Offering employee benefits is a competitive necessity for small businesses. The job market requires companies to provide perks beyond a basic salary, such as health insurance, retirement plans, paid leave, and compliance requirements. You can leverage the help of benefit administrators to make this process smoother.
The best benefit administrator partner can streamline your HR processes, ensure regulatory compliance, and reduce costs. Companies need these administrators so they can focus more on growing and less on administrative regulations. Here are the best benefit administrators for small businesses.
1. The Difference Card
Employment-based insurance covers about 53.7% of Americans, making it the most common health coverage. The Difference Card, which is funded by the employer, is one of the best benefit administrators for small businesses because it works with existing health insurance to offer the best benefits. The company focuses on four core values: passion in its dedication to its customers, accountability in doing what it promises to do, innovation in being a thought leader that challenges the status quo, and showing respect to every client.
The Difference Card is a unique player in the benefits administration space, focusing on delivering cost-saving health care solutions for small-sized businesses. It partners directly with brokerage agencies and independent agents to analyze their existing health insurance plans, pinpoint areas where to save, and deploy tailored strategies to maximize value.
It offers custom and reimbursement plan enhancements that provide employees with the same benefits while the company saves money. The platform’s strength lies in its analytics capabilities and white-glove service, helping employers maintain control over costs while staying compliant and competitive. The company also emphasizes employee education and engagement, ensuring that end-users fully understand and leverage the benefits provided to them.
Key Features
| Benefits Administration | An enrollment service platform called DANNY |
| Self-care COBRA administration | |
| Manage employee benefits such as health savings accounts, flexible spending accounts, health reimbursement arrangements, vision insurance, dental benefits, commuter accounts, and life and disability insurance. |
2. Gusto
Gusto is one of the most trusted names in payroll and HR software for businesses, and its benefits administration services are equally impressive. The platform simplifies everything from payroll to employee benefits. The company offers an integrated platform that caters to companies looking for affordable, easy-to-use features.
Gusto’s embedded payroll system builds your business by providing data to enhance analytics. This encourages thought leaders to innovate and develop using the data and empowers the company to grow by offering payroll insights. Organizations can also access HR services and tools, allowing employees to use the system with minimal HR input. This platform frees up time for your HR department to focus on other tasks. It offers simplicity to help startups and growing teams thrive.
The company serves over 400,000 growing businesses and helps them manage health insurance, 401(k) plans, workers’ compensation, and commuter benefits from the system’s dashboard. It also supports your team’s financial health by providing a long-term savings account, short-term savings, and a smart paycheck.
Key Features
| Benefits Administration | Benefits deductions are calculated automatically, and your team can connect with expert advisers. |
| Includes ACA reporting, Section 125, HIPAA, and COBRA administration at no added cost. | |
| Includes ACA reporting, Section 125, HIPAA and COBRA administration at no added cost. |
3. Justworks
Justworks is a technology company that supports small-sized businesses using software that allows you to focus on growing and learning about the industry. Justworks Professional Employer Organization (PEO) offers comprehensive HR tools, automated payroll services, time tracking, compliance support, and access to employee benefits.
For startup companies, having an in-house HR system seems feasible because there are few employees to assist. However, as your operation grows, your system needs to cater to all employees’ needs and benefits. Businesses that use this PEO can offer more competitive packages to attract and retain global talent. You can also provide benefits after getting access to large-group health insurance.
The system allows you to spend more money on tools and services and less on employees while still providing the best service. The PEO company’s values embed camaraderie, openness, grit, integrity, and simplicity. While the company assists your business with daily tasks, it also invests in resolving future challenges by offering support, on-demand expertise, and access to competitive benefits.
Key Features
| Benefits Administration | Justworks handles HR, payroll, and compliance using an all-in-one solution. |
| Provides life and disability insurance, 401(k) retirement plans, commuter benefits, and COBRA administration. | |
| Provides life and disability insurance, 401(k) retirement plans, commuter benefits and, COBRA administration. |
4. TriNet
TriNet’s all-in-one administration platform delivers streamlined, cloud-based HR and benefits. The goal is to give you more time to focus on your business while it takes care of your employees and guides your company through an HR system. With over three decades of experience and 340,000 employees, TriNet offers a user-centric design and integrated toolset to assist your workers in their benefits and onboarding process.
It’s a certified PEO accredited by the ESAC. TriNet uses an HR Plus system to simplify HR, payroll, and compliance for small-sized businesses. The three-click payroll process syncs your data, ensuring fewer errors and faster processing. It offers expert support to you and your team in monitoring time attendance, pay runs and taxes, collaboration and engagement, performance management, updating alerts, and recruiting new talent. The system’s dashboard is easy to use, allowing you and your employees to save time by quickly accessing information.
Key Features
| Benefits Administration | Offers medical, dental, and vision plans, and pet insurance. |
| Assists with life insurance plans with coverage options, employee discounts, and perks, and health reimbursement accounts. | |
| It provides a health savings account, telemedicine, commuter benefits, 401(k) retirement plans, and short- and long-term disability options. |
5. ADP TotalSource
ADP TotalSource provides solutions for companies of all sizes. As a leading PEO, it offers comprehensive benefits while outsourcing many administrative functions. The business started by providing payroll services and branched into HR sourcing. It now features HR tools to monitor your team’s time attendance and workforce management, recruiting and hiring processes, group health insurance, business insurance, wage garnishment, and more.
ADP offers a payroll and HR platform to meet the needs of any-sized business. For small businesses, they offer a web-based solution called RUN, powered by ADP, to handle the details of business payroll, HR, and hiring.
ADP uses an all-in-one platform called ADP Workforce Now for medium-sized businesses. The platform covers 50+ employees for payroll, HR, talent management, time and benefits administration, and also provides expert support for data-driven insights.
The Adapt Lyric HCM solution connects over 1,000 people worldwide by providing onboarding, organization, employee management, compliance tracking and reporting, payroll processing, global compliance, flexible pay options, and more. Using ADP TotalSource, the PEO assists between five and 250 employees with HR guidance, benefits, payroll support, and more.
Key Features
| Benefits Administration | The PEO prepares plan design, carrier relations, open enrollment, and employee communications options that are customized to your needs. |
| Offers integrated technology for your benefits administration with leading payroll and financial systems. | |
| Provides a platform that makes it easy for employees to navigate, add dependents, and manage life events through their mobile device or the website. |
6. Paychex
Paychex is a cloud-based platform that allows companies to store their data in a centralized system. The management solution handles payroll, benefits, human resources, and insurance services. Paychex’s mission is to combine digital HR technology and advisory services to help employers attract and retain talent. The company believes businesses should provide affordable benefits and gain access to capital. The goal is to provide these services so companies can be more productive, efficient, and engaged.
Its all-in-one technology helps employees save time by providing access to a mobile self-service. This assists your business in preparing for continuity planning and protecting employee health and safety. Its team of compliance experts monitors changes to federal, state, and local laws to ensure that your business remains compliant as it grows. Having Paychex manage these changes and adapt them to your operation gives you more time to focus on growth and industry learning.
The platform offers continuous support to simplify the technology and service solutions needed to run your business. It also provides proactive support in disaster planning to ensure employers can pay their employees and ensure their safety, regardless of the situation.
Key Features
| Benefits Administration | It provides 401(k) and retirement plan services and health insurance plans. |
| Offers dental and vision insurance and other voluntary benefits. | |
| Provides lifestyle benefits like home and auto insurance and legal assistance. |
7. BambooHR
BambooHR uses a customer-centric approach. Since its inception in 2008, the platform has aimed to empower HR professionals, employees, and organizations by simplifying time-consuming tasks and allowing businesses to focus on supporting their teams, thriving in their roles, and focusing on other needs.
The company uses a cloud-based HR platform to automate transactional processes and monitor data. BambooHR’s user-friendly interface helps employees easily navigate the software, saving them time and effort. The platform provides a fully connected HR system to streamline your operations, helping you make informed decisions and support your employees’ growth through data and information.
The HR ecosystem has 150 partner apps, which are integrated into one interface. Your business can access it through one login and will adapt as your company grows. Because the system is accessible worldwide, it takes pride in protecting customer data using a zero-trust model. Your HR team can access essential data from their device anytime, simplifying the hiring process.
Key Features
| Benefits Administration | BambooHR provides centralized data to manage your benefit plans and employee data. |
| The platform is fast and accurate, automating benefits enrollment and approvals. | |
| You’re still in control of exporting enrollment data or giving brokers access to your profile. |
8. Namely
Namely is an HR platform that caters to small and mid-sized companies. It supports these businesses because of its drive and client-centric approach, which aligns with its vision. It believes that employee experience is how companies are built, so the aim is to give you the best service so you can provide your employees and clients with quality offerings.
The company saves the average client 11 hours weekly. It states this is used for payroll, benefits, and all other tasks in sync, giving your company more time for different tasks. Namely handles core HR needs, such as HR Platform, recruiting, onboarding, and payroll. It also offers prebuilt integrations with a growing roster of partners, giving you access to multiple systems.
Through Namely’s HR tools, you can gain insights from data, understand your business and employees holistically, access your workers’ KPIs whenever you need them, track analytics and identify foreseeable issues, and customize your HR data to meet your needs.
Key Features
| Benefits Administration | Namely provides unified benefits, HR, and payroll data. |
| You have access to an open enrollment dashboard. | |
| The company provides employee support and easy plan configurations. |
9. Rippling
Rippling is a data model that captures details about your employees, such as their roles, tenure, and location. This information is then linked to Rippling’s products and third-party applications to improve the company’s and employees’ relationships through processes and systems. Using this method, Rippling develops context to understand your employees’ infrastructure and goals. When correctly implemented, the system can free up to 90% of your time on HR tasks.
The company boasts platform capabilities by using an employee graph to automate work and generate insights on your business and employees. These shared patterns are customized and integrated into one platform, which is used across all applications because the tool is built to provide an infrastructure. Rippling uses over 600 integrations, including Carta, PayPal, 1Password, Yubikey, and more.
Rippling is one of the best benefit administrators for small businesses because it can run your payroll in 90 seconds. It automatically calculates and pays your taxes, syncs benefits with payroll deductions, and manages all employee benefits in one place. When onboarding new hires, Rippling invites them to enroll in benefits and helps them navigate the best plans for themselves and their families.
Key Features
| Benefits Administration | Allows employers to keep existing plans and pricing, and improves them. |
| Offers assistance for medical insurance. | |
| Provides dental and vision insurance, among other benefits. |
10. BenefitMall
BenefitMall is an online platform that provides payroll, benefits, HR, and compliance services to employers so they can run their teams effectively. As a PEO provider, its goal is to manage the company using a single source for state unemployment, workers’ compensation, tax reporting, recruiting, risk management, and small-business development.
The platform offers three product services: Carrier Product Search, Non-Medical and Voluntary Benefits, and Value-Added Products and Services.
BenefitMall offers small businesses over 200 carrier partners to assist with health insurance products, from dental and vision to voluntary and worksite products, with their Carrier Product Search service. They also offer non-medical and voluntary benefits, providing additional insurance products for your employee benefits package, which also increases the business’s commission.
BenefitMall helps small businesses administer tax plans to employees. They provide insight into federal and state regulations and HR problems with value-added products and services. Webinars are offered through the compliance center so you can stay updated on current healthcare legislative regulations.
The company provides a simple, seamless, and secure system to digitize your enrollment experience and allow you to manage your employees in one secure location.
Key Features
| Benefits Administration | Offers enhanced performance metrics to increase group retention rates. |
| Provides expert support through benefits administration consultants who share their years of extensive knowledge. | |
| Uses Agency Workspace to manage employee enrollments and reduce manual data entries. |
Choosing the Right Partner for Long-Term Success
Choosing a benefits administrator is a strategic decision that directly impacts your business, employee retention, operational efficiency, and bottom line. Assess your company size and goals before choosing a partner. By selecting the right benefit administration platform, you’re setting your company’s infrastructure up for success.
