The following disclosures apply only to Human Interest Inc. and its recordkeeping services. For disclosures relating to Human Interest Advisors LLC’s investment advisory services, click here.

Human Interest Inc. Disclosures 

Last updated: April 14, 2024

General disclosure

Human Interest Inc. (“Human Interest”) is an affordable, full-service 401(k) and 403(b) provider that seeks to make it easy for small and medium-sized businesses to help their employees save for retirement and access a path to financial independence. Founded in 2015 and headquartered in San Francisco, Human Interest has helped thousands of businesses and hundreds of thousands of employees. See more at humaninterest.com.

The content on this website has been prepared for general informational purposes only, and is not intended to provide, and should not be relied upon for tax, legal, or accounting advice. Retirement services are only provided to customers who have entered into an agreement with Human Interest for such services. Human Interest does not provide tax, legal, or accounting advice. Plan sponsors should take independent steps to validate the tax, legal, or accounting considerations of hiring any service provider for their plan, and to obtain guidance on any plan document (or amendment thereto) and for any issues pertaining to design, implementation, or operation of their plan.

Fee disclosures

For information about Human Interest’s pricing, please refer to our Pricing Page, which describes the fees charged for administrative services.

Disclosures about relationships, endorsements, and testimonials

Human Interest maintains relationships with plan sponsors, participants, and third parties who have an economic relationship with Human Interest. From time to time, they may make statements or provide information about Human Interest and may have received non-cash compensation or gift cards from Human Interest in exchange for providing such statements or information. From time to time, Human Interest may also provide information about its services and products which are created or supplemented, in whole or in part, using the statements or information that have been provided by one or more current customers or other third parties and which are used to solicit or refer potential customers to Human Interest or otherwise indicate approval, support, or recommendation of, or describe the experience with, Human Interest. When considering these statements and information, and when evaluating Human Interest’s advertising, products, and services, you should be aware that the relationship creates a conflict of interest which creates an incentive for the statements or information to be presented in a fashion that is favorable to Human Interest.

Any non-cash compensation arrangements are of a de minimis nature in the form of small gifts, tchotchkes, or other tokens of appreciation. Any gift cards are nominal in value. The cost of these incentives are paid directly by Human Interest and be charged to any of Human Interest’s customers. Human Interest expects the good faith value of these items to remain below $250 on a rolling 12-month basis per entity. 

Human Interest may also request and receive approval from certain customers for use of the customer’s logo and/or other intellectual property, hyperlinks, or other shared content. The use of this information creates a conflict of interest because the customer may approve such use to help portray Human Interest in a favorable light in order to receive or enhance beneficial treatment in the relationship.

Human Interest asks customers to place reviews, positive or negative, on certain third-party websites. While comments are not approved by Human Interest and are subject to the terms of those sites, an actively solicited testimonial creates a conflict of interest as it can encourage a customer to provide a review that speaks favorably of Human Interest or recommend a product or service of Human Interest. Additionally, Human Interest previously offered, on certain review platforms, a small gift card of a de minimis nature, in exchange for a written review, whether positive or negative. This creates a conflict of interest because the customer is financially incentivized to leave a positive review of Human Interest’s products and services. Below is a list of the review platforms Human Interest maintains a presence where reviews were solicited.

Human Interest has the most 5-star reviews compared to other top 401(k) providers: On G2, Google, and BBB compared to Betterment, Guideline, Empower, Vestwell, ForUsAll, Ubiquity. All G2 Ratings of as of 03/01/24. Ratings fluctuate in real-time. View the most recent ratings here: Human Interest, Guideline, Empower, Betterment, Vestwell, ForUsAll, Ubiquity. Human Interest solicited clients for G2 reviews in exchange for nominal non-cash compensation. From 5/25/22-12/31/22, Human Interest offered gift cards as an incentive for customers to complete G2 reviews. A higher nominal value was offered for non-anonymous testimonials.

From May 25, 2022 to December 31, 2022, Human Interest offered gift cards as an incentive for customers to complete G2 reviews. Please visit this page to view our most recent overall rating and reviews.  All Google Ratings of as of 03/01/24. Ratings fluctuate in real-time. View the most recent ratings here: Human Interest, Guideline, Empower, Betterment,Vestwell, ForUsAll, Ubiquity. Human Interest’s Google rating primarily based on client testimonials. Human Interest solicited clients for Google reviews in exchange for nominal non-cash compensation from 10/3/23-10/16/23. All Better Business Bureau® (“BBB”): BBB ratings as of 03/01/24. View the most recent customer reviews, BBB rating, and accreditations here: Human Interest, Guideline, Empower, Betterment, Vestwell, ForUsAll, Ubiquity. Human Interest solicited clients to provide reviews on BBB. No cash or non-cash compensation is provided in exchange for the reviews. Please note that customer reviews are not factored into the BBB rating. For information on how the BBB rating is calculated, please visit this page. Active solicitation and non-cash compensation will make a customer more likely to portray Human Interest favorably. Testimonials may not be representative of the experience of others and past success does not guarantee future results.

G2: From May 25, 2022 to December 31, 2022, Human Interest offered gift cards as an incentive for customers to complete G2 reviews. Please visit this page to view our most recent overall rating and reviews. 

TrustRadius: From August 23, 2022 to December 31, 2022, Human Interest offered gift cards as an incentive for customers to complete reviews. Please visit this page to view our most recent overall rating and reviews.

Better Business Bureau® (“BBB”): Human Interest solicits customers to provide reviews on BBB. No cash or non-cash compensation is provided in exchange for the reviews. Direct solicitation of customers for reviews creates a conflict of interest because the customer may be more likely to present information in a fashion that is favorable to Human Interest. Please visit this page to view our most recent overall customer reviews score and our BBB rating and accreditation. Please note that customer reviews are not factored into the BBB rating. For information on how the BBB rating is calculated, please visit this page.

Google: Human Interest solicited clients for Google reviews in exchange for nominal non-cash compensation from 10/3/23-10/16/23. Active solicitation and non-cash compensation will make a customer more likely to portray Human Interest favorably. Click here for most recent rating.

G2's Top Rated 401K Provider: The G2 Grid maps qualifying companies into a stack rankings based on User Satisfaction rating and a Market Presence score that considers data from online sources, including, among other criteria, the amount of reviews and web presence. The Spring 2024 report was released 3/29/24. Human Interest received a “G2 Score” of 85 compared to a 78 for the next highest rated provider. A product must have 10 reviews to be considered. In this period, 6 out of the 22 products listed in the 401(k) software category on G2 qualified. Click here for the most recent grid results and here for full methodology. 

Referral arrangements

Solicitation information provided by third parties may, in addition to the type of de minimis relationship noted above, involve direct cash compensation which is paid to third parties who have an agreement with Human Interest to refer 401(k) plan recordkeeping business opportunities (“Referring Partner”). While a Referring Partner and its representatives are not affiliated with or employed by Human Interest, the agreement may provide for the Referring Partner to receive either fees that are a percentage of Human Interest’s recordkeeping/ administrative fees or a flat fee per qualified referral (collectively, “Referral Fees”). The cost of incentives and Referral Fees are paid directly by Human Interest and are  not charged to any of Human Interest’s customers or their plan assets. The Referring Partner, in introducing and/or recommending Human Interest’s recordkeeping services to customers, has a conflict of interest with regard to both its relationship with Human Interest and with regard to the Referral Fees or incentives that the Referring Partner or its representatives may receive in connection with making such introductions and/or recommendations. The Referring Partner and Human Interest may also utilize an integrated technology platform that facilitates the sharing of employee/participant information for payroll and employee benefit plan processing.

In addition, there are situations where a third party advisor that provides investment advisory services can refer customers to Human Interest and Human Interest will facilitate payments to the third-party advisor from plan assets as directed by the plan. Such third-party advisor fees are separately negotiated between the third party advisor and the plan.

Human Interest may provide lists of prospective professional firms and their services, including accounting firms. Human Interest makes no representation as to the competence of any accountants or firms on the lists, and by providing the lists to you, Human Interest does not recommend or endorse any of the firms on the lists. We simply are providing the lists as a resource. You are responsible for evaluating your provider. Human Interest does not receive any compensation or other benefit by providing the lists.

Accolades

  • San Francisco Business Times Best Places to Work – April 24, 2020 – All Best Places to Work winners are determined exclusively on the basis of their employees' responses to the Best Places to Work Survey. Employee responses from the 30 standard survey questions, along with the number of employees that respond to the survey, are calculated to determine the company’s overall score and ranking.

  • Forbes 2022 Best Startup Employer – May 2022 – To determine the list, Statista identified 2,500 American businesses that had been founded between 2012 and 2019 and employ at least 50 people. All companies considered had been started from scratch and not spun out of existing enterprises. Statista evaluated each organization based on three criteria, the first being employer reputation. The firm reviewed articles, blogs, and social media posts pertaining to each employer, searching for specific phrases, such as “corporate culture” and “employee engagement.” Statista then assessed employee satisfaction, evaluating online reviews, as well as growth, examining the organizations’ website traffic and headcounts over a two-year period. The final list ranks the 500 employers that boast the best employer reputations, employee satisfaction, and growth. Human Interest made the list from 2020-2022.

  • Y Combinator Top Companies 2020-2022 – The list includes private, public, and exited companies valued at $150M or more and are sorted by valuation or market cap as of February 2022.

  • Inc 5000 2022 – Companies on the 2022 Inc. 5000 are ranked according to percentage revenue growth from 2018 to 2021. To qualify, companies must have been founded and generating revenue by March 31, 2018. They must be U.S.-based, privately held, for-profit, and independent (not subsidiaries or divisions of other companies) as of December 31, 2021. (Since then, some on the list may have gone public or been acquired.) The minimum revenue required for 2018 is $100,000; the minimum for 2021 is $2 million. As always, Inc. reserves the right to decline applicants for subjective reasons.

  • Business.com Best Employee Retirement Plans 2021-2022 – Human Interest was named one of the Best Employee Retirement Plans of 2022 (updated Aug 24, 2022) by Business.com. The Editors gave an overall score of 9.5/10 and the title “Best for Affordability,” based on its review of more than 23 providers "to determine the 10 best employee retirement plans." Evaluated criteria include setup costs, prices for employers, plan types, and investment fees. The rating did not consider investment performance.  Human Interest has a paid partnership with Business.com where compensation is paid to Business.com per lead. This creates a financial incentive to add firms, with similar arrangements, to the “best of” list. The rating is not indicative of Human Interest’s future performance.