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Best Employee Benefit Plans Compared

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Offering a competitive employee benefit plan can help you to attract quality candidates, retain loyal employees, and even improve the work/life balance of your team. Enlisting the help of benefit management software can make the process less daunting and much easier for both you and your employees. That’s why we spent hours reviewing 15 of the best employee benefit plans out there to determine the pick of the litter. We determined that Gusto has the best employee benefit plan for most. It’s comprehensive, cost-effective, and is managed using an intuitive dashboard to delight both employers and employees. 

The Best Employee Benefit Plan for Most 

Gusto logo

Gusto

Best for Most

Gusto is an all-in-one people platform that allows you to offer employee benefits beyond the basics. Suitable for small businesses looking to tackle payroll, HR, and benefits administration in one place. Easy to use for managers, admins, and employees. Start saving everyone time with Gusto.

Gusto is perfect for businesses of all sizes who want to simplify their payroll, manage their HR, and customize employee benefit plans to suit their team. It’s a “people platform” designed to centralize all the important people management functions in one place. It’s also cost-effective and extremely easy to use, making it a clear choice when it comes to the best employee benefit plan for most. 

With Gusto, you’ll be able to offer employee benefits beyond the basics. If you’re struggling to decide the best benefits package for your team, Gusto’s licensed advisors will help you to decide. And when it comes to compliance, Gusto has your back. It will help you file the right paperwork at the right time. Create your employee benefit package with Gusto today!

The Best Employee Benefit Plans to Consider

  1. Gusto – Best for Most
  2. Rippling – Best for Automatic Benefit Enrollment
  3. GoCo – Best for Benefit Support
  4. Zenefits – Best for Simplifying Employee Benefit Management
  5. Fringe – Best for Offering Lifestyle Benefits

When It Makes Sense to Invest In Employee Benefit Plans

No matter whether you run a small business or a large enterprise, there are workplace laws in place that require employers to carry at least the minimum required employee benefits. These benefits include medicare and social security, unemployment insurance, workers’ compensation, health insurance, and family and medical leave. 

All other employee benefits are considered to be nonrequired benefits, but that doesn’t mean they are any less important. In fact, many job seekers want to understand what employee benefits are on offer alongside their salary, before deciding whether a role is right for them. 

Here are some scenarios in which investing in an attractive employee benefit plan is the right decision for your business:

  • You want to improve employee morale and job satisfaction–and you’ve already maxed out your salary and bonus budgets
  • You want to attract and retain higher-quality employees than you’ve seen in the past
  • You’ve recently lost out on good hires or employees to competitors with better benefits packages
  • You want to increase work/life balance for your employees 
  • Your business is doing well and you want to reward your employees for their good work
  • Your business could be doing better but you still want to reward your employees for their good work

To help create and administer your employee benefit plan, there is some excellent benefit administration software out there. Today, we’re going to discuss the top five employee benefit plans on the market.

#1 – Gusto — The Best for Most

Gusto logo

Gusto

Best for Most

Gusto is an all-in-one people platform that allows you to offer employee benefits beyond the basics. Suitable for small businesses looking to tackle payroll, HR, and benefits administration in one place. Easy to use for managers, admins, and employees. Start saving everyone time with Gusto.

Looking for an all-in-one solution to manage your business’s payroll, employee benefits, hiring and onboarding, and time-tracking at an affordable price? Gusto is the answer to your prayers. 

Gusto is a well-known payroll software and HR software suited to small businesses. It lets employers build customized and modern employee benefit plans to support their team. It’s also extremely user-friendly and cost-effective too.

You’ll be able to offer employee benefits such as health insurance, dental, vision, health reimbursement, workers’ compensation, 401(k), HSAs and FSAs, and commuter benefits. 

It doesn’t stop there! You can also offer employee financial benefits such as cash accounts, paycheck splits, cashouts, and access to the Gusto wallet app, designed to help employees manage their financial health in one place. 

If you’re not sure which benefits are the right fit for your team, Gusto’s licensed advisors will help you create the perfect benefits package to suit your circumstances and budget. When your employees have tricky questions regarding their coverage, you can send them straight to Gusto’s customer support team for clarification, putting even more time back in your pocket.

Gusto offers four pricing plans:

  • Simple: $40 monthly base price plus $6 per person per month
  • Plus: $80 monthly base price plus $12 per person per month
  • Premium: Contact Gusto
  • Contractor: $6 per person, per month

You can upgrade, downgrade, or cancel your plan at any time. Get started with Gusto today!

#2 – Rippling — The Best for Automatic Benefit Enrollment

Rippling logo

Rippling

Best for Automatic Benefit Enrollment

Rippling is user-friendly, flexible, and streamlines employee benefits into one centralized platform. Embed automatic benefit enrollment into the onboarding process to put even more time back in your pocket.

Rippling is a robust employee management software that combines HR, time tracking, payroll, benefits, and IT, in one centralized solution. It’s extremely user-friendly for both employers and employees and streamlines your employee benefits.

Rippling can help you shop for and compare over 4,000 plans from some of the country’s leading carriers. If you usually work with a broker, you can give them access to Rippling for extra assistance in choosing the best benefits plan for your team.

You’ll be able to offer all the usual benefits such as medical, dental, and vision, HSAs and FSAs, 401k, commuter, and more. If you already have an existing benefits plan, you can move your current coverage to Rippling in a matter of seconds. The best part is, your employees won’t face the hassle of having to re-enroll or update their information. 

Where Rippling really shines is its automatic enrollment for new hires. You can embed benefit enrollment into the onboarding process so that as soon as their details hit the system, Rippling invites them to review and select their health insurance, retirement benefits, and more. It will even send them email reminders if they haven’t completed their enrollment in due course.

Rippling offers quote-based pricing to suit your budget. Pricing starts at $8 per user per month, but this does not include benefits administration. For a customized quote to suit your needs, contact Rippling today. 

#3 – GoCo — The Best for Benefit Support

GoCo logo

GoCo

Best for Benefit Support

GoCo is a complete HR solution with sophisticated benefit management and superior customer support to boot. You'll easily navigate any legal complexities surrounding your benefit plans with a Certified Advisor and automatic compliance.

GoCo is a complete HR solution that offers hiring and onboarding, benefits administration, payroll, time tracking, and document management from one user-friendly dashboard. It can offer you just about everything you need to support your team, including excellent benefits.

GoCo is well-known for its superior customer support. Every single user gets their very own Customer Success Manager to ensure smooth sailing. On top of that, you’ll also have access to GoCo’s hand-selected Certified Advisors to help you navigate the legal complexities that can arise with benefits administration. 

You’ll be able to manage employee benefits including health, dental, and vision, life and disability, 401k, commuter benefits, and HSAs, FSAs, and HRAs, all from one intuitive dashboard. Employees will also have access to their benefits plan via a self-service portal.

To maintain compliance, GoCo automatically syncs with insurance carriers and holds payroll in lockstep. It also integrates with COBRA to allow for a smooth transition when an employee moves on. 

GoCo’s pricing is completely customizable. You tell them which apps you need and they’ll build you a custom plan to suit. Pricing starts at $5 per employee per month. 

Take a free tour of GoCo today.

#4 – Zenefits — The Best for Simplifying Employee Benefit Management

Zenefits logo

Zenefits

Best for Simplifying Employee Benefit Management

Zenefits will help you deliver the perfect benefits plan for your employees by exploring thousands of plans with Zenefits Health Insurance Marketplace. With automatic compliance, employee self-service, and connected HR and payroll features, Zenefits packs a punch!

Zenefits is an all-in-one solution that delivers HR, payroll, and employee benefits, all under one roof. Whether you’re looking to craft a competitive employee benefits plan or you need a solution to help you manage your existing benefits, Zenefits will simplify the entire process. 

With Zenefits, accessing great employee benefits isn’t costly or complicated. You can use Zenefits Health Insurance Marketplace to shop for the best and most affordable benefits plans suited to your business. 

Some of the benefits you can offer employees through Zenefits include medical, dental, and vision insurance, HSAs and FSAs, 401k, life and disability insurance, commuter, and supplemental benefits. You can even deliver additional wellness programs too!

It also makes compliance a breeze. Its automated system ensures you are always within ACA regulations even as they update.

Zenefits not only simplifies benefits management for the employer but also simplifies management for the employee too. Employees can enroll in and access their benefits plan from anywhere with an intuitive mobile app. 

Zenefits offers three pricing plans encompassing HR, payroll, and benefits administration including:

  • Essentials: $8 per employee, per month
  • Growth: $14 per employee, per month
  • Zen: $21 per employee, per month

It’s important to note that you’ll be billed for a minimum of five employees, even if you have fewer employees utilizing the platform. 

Try Zenefits for 14-days free!

#5 – Fringe — The Best for Offering Lifestyle Benefits

Fringe logo

Fringe

Best for Offering Lifestyle Benefits

Looking to think outside the box when it comes to employee perks and benefits? Fringe has got you covered. Reward employees with benefits that suit their personalities and see employee retention and engagement grow!

Want to reward your employees outside of the minimum required benefits but don’t know where to start? Look no further than Fringe. 

Fringe is different from the other employee benefit plans we’ve mentioned today. You won’t be able to offer the usual, required benefits. But you will be able to reward employees with perks and benefits to match their personalities. With this in mind, it’s a solution to be utilized alongside your required benefits program.

Fringe lets employers offer benefits such as lifestyle benefits, wellbeing programs, rewards and recognition, remote and hybrid support, and employee gifting. Employers allocate a monthly, quarterly, or annual allowance and let their employees choose the benefits that fit their lifestyles. 

If you have remote members of your team, you can even replace in-office perks with local or global services to suit your employees, wherever they’re working.

Employers that use Fringe say it’s increased employee engagement, made people feel appreciated, and is the only benefit that is utilized by every single employee. 

Pricing is not readily available on Fringe’s website, but you can give it a try with a free trial

Methodology for Choosing the Best Employee Benefit Plan

Choosing the right employee benefit plan is important when it comes to attracting and retaining a great team. While the cores of many employee benefit plans are similar, the administrative platform can make the management of benefit plans much easier for both yourself and your employees. If you choose to do your own research into the best plan for your business, here are some important considerations to keep in mind. 

Compliance Assurance

Keeping on top of relevant regulations such as ACA, HIPAA, and COBRA can be a daunting task–especially when you don’t understand insurance lingo. And if you happen to get something wrong and mistakenly fall out of compliance, you’re looking at a very expensive mistake. 

That’s why it’s important to only use a provider that includes compliance assurance. Some software offers it as an automatic step, while others will help you to stay on top of compliance by reminding you of when it’s time to file paperwork with certain government agencies. 

Connected Insurance Carriers 

How reliable are the insurance carriers that are connected with your preferred benefit management software? Ensuring your preferred benefits platform is connected with premium carriers is important for a few reasons. 

Firstly, you want to ensure that you’re covering your employees with great coverage without any loopholes. Secondly, it’s important to understand how long the benefits provider has been working with the insurance carrier to be confident the relationship isn’t going to end anytime soon. This could see your employees lacking cover and you frantically searching for a replacement. 

Employee Self-Service

One of the key reasons behind most people enlisting benefits management software is to streamline the process and put more time back in their pockets. But without an employee self-service portal, you’ll end up spending your time chasing employees to enroll in benefits or making changes to their plan on their behalf. 

That’s why it’s important to choose a platform that offers an employee self-service portal. It should be super easy to use so that employees have no excuse not to manage their benefits on their own. Even better if the software offers mobile access. That way, employees can access and manage their benefits at a moment’s notice. 

Gusto logo

Gusto

Best for Most

Gusto is an all-in-one people platform that allows you to offer employee benefits beyond the basics. Suitable for small businesses looking to tackle payroll, HR, and benefits administration in one place. Easy to use for managers, admins, and employees. Start saving everyone time with Gusto.

Summary

Offering an attractive employee benefit plan can give you a competitive edge when it comes to attracting and retaining highly qualified employees. 

We recommend Gusto as being the best employee benefits management tool for most. It’s cost-effective, easy to use, and offers a wide range of health and financial benefits to choose from. 

If you do choose a solution from outside our top list, don’t forget to keep important considerations in mind such as compliance assurance, self-service capabilities, and quality of insurance carrier to ensure you’re choosing the best option for you and your employees. 


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