Index › Products › Merrill · October 2026 Edition

1 category · Named, not ranked

Merrill

10Judge labels

1First choices

1Negative labels

5 / 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

3 labels, too few to rank

A product needs 10 labels in a category before a share or quadrant is stated. Merrill was named 3 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 business10 of 61

under the label threshold

Mid-market51 of 78

under the label threshold

Enterprise49 of 74

under the label threshold

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 Merrill 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%	51 of 78	33%	3	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 Merrill 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 Merrill 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	Negative	Labels
Claude Haiku 4.5	0	0	0	0
GPT-5.4 mini	0	0	0	0
Gemini 3.5 Flash	0	0	0	0
Perplexity Sonar	1	0	0	1
Grok 4.1 Fast	0	0	0	0
Mistral Small	0	0	0	0
DeepSeek V4 Flash	0	0	1	1
Llama 4 Maverick	0	1	0	1
Qwen 3.7 Flash	0	0	0	0
Kimi K2	0	0	0	0
GLM 4.7 FlashX	0	0	0	0
MiniMax M2.5	0	0	0	0
GPT-6 Luna	0	0	0	0
Muse Glimmer 30B	0	0	0	0

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

Direct2 labels1

Paraphrase2 labelsNone

Comparative1 labelNone

Budget-constrained4 labelsNone

Scale-constrained0 labelsNone

Negative1 labelNone

First choiceAlternativeMentionNegative10 labels in all, every segment counted; 1 of the 1 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.

“Merrill lists no setup fee and a $95 monthly administration fee, which can be useful if you want a clear fee structure.” Perplexity Sonar · 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.

“"Fidelity is light years ahead of this company. Save yourself a headache and avoid this place."” DeepSeek V4 Flash · 401(k) providers · negative prompt · hard negative

Named alongside

The products named in the same answers as Merrill, over the 10 answers that named it. Took the first choice instead counts the answers where the other product was the first choice and Merrill was named but was not.

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ProductSame answerTook the first choice insteadHead to head

ADP Retirement Services8 of 103Not among the top eight

Fidelity Advantage 4018 of 103Not among the top eight

Guideline5 of 102Not among the top eight

Employee Fiduciary3 of 101Not among the top eight

Vanguard3 of 101Not among the top eight

Human Interest3 of 100Not among the top eight

Betterment at Work2 of 100Not among the top eight

Empower Retirement2 of 100Not among the top eight

John Hancock2 of 100Not among the top eight

ADP Starter-k Complete1 of 101Not 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 Merrill. 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 10 of the 10 answers that named Merrill and are not a share of its labels.

Domains cited

adp.com9

merrilledge.com8

betterment.com7

fidelity.com7

uschamber.com7

business.com5

fitsmallbusiness.com5

forbes.com5

myubiquity.com5

chamberofcommerce.org4

No domain is on file for Merrill, so its own site is not marked.

Pages cited

adp.com/what-we-offer/benefits/retirement/401k.aspx8

merrilledge.com/small-business/401k8

adp.com/what-we-offer/benefits/retirement/adp-401k-essential.aspx7

fidelity.com/retirement-ira/small-business/compare-retirement-plans7

uschamber.com/co/run/human-resources/employee-retirement-providers7

betterment.com/top-401ks-for-small-businesses-in-20266

betterment.com/top-401k-providers-for-small-business-setup-in-20265

fitsmallbusiness.com/best-401k-companies5

Pages are listed as the models cited them.

Search and answers

Where Merrill stands in Google search beside where it stands in the models' answers.

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In search

Google, US estimates

Searches for its name, Google: 60,500 a month (“merrill”)
AI search demand for its name, est.: 17,117 a month
Its own site: No site of its own on file, so no site figures

In answers

This edition

Share of first choices

rank 51 of 78 in 401(k) providers

Segment leader

20%

Human Interest

First choices: 1 across its categories
Named in: 10 answers
Its own site cited: No site on file to match

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.

Follow Merrill

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 Merrill'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 Merrill, 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 Merrill by email, built from the raw record of the edition. It shows:

where Merrill 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 Merrill, 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.