2 categories · RankedGuideline
Standing by category
| Category | Function | Share | Rank | Negative rate | Labels | Quadrant | Since September 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 401(k) providers | Compensation and total rewards | 20% | 2 of 78 | 9% | 32 | accepted challenger | |
| Financial wellness platforms | Compensation and total rewards | 0% | 54 of 117 | 0% | 1 | under 10 labels · led by LearnLux at 24% |
Movement
By model
How each model treated Guideline across every prompt where it was named for a mid-market B2B company. Fourteen models, six prompts per category.ShowHide
By model
| Model | First choice | Alternative | Mention | Negative | Labels |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Claude Haiku 4.5 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| GPT-5.4 mini | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| Gemini 3.5 Flash | 1 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 4 |
| Perplexity Sonar | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2 |
| Grok 4.1 Fast | 2 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 5 |
| Mistral Small | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| DeepSeek V4 Flash | 3 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 4 |
| Llama 4 Maverick | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Qwen 3.7 Flash | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 3 |
| Kimi K2 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 0 | 5 |
| GLM 4.7 FlashX | 1 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 5 |
| MiniMax M2.5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| GPT-6 Luna | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Muse Glimmer 30B | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 2 |
By framing
What the models said for it
Verbatim evidence the judge attached to positive labels.
“Guideline is typically the best choice for companies with a limited budget due to its low monthly base fee ($39), no setup costs” Kimi K2 · 401(k) providers · budget prompt · first choice
“Start with Guideline if you prioritize ease, integrations, and scalability—it's frequently top-rated for budget-conscious SMBs.” Grok 4.1 Fast · 401(k) providers · budget prompt · first choice
“Guideline is often the strongest pick because it is explicitly positioned as an affordable, fully automated 401(k)” Perplexity Sonar · 401(k) providers · budget prompt · first choice
“Service & Compliance | Lighthouse or Guideline | They take the fiduciary burden off your shoulders” Qwen 3.7 Flash · 401(k) providers · direct prompt · first choice
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.
“BBB customer reviews include stark warnings, e.g.: "Avoid at all costs." "You will never be able to get your money out."” Muse Glimmer 30B · 401(k) providers · negative prompt · hard negative
“Users call it "crooks" and warn against it.” Grok 4.1 Fast · 401(k) providers · negative prompt · hard negative
“reporting high costs, poor service, or rollover/admin problems” Perplexity Sonar · 401(k) providers · negative prompt · soft negative
Named alongside
The products named in the same answers as Guideline, over the 99 answers that named it. Took the first choice instead counts the answers where the other product was the first choice and Guideline was named but was not.ShowHide
Named alongside
What carried it into the answer
Citations exist only for the models that return a source list, five of the fourteen in this edition, so these counts come from 93 of the 99 answers that named Guideline and are not a share of its labels.
Domains cited
397 of the 397 domain citations in answers naming Guideline came from somebody else's page.
Pages cited
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 takes 20% of first choices and Human Interest takes 20%.ShowHide
Search and answers
In search
Google, US estimates- Searches for its name, Google
- 49,500 a month (“guideline”)
- AI search demand for its name, est.
- 92,963 a month
- 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
In answers
This edition- First choices
- 36 across its categories
- Named in
- 99 answers
- Its own site cited
- in 93 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
ShowHide
What it publishes
ShowHide| Kind | Pages | Last 90 days | 2025-11 to 2026-10 | 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
Follow Guideline
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.
The company
Guideline is its own company.ShowHide
The company
In its own words
Stated by the vendor, not checked- Positioning
- Affordable 401(k) & IRA Plans for Companies & Solopreneurs
- For
- small businesses; companies; solopreneurs; small and medium-sized businesses; anyone hiring their first employee or managing hundreds
- Price stated
- transparent pricing; 50% off employer fees for your first year guideline.com
- Certifications
- SEC-registered investment adviserSEC registered broker-dealerFINRASIPCSOC 2 Type II attestation
- Not stated on the pages read
- Starting price, free plan or trial, integrations, hosting, customers
What Guideline's own pages state, read October 5, 2026: guideline.com, guideline.com/security. A claimed page can correct any of them.
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'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, 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 by email, built from the raw record of the edition. It shows:
- where Guideline 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, 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.
Badges
Wins only: a badge exists where Guideline is ranked in a category's top three this edition. Three sizes, one file each, light and dark; the code is under each.ShowHide
Badges
Guideline is among the products AI models recommend first in 401(k) providers this edition. Each badge says so in the buyer's words, names the edition, and links to the standing. The next edition issues a new badge; this one stays true as a record of October 2026.
Badges read on light and dark pages. Alt text carries the claim, the category, the edition and the index, so it stays a citation where the image does not load.