Plain versions of the things that have to be written down. If anything here is unclear, ask and it will be explained rather than restated.
By using this site or buying the dataset you accept the terms below. They are written to be read, not to be impenetrable.
A search interface and analysis built on the Form 5500 Annual Report datasets published by the United States Department of Labor, Employee Benefits Security Administration. Those datasets are public records, released under a public domain dedication. We did not create the underlying data. We cleaned, filtered and summarised it, and we explain exactly how on the method section of the main page.
It is not investment advice, legal advice, tax advice, or a fiduciary recommendation. Nothing here tells you what to do with a retirement plan. We are not a registered investment adviser, a broker-dealer, a law firm, or a fiduciary to any plan.
A plan paying more than the median for its size is not evidence of wrongdoing. Fees vary for defensible reasons: service scope, plan complexity, participant support, payroll integration, and how compensation is structured between the plan and the employer. Read a figure here as a reason to ask a question, never as a conclusion.
Figures are reproduced and computed from filings as submitted to the Department of Labor. Filers make errors, and we inherit them. We also make judgement calls that are set out plainly in the method notes, chiefly which service providers count as recordkeepers and how a benchmark is constructed.
The site is provided as is. We do not warrant that every figure is free of error. Before relying on any number, check it against the plan's own filing, which is public and free. We tell you how to do that on the main page.
You may read, search, quote and cite this site freely, including commercially, provided you attribute figures to this site and to the Department of Labor as the underlying source. You may not scrape the site at a rate that degrades it for other people, present our analysis as your own original work, or use it to harass any named employer or individual.
This covers the paid file, currently sold as 401(k) Fee Outliers.
A one-time purchase of the dataset as it stands on the day of delivery: one archive holding the Excel workbook, the same rows as CSV, and the method as a plain text file. The method is repeated inside the workbook as its own sheet, so it cannot be separated from the data by accident. Paying by card delivers the files at checkout. Invoices, purchase orders and bank transfers are arranged by email and delivered on receipt of payment. It is not a subscription. There is no renewal, and no obligation on either side after delivery beyond the two updates set out below.
Use it inside your own firm, for your own prospecting and research, without limit on how many people at that firm use it. Quote figures from it to prospects and clients, provided you attribute them to Department of Labor Form 5500 filings and state the filing year. Build your own analysis on top of it.
No contact details of any kind. No names, telephone numbers or email addresses for individuals at any employer. Plans below $1m or above $500m in assets are out of scope, as are welfare plans, multiemployer and PEO plans, and plans with fewer than 25 participants. Coverage varies sharply by state and the per-state counts are published on the product page before purchase.
Resell, sublicense, publish or redistribute the file itself, in whole or in substantial part, as a dataset or a product. The underlying Form 5500 data is public domain and you are free to obtain and process it yourself. What is licensed here is our compiled, corrected and benchmarked version of it.
The Department of Labor refreshes the underlying filings monthly, so the file ages from the day it is delivered. A purchase buys the version you receive. Two additions come with it, both free, both one-off.
A correction, if one is needed. If we issue a corrected version within thirty days of your purchase, you receive it at no charge. A correction means a figure was wrong. A newer file containing more recent filings is not a correction, it is a later edition.
One October rebuild. Filings for the 2025 plan year are due by 15 October 2026. Plans report on a twelve-month period and then get seven months to file, plus a two-and-a-half month extension, so the year ending December 2025 is the one still arriving now. Form year 2024 holds 225,591 filings and 2025 stands at 82,878, so roughly a hundred and forty thousand more are still to come. If you buy on or before 15 October 2026 you receive one rebuilt file, delivered within fourteen days of it, at no charge. One file, once.
Those two are the whole entitlement. This is not a subscription. There is no ongoing right to updates, no obligation on us to produce any edition beyond those, and any later edition is a separate purchase at whatever it is then priced. If we stop producing the dataset altogether, nothing further is owed to anyone.
A free sample is available before purchase so you can check the data first, and we would rather you did. If the delivered file does not match what the sample and this page describe, tell us within fourteen days and you will be refunded in full.
To the extent permitted by law, total liability arising from the site or the dataset is limited to the amount you paid for it. We are not liable for business decisions taken on the basis of these figures, for lost profits, or for indirect or consequential loss. You are responsible for verifying any figure before you act on it or repeat it to a third party.
No tracking cookies, no advertising pixels, no analytics profiling, no account, no newsletter sign-up. You can read every page and search every plan without giving us anything.
Searching runs entirely inside your browser. The dataset is loaded with the page, so whatever you type into the search box never leaves your device and we could not see it even if we wanted to. Looking up your own employer tells us nothing.
If you order the dataset or request a sample, we hold your email address, your name and firm if you give them, and the correspondence itself. That is the whole list. It is used to deliver the file, to handle support, and to keep a record of the sale. It is never sold, rented, shared with third parties, or used to send you anything you did not ask for.
We keep it for six years, because sales records have to be retained for tax purposes, and then delete it. If you want it gone sooner, ask and it will be deleted within thirty days, apart from the minimum record of the transaction that we are required to keep.
You can ask at any time for a copy of what we hold on you, for it to be corrected, or for it to be deleted. Write to the address in the next section and you will get a reply within five working days.
The employer, plan and provider names shown are drawn from public regulatory filings made by organisations, not individuals. No personal financial information about any person appears anywhere on this site or in the dataset, and none exists in the source data. Nobody is identified by name as a plan participant, because Form 5500 does not contain that.
The site is hosted on Vercel, which processes standard server request logs including IP addresses. That is infrastructure logging, not something we collect or read.
There is one person behind this site and one address. Everything below reaches the same inbox.
If you believe a figure attributed to your organisation is wrong, we will pull the underlying filing and check it. If we got it wrong, the figure is corrected and the correction is noted rather than quietly swapped. If the filing itself is wrong, we will say so and show what it reports, because we publish what was filed and cannot amend a federal return on anyone's behalf.
That has to be the standard when the entire point of the thing is accuracy.
Last updated 11 September 2026. Governed by the laws applicable at the seller's place of business. These terms are written to be readable and are not a substitute for legal advice taken on either side.