Guideline

Score8.7 out of 10

35 Reviews and Ratings

Community insights

TrustRadius Insights for Guideline are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, third party data sources.

Pros

Low-cost investment options: Several users have mentioned that Guideline offers low-cost investment options, which has been a positive aspect for them. They appreciate the affordability of the platform and feel that it allows them to invest their money without incurring high fees or expenses.

Excellent customer support: Reviewers have consistently praised Guideline's customer support, noting their commitment to helping users. The prompt and helpful assistance provided by the support team has contributed to a positive experience for many customers.

Easy-to-use interface: Many users have found Guideline's software to be easy to use and navigate. They appreciate its intuitive design, visually appealing interface, and user-friendly features. The seamless integration with payroll vendors also adds convenience for users.

Reviews

11 Reviews

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

Rating: 8 out of 10

Incentivized

February 28, 2024

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

They are my previous company’s 401K benefits provider

Pros

Good online platform

Cons

Customer service

Likelihood to Recommend

It has been 4 weeks since I’ve tried to extract my money from their account, and I still have not received. I’ve had to escalate the customer service ticket and I still have to stay on top of them. The money also is coming via check versus a simple account transfer because the customer service team closed my account prematurely, so it’s overall been an awful experience for me with a decent chunk of change. Very unsettling

Verified User

Manager in Marketing (201-500 employees)

Vetted Review

1 year of experience

Guideline Review from a Senior Staff Researcher Point of view

Rating: 9 out of 10

Incentivized

January 9, 2024

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?

Verified User

Professional in Engineering (51-200 employees)

Vetted Review

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

Incentivized

January 4, 2024

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

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

Cons

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.

Likelihood to Recommend

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.

Verified User

C-Level Executive in Product Management (1-10 employees)

Vetted Review

8 years of experience

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

Rating: 8 out of 10

Incentivized

November 17, 2021

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.

Verified User

Analyst in Legal (1-10 employees)

Vetted Review

3 years of experience

Guideline is a simple and effective benefit solution

Rating: 10 out of 10

November 10, 2021

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Guideline is administrating our company 401k plans. It's a fully automated system, connected to our payroll provider and allows my team to invest in their retirement, and allows my executive team to focus on other things besides plan administration. We're in an excellent position of "let it ride" where Guideline handles automated withdrawls, corporate matching, plan selection for our entire team.

Pros

Plan administration
automated benefits
employee guidance

Cons

employee knowledge

Likelihood to Recommend

So far, guideline had done just about everything perfectly. Plan setup was simple and quick, and the initial onboarding process was outstanding. In the rare instance we have needed some form of support, it has been quick and simple as well. Its generally obvious that the first tier of support has not been particularly well trained on the platform, however, despite this small hinderance they have been able to adequately address our requests.

Verified User

Administrator in Corporate (1-10 employees)

Vetted Review

4 years of experience

Guideline is a great choice for startups!

Rating: 10 out of 10

Incentivized

November 10, 2021

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Our entire organization uses Guideline for our 401k program and benefits management.

Pros

User interface is excellent
Clear and effective communications
Cost is reasonable

Cons

I'd like to see more investment options
Additional integrations to banks and wealth management platforms

Likelihood to Recommend

Is great for startups that need to offer competitive 401k and other benefits because rhe cost is reasonable and setup is effortless.

STEVEN SPERRY

CEO (Chief Executive Officer) in Corporate at MINNOW TECHNOLOGIES (11-50 employees)

Vetted Review

3 years of experience

Not recommended at all - Terrible customer service

Rating: 1 out of 10

Incentivized

November 10, 2021

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

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 to expand our benefits as a small employer at the time, and Guideline matched well at the time for the number of employees that we had.

Pros

Ease of use
Connection with payroll vendor
Cost

Cons

Terrible customer service
Lack of investment options
No resources for employees to help with financial needs

Likelihood to Recommend

Guideline is really only good if you are a small company looking to integrate it easily with your current payroll provider. It gives you the bare minimum 401k options, and I could see a growing company using them to start. However, other 401(k) vendors far out-class them between customer service, investment options, and employee financial options.

Tom Nemcek

Human Resources Director in Human Resources at Vivos Therapeutics, Inc. (51-200 employees)

Vetted Review

3 years of experience

Jordan's Guideline Review

Rating: 10 out of 10

Incentivized

November 10, 2021

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.

Jordan Wilhelmi

Director Media Public Relations in Professional Services at Unbendable Media LLC (1-10 employees)

Vetted Review

4 years of experience

View profile

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

Rating: 10 out of 10

Incentivized

November 10, 2021

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.

Robert Malnati

COO (Chief Operating Officer) in Corporate at thatDot, Inc. (1-10 employees)

Vetted Review

2 years of experience

Guideline - Time saver with a friendly interface

Rating: 8 out of 10

Incentivized

March 17, 2021

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use it to maintain and process all employee retirement contributions. it does a great job of taking the manual part out of this process!

Pros

Integration with systems
Great interface
Portfolio options

Cons

Integration [sync] could be more often - only once per day
Bloated customer service line
Simplicity lacks customization

Likelihood to Recommend

Appropriate for retirement benefits for all-sized companies! Not great if your employees need to be able to change their contribution and integrate with systems simultaneously.

Connor Disbrow

Senior Accountant in Finance and Accounting at PathAI (51-200 employees)

Vetted Review

1 year of experience

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

Rating: 1 out of 10

Incentivized

January 4, 2024

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

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

Cons

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.

Likelihood to Recommend

Verified User

C-Level Executive in Product Management (1-10 employees)

Vetted Review

8 years of experience