401(k) Monitor

Betterment 401(k) plans and fees

Source: Schedule C of Form 5500 filings, form year 2024, DOL EFAST2 bulk data · DOL EFAST2 ↗

Filings lag by design: a plan can file up to 9½ months after its year ends, so this is the newest data on file. Why filings lag

Betterment recordkeeps 97 of the 50,598 large 401(k) plans with an identified recordkeeper in form-year-2024 Form 5500 filings, a 0.2% plan share covering 39,861 participants.

$67.20

Median plan-paid administrative cost per participant across the 96 published plans recordkept by Betterment with computable fee data, form-year-2024 filings.

$54.97 below the $122.17 median across all 54,782 published plans with fee data.

How many 401(k) plans does Betterment recordkeep?

Plan figures from Schedule C across all form-year-2024 filings, the same set as the 97 plans published here naming Betterment. Assets and participants as filed.
Plans recordkept, full universeOf 50,598 form-year-2024 filings with an identified recordkeeper.97
Plan share0.2%
Participants in those plans39,861
Participant share0.1%
Plans on file at 401(k) MonitorOf the 57,824 plans in the form-year-2024 data.97
Participants in those plans39,861
Assets in those plans$1.2B

A plan counts toward Betterment only when its Schedule C names a provider the pipeline could map to this brand. A filing naming a provider it could not map is counted in nobody’s book, so every count here is a lower bound rather than a full book.

What do 401(k) plans recordkept by Betterment pay in fees?

The median plan-paid administrative cost across the 96 published plans recordkept by Betterment is $67.20 per participant, against $122.17 across all 54,782 published plans with fee data. 77 of the 96 (80%) pay less than that all-plans median.

These are plan-paid expenses from Schedule H only. Fees the sponsor pays directly, and fees embedded in fund expense ratios, never appear here, so every figure is a floor, not the all-in cost. The recordkeeper is one of several providers a plan pays. 1 of the 97 published plans report no computable plan-paid cost and are excluded from the median. How to read your own plan’s number: are your 401(k) fees high?

Which are the biggest 401(k) plans Betterment administers?

No Betterment-recordkept plan with a page here reports Schedule H assets, so no ranking is shown.

Source

DatasetDOL EFAST2 Form 5500 bulk data (FOIA)
Form year2024
Recordkeeper identificationService code 15 or 64; the mapping from raw filing names to brands is ours.Schedule C, Part I, Item 2
Dataset last refreshedJuly 28, 2026

Bulk dataset at askebsa.dol.gov ↗ · How the recordkeeper is identified

Cite this page

401(k) Monitor, "Betterment 401(k) plans and fees", computed from DOL EFAST2 Form 5500 bulk data, form year 2024.