# How 401kHunter sources, grades and checks its data. Source: https://www.401khunter.com/methodology · By Jake, Founder, 401kHunter Every number in 401kHunter traces to a public record. This page lists each source, explains how fee grades, provider identification and contact confidence are worked out, states how often the data refreshes, and sets out what the data cannot tell you. If a claim anywhere on this site is not supported here, tell us and we will fix the claim. ## What the numbers on this site mean Plan counts depend on the definition, which is why we publish ours. 1,016,196 is the number of searchable plans whose latest filing is not a final return, including health and welfare plans. 833,851 of those have enough fee data to receive a grade. 2.1M+ is the number of Form 5500 and 5500-SF filings ingested across all years, and $29T+ is the sum of filed end-of-year assets, which includes pooled investment trusts. Because every vendor in this market reads the same Department of Labor filings, plan counts across vendors differ mostly by definition. We do not claim to have more plans than anyone. What differs is what is joined to each plan, listed below. ## The public sources 401kHunter joins 15+ public sources. None is scraped from a private site and no vendor data is resold as plan data. - DOL Form 5500 and Form 5500-SF (EFAST2 bulk files): plan identity, sponsor, assets, participants, contributions, characteristic codes. Published monthly. - Schedule A: insurance contracts and commissions. Schedule C: service-provider compensation, including indirect-compensation formula text. Schedule H and I: plan financial statements. Schedule R: pension plan details. Schedule MEP: multiple-employer and pooled-employer plan participation. - EFAST2 audited financial statements attached to large-plan filings: read for Roth provisions and plan-design facts the form has no field for. - SEC Form 11-K: the same, for plans holding employer stock. SEC Form D: recently funded private companies. - IRS list of pre-approved plan documents: matched to the opinion-letter serial number on Form 5500-SF to identify the firm behind a small plan's document. - SBA Paycheck Protection Program loan data: businesses with payroll, used to find employers with no ERISA-filed plan. - OSHA Injury Tracking Application, IRS Form 990 and FMCSA census: a current employee count where a public observation exists. - Census ZIP Code Tabulation Areas: radius search by ZIP code. State auto-IRA mandate schedules: which no-plan employers face a deadline. ## How the fee grade is computed The fee grade is the plan's reported administrative expenses divided by its end-of-year assets, both from the plan's own filing (Schedule H or I for larger plans, the form itself for small ones). Schedule C provider compensation is shown alongside the grade but is not part of it. The thresholds are fixed: A is 0.5% of assets or less, B is above 0.5% up to 1.0%, C is above 1.0% up to 1.5%, and D is above 1.5%. A plan with no usable fee data is left ungraded rather than guessed at. A grade is an estimate of what the filing shows, not an audit of total plan cost: fund expense ratios paid inside investments are not reported on Form 5500 and are not in the grade. As of August 2026, of 833,851 graded plans, 507,768 are A, 177,475 are B, 63,224 are C and 85,384 are D. Because fee data usually comes from an earlier filing than the latest one, the grade carries the year it was computed from. ## How providers are identified For large plans, providers and what they were paid come directly from Schedule C. Small plans file Form 5500-SF, which has no Schedule C, so we use three further signals and label each one for what it is. Disclosed: the filing names a third-party administrator that is not the sponsor, matched against an allowlist of known firms so that an individual's name is never shown as a provider. Inferred recordkeeper: plans that filed a 5500-SF in one year and a Schedule C in another link an IRS plan document to the recordkeeper those plans paid; where at least three such plans exist and a majority name the same recordkeeper, other plans on that document are labelled "Likely recordkeeper (inferred)" with the sample size and share shown. Plan document: the firm holding the IRS opinion letter for the plan's pre-approved document, from the IRS's published lists, which is on file for about 85% of small plans. When that firm is a document vendor whose document many providers license, it is labelled as document software and is not treated as the plan's provider. ## How contacts are found and scored Contact details are not part of the public record. When you ask for a plan's decision maker, 401kHunter looks for the person responsible for the plan at that sponsor through licensed business-contact providers, checks the person against the sponsor's company domain, and returns the contact with a confidence score. A score is a probability, not a guarantee, and we do not describe contacts as verified. If no usable contact is found, the credits are refunded automatically. The signer named on a filing is often a TPA employee or someone who has since left, which is why the signer is shown separately from the decision maker. ## Refresh cadence and freshness The Department of Labor publishes bulk filing data monthly and 401kHunter refreshes monthly. A plan year's filing is due seven months after the plan year ends, or nine and a half months with an extension, so the latest complete year is always the previous one. Every figure in the product shows the filing year it came from, and the product displays the date of the most recent data load. ## Known limits What this data cannot do, so nobody is surprised. - Form 5500 has no field for Roth, auto-enrolment details or the investment lineup of most plans; where we show these, they come from audited statements or 11-K filings and are marked with their source. - Plans with fewer than 100 participants generally file no Schedule C, so their provider is disclosed, inferred or unknown — never stated as fact without a source. - Filings contain sponsor-entered errors. We show the record as filed rather than silently editing it. - One-participant plans that file Form 5500-EZ are not in the public bulk data. - A business listed as having no ERISA-filed plan may have a plan that files under another entity, or a plan too new to have filed. ## Pricing, for the record Searching is free and works without an account. Signup includes 50 free credits. Credit packs start at $25; Pro is $100 a month including 1,500 credits. A plan's full financials cost 10 credits, a decision-maker contact 30 and a direct phone 20. ## Frequently asked questions ### Where does 401kHunter get its data? From public records: Department of Labor Form 5500 and 5500-SF filings and their schedules, audited financial statements, SEC 11-K and Form D filings, the IRS list of pre-approved plan documents, SBA PPP data, OSHA, IRS 990 and FMCSA headcounts, Census geography and state auto-IRA mandate schedules — 15+ sources in all. Contact details come from licensed business-contact providers, on demand. ### How is the 401kHunter fee grade calculated? Reported administrative expenses divided by end-of-year plan assets, from the plan's own filing: A is 0.5% or less, B up to 1.0%, C up to 1.5%, D above 1.5%. Fund expense ratios are not reported on Form 5500 and are not included. ### Are 401kHunter contacts verified? No, and we do not say they are. Each contact carries a confidence score, is checked against the sponsor's company domain, and is refunded automatically when no usable contact is found. ### How often is the data updated? Monthly, following the Department of Labor's monthly bulk publication. ### Does 401kHunter have more plans than other tools? We do not make that claim. Every vendor reads the same public filings, so plan counts differ mainly by definition. What differs is the data joined to each plan, which is listed on this page.