Financial advisors

Help clients achieve their financial goals

You can help add retirement savings into your clients’ investment strategy — join Guideline Pro for free today.

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60K+
businesses1
4,000+
Guideline Pro partners2
$15B+
invested for retirement3
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Innovation by Design Award 20244

Grow with Guideline Pro

Guideline Pro is a platform for advisors, planners, and other financial and benefits professionals. It’s free to join and comes with tools and support — and of course seamless 401(k) plans for your clients.5
Learn more about Guideline Pro
  • Guideline Pro dashboard
  • Built-in billing
  • Dedicated relationship manager
  • Compliance testing
  • Low, predictable costs
  • Flexible plan design
Retirement plans you and your clients will love
  • Cylindrical tube with arrow pointing downward towards a USD $ sign. Signifying affordable pricing.

    Affordable pricing

    Low and predictable monthly costs - making it easy for your clients to budget and plan.6
  • Guideline simple logo with three branches stemming from it. Demonstrating an all in one solution.

    All-in-one 401(k)

    We handle recordkeeping, investment management, compliance testing, and more.
  • Mobile browser with guideline.com user dashboard displaying contributions chart.

    Employee support

    Access to professionally managed portfolios, live support, a mobile app, and more.7

Billing and fees

A retirement platform with built-in billing

When you set up a Guideline plan for your clients, you can add your advisory fee to their plans. Guideline will process your fee from participant accounts on a quarterly basis in arrears and send it to your firm.

Your client’s monthly plan fees due to Guideline will be paid by your client directly to us.

More state mandates are coming this year.

See if your clients will be impacted

We connect with popular payroll providers

With payroll integration, we can seamlessly connect their payroll and 401(k). Plus, automate employee onboarding, payroll deductions, and more. See payroll integrations

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Open an account in 5 minutes
We can walk you through the steps.
Become a Guideline Pro today

  • 1

    Schedule a demo

    Reach out via phone or email to set up your account - there are no fees to join.

  • 2

    Add your clients

    Invite clients directly from your dashboard.

  • 3

    Design their plans

    Set up their 401(k) or work with your Relationship Manager to design a plan.
Stay on top of state mandates
Our relationship managers can help guide you through the different mandates and requirements.8
Help your clients modernize their retirement plan
See our Privacy Policy to learn how we use and protect your information.

Frequently asked questions

What is Guideline Pro?

Guideline Pro is a platform for financial and benefits professionals that’s free to join. As a Guideline Pro, you can offer your clients an easy-to-administer 401(k), plus get the tools to design, monitor, and manage all of their plans in one place.

Why join Guideline Pro?

Guideline Pro provides added value to you and your clients, at no additional cost. You have access to a dedicated relationship manager and a dashboard that lets you invite, monitor and manage all of your clients’ plans in one place.

How does Guideline process my advisory fee?

Pursuant to separate agreement(s) between you and your clients, Guideline can process and pay advisory fees owed by your clients to you. Guideline will pay the advisory fee out of the Plan participants’ accounts based on assets under management. The advisory fee will be prorated daily based on each active participant’s account balance and deducted directly from each active participant’s account quarterly and paid to the advisor in arrears. If you are interested in having Guideline process your advisory fee, you will have to provide the RIA W9 and ACH Bank Account for the RIA when you set up your Guideline Dashboard.

How do clients pay their plan fees?

Guideline’s monthly fees are paid by your client directly to Guideline.

Can I design a plan on behalf of my clients?

Yes you can. With your Guideline Pro dashboard, you can see all of your clients’ plans—completed and in progress. For new plans, Plan fiduciaries (including trustees, administrators, and investment committee members)can help design the plan, track progress, and streamline the approval process to get it up quickly.

Will I have a dedicated point of contact at Guideline?

Yes, you will be introduced to your dedicated Relationship Manager after you join Guideline Pro and connect to your free advisors dashboard.

What are Guideline’s key services?

Once a plan is set up, we take care of recordkeeping, investment management, most government filings, and more. We integrate with 15+ different payroll providers and charge low monthly fees with no transaction fees.

What plan design features are available?

Clients can add certain eligibility requirements, profit sharing, vesting schedules, matching options, and more depending on the plan. However, some of these features, like eligibility, vesting, and allocation requirements, can’t be based on an employee earning a certain number of hours of service.

Why auto enrollment?

Auto enrollment is a required feature for all Guideline 401(k) plans. Auto enrollment can help improve IRS nondiscrimination testing results, increase employees’ retirement readiness, and much more. With the passing of Secure 2.0, beginning in 2025, auto-enrollment will be required on almost all new 401(k) plans established on or after December 28, 2022. Learn more about auto enrollment

What are the investment options?

With Guideline, participants can create a custom portfolio from our fund menu or choose one of 6 different managed investment portfolios. Each portfolio is diversified with low-cost funds.

Do you offer target date funds?

We do not at this time. Target date funds tend to have higher expense ratios for participants. We lower these fees by building the portfolios ourselves, and still give participants the flexibility to choose investments that serve a shorter or longer term investment strategy. Read more here
  • 1
    As of April 2025
  • 2
    As of January 2025
  • 3
    Total number of Savers, both active and non-active, that have participated in Guideline products from 2016-2024.
  • 4

    2024 Fast Company Innovation by Design Award Winner for Guideline's mobile application in the Mid-Size business category.

  • 5
    All plans of related entities must be administered by Guideline and have identical plan designs in order to provide compliance testing.
  • 6

    See here for more information regarding Guideline's fees.

  • 7
    The images are illustrative. They are not representative of any client account.
  • 8
    The information is general in nature and is for informational purposes only. You are advised to consult a qualified financial adviser or tax professional before relying on the information provided herein. Requirements to report your exemption may apply. State program details are subject to change by the state without notice and should be checked prior to making any decisions.
  • †
    This content is for informational purposes only and is not intended to be taken as tax advice. Please consult a tax professional to determine what types of tax credits or deductions your company is eligible to claim.

Guideline.com is owned and operated by Guideline, Inc. This website contains content from Guideline, Inc. and its affiliates, each a separate entity with different regulatory marketing requirements and standards. References to "our" or "we" on this website refer solely to Guideline RK, LLC unless otherwise specifically stated.

The information in this website is for informational purposes only and is not intended to be an offer, recommendation, investment advice, legal or tax advice, or a solicitation to buy or sell any security. By using this website, you agree to Guideline, Inc.’s Privacy Policy and Terms and Conditions of Use. Neither Guideline, Inc. nor its subsidiaries, are responsible for information provided by third parties. Information included herein from third parties is believed to be reliable however Guideline, Inc. does not guarantee the accuracy and completeness of that information.

Guideline, Inc. is a technology company that provides an integrated platform to companies who seek to work with 1) Guideline RK, LLC ("Guideline") and/or 2) Guideline Investments, LLC, an SEC Registered Investment Adviser ("RIA"), both of which are wholly owned by Guideline Holdings, LLC. Guideline Holdings, LLC is wholly owned by Guideline, Inc. Neither Guideline, Inc. nor Guideline Holdings, LLC or Guideline RK, LLC is involved in securities activities and is not registered with the SEC or FINRA. Neither Guideline, Inc., nor any of its affiliates, is a bank.

Investment advisory services for Guideline’s 401(k) (when 3(38) fiduciary services are selected) and SEP IRA/IRA products are offered by Guideline Investments, LLC, an SEC-registered investment adviser. For more information regarding fees and services, see Guideline Investments, LLC’s ADV 2A Brochure and Form CRS. References throughout this website to investment advisory services including but not limited to: investments offered, portfolios, managed portfolios, investment philosophy, assets under management (AUM), annual account fees expressed as a percentage of AUM, suitability questionnaire, 3(38) investment advisory management fiduciary services, robo-advisory services, and investment advice, unless otherwise specifically stated, are services provided by Guideline Investments, LLC. Investing involves risk and may lose money, including loss of principal. Investing is not guaranteed and past performance is not a guarantee of future performance. The investment options offered by Guideline Investments, LLC are not FDIC insured.

Recordkeeping services for Guideline’s 401(k) and SEP IRA/IRA products are offered by Guideline RK, LLC. 3(16) plan administration services are also offered by Guideline RK, LLC and only made available to clients who utilize an eligible payroll provider. For more information on Guideline’s pricing, see here. Guideline uses a third-party to provide custodial services. Custodial fees are paid by Guideline.

Any graphs, charts, and other visual aids (collectively referred to as "image(s)") are provided for information purposes only. None of these images can of themselves be used to make investment decisions. No representation is made that these will assist any person in making investment decisions and no image can capture all factors and variables required in making such decisions.

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