Bench(k) — Peer-group benchmarking for 401(k) plans · waivz.ai

Plan Intake

Build a plan review in 2 minutes.

Enter plan design data. Benchmark peer data auto-loads when you pick the industry. Report builds live on the right.

Find by EIN or Plan Name optional · pre-fills from Form 5500

Plan Name

Benchmark Industry

Avg Contribution

%

Participation

%

Avg Acct Balance

$

Full Match

%

Avg Loan Balance

$

Deferral Eligibility

Match Eligibility

Max EE Match

%

Default Deferral

%

Match Vesting

True-Up

Safe Harbor

Auto Enroll

Auto Increase

Roth

Roth Conversion

Term EE Loan Pmts

Managed Accts

QDIA Option

Advisor Type

Cap on Match

Match on Catch-up

Hardships

Match Frequency

Avg Contribution

9.30%Your Plan

7.00%Benchmark

Participation

76%Your Plan

71%Benchmark

Avg Acct Balance

$132,348Your Plan

$140,498Benchmark

Full Match

68%Your Plan

75%Benchmark

Avg Loan Balance

$9,865Your Plan

$10,082Benchmark

Financial Objectives Importance

Saving for Retirement in 401k

58%

Managing Day to Day Expenses

56%

Saving For Emergencies

53%

Converting Retirement Assets into Income

40%

Paying Existing Debt

34%

Saving to Purchase Home

29%

Saving for College Expense

25%

Saving to Start a Business

18%

Source: 2025 T. Rowe Price Global Retirement Savers Study

Industry benchmarks: 2025 PLANSPONSOR Defined Contribution Plan Industry Report (Asset International, Inc. / ISS Media Solutions)

Participant behavior norms: Vanguard How America Saves 2025 · Fidelity Building Financial Futures Q4 2025 · American Century 12th Annual Retirement Savers Study

Plan universe: Form 5500 filings for plan year 2024 (via the (k) Suite)

Charts totalling less than 100% reflect survey responses of "unsure."

Build a benchmark in about 90 seconds.

Bench(k) compares any 401(k) plan against peer-group averages across 51 industries, using four survey sources cited inline. No peer data entry required — just plan identity and design.

EIN lookup

Plan design

AI analysis

Export

Form 5500 enrichment

EIN lookup pulls from 869,889 plans with auto-mapped NAICS industry and pre-filled participant metrics.

Four-source AI analysis

Claude Opus 4.7 synthesizes PLANSPONSOR, Vanguard, Fidelity, and American Century data with numbered superscript citations.

One-click handoffs

Export PDF or HTML, save to Vault(k), or deep-link from Search(k) for a complete (k) Suite workflow.

Tips

Wait for the status pill top-right to read ✓ plans loaded before EIN lookup — takes about 25 seconds.
Changing the industry dropdown refreshes the peer cohort and regenerates AI analysis with a 600 ms debounce.
Hover any form-field label for a rich tooltip explaining the field, its peer source, and relevant IRS references.
Donut charts totaling less than 100% reflect survey responses of "unsure."

Four steps, about 90 seconds.

Every benchmark follows the same path. Each step takes 20–30 seconds.

1

Look up the plan by EIN

Paste the plan's 9-digit EIN into the top field in section 1 and click Look up. Bench(k) pulls from the Form 5500 universe — pre-filling plan name, NAICS-mapped industry, participation rate, average account balance, and match metrics. If the EIN isn't in the Form 5500 dataset, you can fill everything manually.

2

Review and adjust plan design

Work through the segmented controls in section 3: eligibility, match formula, vesting, auto-enroll, QDIA, Roth, loans. Each control updates the peer cohort and the live report on the right. Hover the label icons for contextual help on any field.

3

Review the AI analysis

Within about 20 seconds of your last edit, the AI Insights card populates with a peer-relative commentary. Blue superscript citations ¹²³⁴ map to the "Sources cited in this analysis" block. Click Regenerate anytime to get a fresh take with the current inputs.

4

Export or save

Export HTML (orange) downloads a self-contained file for email or Drive. Export PDF (blue) uses the browser print flow for a paper-optimized version. Vault(k) will save to the advisor's CRM once Vault(k) ships — today it shows a friendly "coming soon" toast.

Four surveys, numbered citations, no opaque aggregation.

Every AI insight cites its source with a superscript number ¹²³⁴ that maps to the "Sources cited in this analysis" block beneath. Peer data is drawn from the following:

PLANSPONSOR DC Industry Report

2025 · 51 industries

Published by Asset International / ISS Media Solutions. Primary industry-level benchmark across 24 data points covering participation, deferral, match, vesting, QDIA, loans, and auto-features.

Vanguard — How America Saves

2025 · 5M+ participants

Aggregate sector-level behavior norms across 8 sector groupings. Contribution rates, asset allocation, and account balances by tenure and age.

Fidelity Building Financial Futures

Q4 2025 · 24K plans

Industry-level (22 industries) and generation-level overlays. Balance, savings rate, and loan trends with quarterly resolution.

American Century Retirement Savers Study

12th Annual · 2025

Participant attitudinal data: financial objectives ranking, confidence, stress indicators. Powers the Financial Objectives bar chart in every report.

Plan universe

The peer cohort count below the industry dropdown is computed from the Form 5500 filings for plan year 2024 — 869,889 plans, public domain, no authentication required. That's the same dataset Search(k) browses.

IRS limits and retirement-plan reference data.

Contribution limits, thresholds, and deadlines most relevant when reviewing plan design against peers. Current year (2026) highlighted in orange.

Contribution limits by year

Year	402(g) Elective Deferral	Age 50+ Catch-up	Ages 60–63 Super	§415(c) Total
2024	$23,000	$7,500	—	$69,000
2025	$23,500	$7,500	$11,250	$70,000
2026	$24,500	$8,000	$12,000	$72,000

Compensation + HCE thresholds

Year	§401(a)(17) Comp Cap	HCE Compensation	Key Employee	SS Wage Base
2024	$345,000	$155,000	$220,000	$168,600
2025	$350,000	$160,000	$230,000	$176,100
2026	$365,000	$165,000	$235,000	$183,600

Key deadlines

Event	Standard Deadline
Form 5500 filing (calendar year plan)	July 31, 2026
Form 5500 with extension (Form 5558)	October 15, 2026
ADP/ACP corrective distributions	March 15, 2026
Excess 402(g) corrective distributions	April 15, 2026
RMDs (age 73+, non-first-year)	December 31, 2026

Terms used on this page.

Benchmarking and plan-design shorthand. Hover any form-field label in the main view for field-specific tooltips.

Cohort

The peer group a plan is benchmarked against — defined by the selected PLANSPONSOR industry within the Form 5500 universe. The cohort count below the industry dropdown is live.

Peer

The survey-reported average for the selected industry. Peer values come from PLANSPONSOR by default, with Vanguard and Fidelity overlays where applicable.

NAICS

North American Industry Classification System. Six-digit codes filed with Form 5500. Bench(k) uses 108 prefix rules to map NAICS codes to PLANSPONSOR industry buckets automatically.

Form 5500

Annual IRS/DOL filing required of defined-contribution plans. The 2024 plan-year dataset contains 869,889 plans with EIN, NAICS, participant counts, and assets.

Rich vs headline tier

PLANSPONSOR publishes full 24-data-point detail for 12 "rich" industries. The other 39 "headline" industries show top-level metrics only. Cohort size is unaffected by the tier.

QDIA

Qualified Default Investment Alternative. The default investment for participants who don't affirmatively elect. Target Date is the dominant QDIA industry-wide (~95%).

True-up

A reconciliation contribution ensuring participants receive the full annual match they'd have earned based on total compensation, regardless of paycheck timing.

Safe Harbor

A plan design that satisfies ADP/ACP nondiscrimination testing automatically by meeting a required match or nonelective contribution formula.

ADP / ACP test

Actual Deferral Percentage / Actual Contribution Percentage. Non-discrimination tests comparing HCE vs NHCE deferral and match rates. Failure requires corrective distributions.

HCE

Highly Compensated Employee. Earns above the IRS HCE threshold ($165,000 for 2026) or owns 5%+ of the employer.

3(21) vs 3(38)

ERISA fiduciary roles. 3(21) advisors recommend; the plan sponsor retains decision authority. 3(38) investment managers have discretion and full fiduciary liability for investment selection.

Auto-escalation

Automatic periodic increases in a participant's deferral rate, typically 1% per year until a cap. Opt-in (In) requires affirmative election; opt-out (Out) is default.

402(g) limit

Annual cap on elective deferrals ($24,500 for 2026). Applies to aggregate pre-tax and Roth deferrals across all employers.

SECURE 2.0

Retirement plan reform legislation (2022). Made auto-enrollment mandatory on new plans, added super catch-up for ages 60–63, enabled emergency savings accounts, and more.

EPCRS

Employee Plans Compliance Resolution System. IRS program for correcting operational plan failures through self-correction, voluntary correction, or audit closing agreements.

Frequently asked questions.

Click any question to expand.

Bench(k) shows a friendly "no plan found" message and leaves the form empty. You can fill in plan name, industry, and the other fields manually — the rest of the flow (peer data, AI analysis, export) works exactly the same way. This commonly happens with very new plans that haven't filed their first 5500 yet, and with single-participant / owner-only plans that file 5500-EZ rather than the standard form.

When you look up by EIN, Bench(k) reads the plan's NAICS code from Form 5500 and applies 108 prefix rules to map it to one of PLANSPONSOR's 51 industry buckets. You can always override the selection using the dropdown — useful when a plan's business reality differs from its filing classification.

Because PLANSPONSOR surveys include "unsure" responses from plan sponsors who didn't know (or couldn't confirm) a given plan feature. We display the positive responses as the filled donut arcs and leave the gap unfilled rather than force-fit the unsure responses into one of the named categories.

The superscript citations ¹²³⁴ in the AI output map directly to the four survey sources listed at the bottom of the analysis. The AI is instructed to cite each claim to a specific source; it can't invent sources because the source registry is a closed list of four. If you're ever unsure about a specific statistic, the source note tells you which study to verify against.

Search(k) is the discovery tool — browse, filter, and compare plans across the Form 5500 universe. Bench(k) is the analysis tool — take one plan and see how it benchmarks against peers. The two are linked: from Search(k), click Benchmark this plan on any result and it opens in Bench(k) pre-loaded and auto-analyzed. From Bench(k), a future reverse-link button will let you find similar plans back in Search(k).

The text under the industry dropdown ("Peer cohort: N plans in the Form 5500 universe") tells you how many real plans in the Form 5500 data filed under the selected industry. The larger the cohort, the more statistically reliable the peer averages. Cohort size is informational — survey benchmarks come from PLANSPONSOR / Vanguard / Fidelity / American Century rather than the cohort directly.

Vault(k) is the shared CRM/persistence layer for the (k) Suite. The button is in place today showing "coming soon" — once Vault(k) ships, the click handler gets wired and every benchmark can be saved to the advisor's plan file. The button position and pairing with Export follow the Waivz rule-#10 pattern every (k) Suite app shares.

Export PDF (blue) uses the browser's print dialog to create a PDF optimized for paper — good for signature meetings and printed deliverables. Export HTML (orange) downloads a single self-contained .html file with styles inlined — good for email attachments, Google Drive, and sharing via link without losing any formatting.

Release notes and roadmap.

v2.1 · LATEST April 2026

What's in this release

Waivz rebrand. Bench(k) is now a native (k) Suite app — Waivz orange, dark-mode form panel, light-mode report output, NOX gradient bars bridging the two.
Rich hover tooltips on every form-field label, with contextual titles, definitions, peer-source notes, and IRS references.
Export HTML alongside Export PDF — self-contained single-file download, ideal for email and Drive.
Help Center modal with 7 tabs: this one.
Search(k) deep-link. ?ein=X&from=search-k&auto=1 auto-loads a plan from Search(k) with breadcrumb back.

v2.0 April 2026

Major rebuild

51 industries — expanded from 12 in v1 to the full PLANSPONSOR universe.
Four data sources with numbered citations — PLANSPONSOR, Vanguard, Fidelity, American Century.
Form 5500 EIN lookup — 869,889 plans, pre-fills plan name, NAICS, industry, participation, balances.
NAICS auto-mapping — 108 prefix rules route any plan filing to its PLANSPONSOR bucket.
Claude Opus 4.7 — upgraded AI model with (k) Suite Intelligence prompt tuned for plan-design commentary.
NOX pulse-wave spinner — cycling status messages during AI generation (~20 s typical).

ROADMAP Next

Coming soon

Vault(k) save integration — currently a "coming soon" toast.
Cloudflare Browser Rendering — printer-perfect PDF export without the browser print dialog.
"Find similar plans" reverse link — sends the advisor back to Search(k) pre-filtered by industry and plan size.
Anonymous share links — one-click generation of a sharable URL for a saved benchmark.