Index › Products › Guideline (now Gusto 401(k)) · October 2026 Edition

1 category · Named, not ranked

Guideline (now Gusto 401(k))

2Judge labels

0First choices

0Negative labels

2 / 14Models named it

1Category

October 2026 Edition. Every number here is derived from the raw labels under vendor table v2026-10.7, every buyer segment counted.

Standing

2 labels, too few to rank

A product needs 10 labels in a category before a share or quadrant is stated. Guideline (now Gusto 401(k)) was named 2 times in 401(k) providers, where Human Interest led with 20%. The labels and the evidence are below, counted exactly.

By buyer segmentRead the same way at every buyer size.

Small businessnot named

No model named it for this buyer.

Mid-market22 of 78

under the label threshold

Enterprisenot named

No model named it for this buyer.

In 401(k) providers · each standing computed within its segment · bars are 0 to 100 · the accent bar is the product's own best reading

Standing by category

Every category where a model named Guideline (now Gusto 401(k)) for a mid-market B2B company. Share is first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts; rank is within every product named in that category.

Category	Function	Share	Rank	Negative rate	Labels	Quadrant	Since September 2026
401(k) providers	Compensation and total rewards	0%	22 of 78	0%	2	under 10 labels · led by Human Interest at 20%

Movement

This is the first edition on this tier, so no move can be computed for Guideline (now Gusto 401(k)) yet. From the next edition this section shows, per buyer segment and per category, whether its share moved by more than the measured noise floor.

By model

How each model treated Guideline (now Gusto 401(k)) across every prompt where it was named for a mid-market B2B company. Fourteen models, six prompts per category.

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Model	Alternative	Mention	Labels
Claude Haiku 4.5	0	0	0
GPT-5.4 mini	0	0	0
Gemini 3.5 Flash	0	0	0
Perplexity Sonar	0	0	0
Grok 4.1 Fast	0	0	0
Mistral Small	0	0	0
DeepSeek V4 Flash	0	1	1
Llama 4 Maverick	0	0	0
Qwen 3.7 Flash	0	0	0
Kimi K2	0	0	0
GLM 4.7 FlashX	0	0	0
MiniMax M2.5	0	0	0
GPT-6 Luna	0	0	0
Muse Glimmer 30B	1	0	1

By framing

Which of the six questions produced the naming. By model says how often; this says asked what. The first-choice count on the right carries the marks of the models that produced it.

FramingLabels by classFirst choices

Direct0 labelsNone

Paraphrase0 labelsNone

Comparative1 labelNone

Budget-constrained1 labelNone

Scale-constrained0 labelsNone

Negative0 labelsNone

First choiceAlternativeMentionNegative2 labels in all, every segment counted; 0 of the 0 first choices count toward share, since the comparative and negative framings do not. The bar is one segment per label class, to scale within the framing.

What the models said for it

Verbatim evidence the judge attached to positive labels.

“Startups wanting payroll sync and a modern UI with low entry price: Guideline Starter at $39/mo + $4/active participant, no setup fee.” Muse Glimmer 30B · 401(k) providers · budget prompt · alternative

And against it

Verbatim evidence attached to negative labels. A warning on a product with few labels is a warning; on a product with many, it is one voice among them.

No model argued against it.

Named alongside

The products named in the same answers as Guideline (now Gusto 401(k)), over the 2 answers that named it. Took the first choice instead counts the answers where the other product was the first choice and Guideline (now Gusto 401(k)) was named but was not.

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ProductSame answerTook the first choice insteadHead to head

Employee Fiduciary2 of 21Not among the top eight

Human Interest2 of 20Not among the top eight

ADP Retirement Services1 of 20Not among the top eight

ADP Starter-k Complete1 of 20Not among the top eight

Betterment 4011 of 20Not among the top eight

Charles Schwab1 of 20Not among the top eight

Empower Retirement1 of 20Not among the top eight

Fidelity Advantage 401[k]1 of 20Not among the top eight

Fidelity Investments1 of 20Not among the top eight

John Hancock1 of 20Not among the top eight

A head-to-head page exists where both products are among a category's top eight. The other rows are the same fact without a page behind them, so they link to the product instead.

What carried it into the answer

The sites and pages cited by the answers that named Guideline (now Gusto 401(k)). A fact about retrieval, not a lever on the model.

Citations exist only for the models that return a source list, five of the fourteen in this edition, so these counts come from 2 of the 2 answers that named Guideline (now Gusto 401(k)) and are not a share of its labels.

Domains cited

adp.com2

fidelity.com2

guideflow.com2

spotsaas.com2

uschamber.com2

401k.is1

401kmonitor.com1

401krecord.com1

accio.com1

aol.com1

Fifteen of the fifteen domain citations in answers naming Guideline (now Gusto 401(k)) came from somebody else's page.

Pages cited

adp.com/what-we-offer/benefits/retirement/401k.aspx2

fidelity.com/retirement-ira/small-business/compare-retirement-plans2

guideflow.com/blog/401k-software2

uschamber.com/co/run/human-resources/employee-retirement-providers2

401k.is/compare1

401kmonitor.com/recordkeepers1

401krecord.com/providers1

accio.com/biz-cheap/best-low-cost-401k-providers1

Pages are listed as the models cited them.

Search and answers

guideline.com is not in Google's top ten for any of the category's searches. In the answers, Guideline (now Gusto 401(k)) takes 0% of first choices and Human Interest takes 20%.

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In search

Google, US estimates

Position for “401(k) provider”

–

not in the top ten

Position for “401(k) providers”

–

not in the top ten

Organic visits to its site: about 86,956 a month
Searches its site ranks for: 11,572 · 582 in the top three
Sites linking to it: 4,959
Paid Google search: No ads found in the estimate; that does not mean it runs none

Ads on GoogleDetailLess

61 ads · 53 text, 8 video · 0 shown in the last 30 days

First shown February 2024, as Guideline, Inc., verified. Ads started 2025-11 to 2026-10: 12 in the year, 49 before.

On Google's pages: 1 2 3 4

In answers

This edition

Share of first choices

rank 22 of 78 in 401(k) providers

Segment leader

20%

Human Interest

First choices: 0 across its categories
Named in: 2 answers
Its own site cited: in 2 of the answers that named it

Search figures are US estimates from DataForSEO, read October 5, 2026; AI search demand is its modeled, directional estimate, not a count of queries to any assistant. The answers are this edition's. Two measurements side by side: neither is read as the cause of the other.

What it publishes

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Addresses on guideline.com

499

subdomains included

Content

102

counted in the table below

Documentation

355

Product · Integration

0 · 0

Kind	Pages	Last 90 days	Latest	Categories named
Blog	90	1	2026-08-28
Comparison	7	0	2026-05-01
Template or tool	2	0	2025-12-10	401(k) providers
Glossary or explainer	2	1	2026-08-26
Case study	1	0	2025-08-06

Most recent

2026-08-28Guideline gusto acquisition agreement blog
2026-08-2610127196 new 401 k participant welcome guide glossary or explainer
2026-05-018593852 what is a qualified default investment alternative qdia comparison
2026-03-06A top retirement expert weighs in about how to strengthen the u s retirement system blog
2026-03-06How much can you contribute to a 401 k in 2024 blog
2026-03-06What is esg investing glossary or explainer

How it is countedHide how it is counted

Every page guideline.com exposes, subdomains included. Kind is read from the address and title. The last 90 days, the latest date and the twelve months count pages by when they were published, from the site's feeds, a date in the address, or the page's own publication date, read from up to a hundred of its most recently changed pages; a page that says only when it last changed is counted in its kind but not in when, so the recent counts are a floor, and a kind none of whose pages gives a publication date reads undated. Read October 5, 2026.

Names read as Guideline (now Gusto 401(k))

What the judge wrote, as written, with how often. The vendor table decides that these count as Guideline (now Gusto 401(k)); a claim can dispute any of them.

Guideline, now Gusto 401[k] 1

Follow Guideline (now Gusto 401(k))

An email the morning each edition publishes: where this product moved, where it held, and by how much against the noise floor. One address, confirmed by a click; a stop link in every email.

Already following? Everything you follow, with a stop for each.

Is this your product?

Claim this page

Claiming is free and changes nothing in the data. A claimed page shows a verified contact who is told when each edition publishes and when Guideline (now Gusto 401(k))'s standing changes by more than the noise floor; the right to propose corrections to the vendor table, meaning names the judge wrote that should or should not read as Guideline (now Gusto 401(k)), applied by version and listed in the change log; and a one-line description supplied by the vendor and marked as such.

What a new claim receivesHide what a new claim receives

A new claim receives the current edition's vendor brief for Guideline (now Gusto 401(k)) by email, built from the raw record of the edition. It shows:

where Guideline (now Gusto 401(k)) is named, by buyer and by framing, and which cells hold its first choices;
the claims the models make when they name it, ranked, with the strongest and the weakest quoted;
its vocabulary against the segment leader's, and the pages the models cited;
who was chosen in the answers that did not name Guideline (now Gusto 401(k)), and every reason the record gives;
a battlecard for each top rival: the head-to-head split, why they win, and the reservation quoted against them;
one page of published figures cleared to show a buyer.