
Stancorp Financial Group783
Audit firm on Schedule HPlans
Baker Tilly Us Llp1,705
Cliftonlarsonallen Llp1,306
Forvis Mazars Llp1,128
Pension Assurance Llp650
Cbiz Cpas P C 634
Caron & Bletzer Pllc605
Eide Bailly Llp507
Rsm Us Llp428

Top states: CA 13,432, TX 7,061, NY 6,751, FL 4,939, PA 4,514, IL 4,474, OH 4,019, MI 3,399. 17,991 employers sit in the nine states without a wage income tax, which does not change this copy. Top industries: professional services 19,832, manufacturing 16,065, health care 12,984, construction 8,550, retail trade 6,581, finance and insurance 6,205, wholesale trade 5,784, other services 4,657.