Benefits administration software compared

Benefits administration software lets employees choose health, dental, vision and other coverage online, keeps track of who is eligible for what, and passes the resulting elections to insurance carriers. The eight products on this page each handle online enrollment, connect to carriers or set up plans for the employer, and track eligibility. We read every price, or the lack of one, on the vendor's own website on November 4, 2026, and each product page links to the pages we used. All figures are in US dollars, and carrier availability, plan rules and state requirements depend on where the employees live.

What a benefits administration system does

A small employer can run benefits with a broker, a spreadsheet and a paper form. The work gets harder as headcount grows, because every change has to reach every carrier correctly. Someone is hired, someone marries, a dependent ages out, an employee drops from 35 hours a week to 25. Each event changes who is covered, what they pay and what the carrier should bill.

Three jobs sit at the center of the category. Enrollment is the employee-facing part: choosing plans during open enrollment, adding a spouse after a life event, or waiving coverage. Carrier connections move those elections to insurers, usually as electronic files or through an API, so that coverage starts on the right date. Eligibility tracking decides who can enroll in the first place, using class, hours worked and waiting periods.

Payroll deductions and compliance reporting depend on the same data. A premium taken from a paycheck should match what the carrier bills. An ACA form should show the coverage the employee was actually offered. When these records live in different systems, the mismatches show up later as billing disputes and penalty letters.

The rules that shape the software

Three federal rules explain most of the compliance features in this category.

The Affordable Care Act's employer shared responsibility provisions apply to an employer with an average of at least 50 full-time employees, counting full-time equivalents, in the prior calendar year. The IRS treats an employee as full-time when they average at least 30 hours of service a week, or 130 hours a month. An employer that does not offer coverage to at least 95% of its full-time employees may owe a payment if even one of them receives a premium tax credit. The IRS lists the 2024 amounts as roughly $2,970 and $4,460 per employee for the two types of payment, with base amounts of $2,000 and $3,000 that are indexed each year.

Those employers also report to the IRS. Form 1095-C is filed and furnished for any employee of an applicable large employer, covering all twelve months of the year. Software helps because the form depends on hours, offers and enrollment for each month, and those facts sit in different places.

ERISA governs private-sector health plans. It requires plans to give participants information about plan features and funding, sets fiduciary duties for those who manage plan assets, and requires a grievance and appeals process. Plans report annually on Form 5500, which the Department of Labor, IRS and Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation developed together.

COBRA generally applies to group health plans sponsored by employers with 20 or more employees in the prior year. It lets employees and families keep coverage after events such as job loss or reduced hours, and the qualified person may have to pay up to 102% of the plan's cost. Notices and elections carry deadlines, and that is the reason many platforms add COBRA administration.

Not every product here handles all of this itself. Benefitfocus and PlanSource describe ACA reporting and COBRA services, and BerniePortal includes COBRA administration in its one published edition. Other vendors say less, so ask each one which forms it files for you and which it only prepares.

Two ways to buy

The first group sells to brokers, or through them. Employee Navigator describes its plans as designed for brokers of all sizes, and Ease says insurance brokers pay for its subscriptions while employers go through their broker. An employer in this group often never sees a price, because the broker supplies the system alongside the insurance. The question to settle is what happens to your data and your enrollment history if you change brokers.

The second group sells directly to employers. BerniePortal, Namely, PlanSource, Selerix, Benefitfocus and Paychex Benefits Administration all invite the employer to request a quote or demo. Paychex adds a twist: its page says Paychex Insurance Agency can provide the platform at no additional cost when it helps an employer find a benefits provider.

How carrier connections differ

A carrier connection is the difference between an enrollment that lands in the insurer's system on its own and one that someone re-keys. The vendors describe it in four ways.

PlanSource says its Boost Carrier Integration Program connects carriers through APIs and replaces weekly file feeds with real-time exchange. It also describes a Plan Configuration API that pulls plans, rates and rules from carrier systems, and says that API is live with Guardian, MetLife and Mutual of Omaha. Its page shows 18 carrier logos for the Boost network and gives no total.

Ease sells three connection types. For EaseConnect+ carriers, Ease reviews, sets up and maintains the connection. For EaseConnect carriers, it supports the broker through setup. It also sends eligibility data for medical, dental, vision and pharmacy benefits through 834 files, and its published carrier list says it tops 100 carriers.

Benefitfocus says its setup includes EDI builds, file integration and reconciliation, and that it supports and helped design the LIMRA LDEx standards for file-based and API-based exchange. Selerix describes a library of established file feeds and API integrations as an alternative to manual feeds.

Employee Navigator says it connects directly to insurance carriers, payroll companies and third-party administrators, and it prices one connection type separately. 834 EDI feeds are not included on Enhanced, cost $0.45 per employee per month on Enhanced Plus and Elite, and are free on Platinum, with a footnote that additional fees apply. Ask any vendor whether each additional carrier connection is billed.

BerniePortal and Namely give less detail. BerniePortal says employee elections flow directly to the carrier and that its operations team completes plan buildout in about three business days. Namely lists electronic carrier connections as a feature without saying how many carriers or what kind. Paychex says it connects with hundreds of national and regional carriers.

Eligibility and ACA tracking

Eligibility rules are where small differences in software show up. A company might give full-time staff coverage on the first of the month after 30 days, offer a cheaper plan to part-timers who average 30 hours, and carry different contributions for salaried and hourly classes.

BerniePortal lets an employer set different plans, contributions and eligibility rules for each subgroup, such as class, location or department. Namely says it automates eligibility rules, deductions and data flows. Paychex says admins can stay on top of eligibility tracking, enrollment forms and benefit changes.

The ACA adds a harder problem for variable-hour workforces. Employee Navigator says its tool uses the look-back measurement method to track hours, lets admins set measurement, stability and administrative periods, and generates 1094-C and 1095-C forms. Selerix says it automates variable-hour eligibility tracking using measurement and stability period logic. Benefitfocus lists data review, eligibility and affordability calculations, IRS filing and state mandate reporting among its ACA services, and notes that several states, including California, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Rhode Island, require additional state-level reporting.

Ease charges separately for ACA forms: its FAQ gives $6 per employee per form per year for 1095 B and C forms. BerniePortal's compliance page mentions ACA only in a note about standard notices, so a company that must file 1095-C forms should ask what BerniePortal does about them before relying on it.

What it costs

Only two of the eight vendors publish a usable price, and the figures are not comparable.

BerniePortal's Starter Edition costs $5 per employee per month plus a $25 monthly base fee, and includes recruiting, onboarding, benefits, compliance and COBRA administration. For 50 employees that is $275 a month at list price. Its PTO, time, performance and payroll add-ons are priced on request.

Namely's pricing page says pricing for NamelyNow starts at $9 per employee per month. The comparison table on that page shows the benefits administration module starting at NamelyPlus, which has no published price, so $9 is not the cost of benefits administration at Namely. The page says managed services are priced by complexity, modules and services, and that contract terms run from month to month up to 3 years.

Employee Navigator, PlanSource, Selerix, Benefitfocus and Paychex publish no plan prices. Ease publishes add-on prices but not its subscription tiers. Quote-only pricing is normal for this category, but it makes the first call more important. Ask for the price per employee per month, the one-time implementation fee, the cost of each carrier connection, the cost of ACA forms, and whether open enrollment support is included.

Security claims

Benefits data includes dependents, Social Security numbers and health plan choices, so security statements matter. PlanSource's Trust Center lists SOC 2 Type 2, ISO/IEC 27001:2022 and HIPAA. Benefitfocus says its SOC 2 Type 2 controls are assessed annually and that HITRUST assessments are completed every two years. Employee Navigator states annual audits against SOC 2 Type II, HITRUST and GDPR, though a separate section of the same page lists SOC 2 as Type III, so request the current report. Selerix says it has completed a SOC 2 audit.

Ease, BerniePortal and Paychex name no certifications on the pages we checked. That does not mean they hold none. It means a buyer should ask for the report before signing.

Limits of this comparison

We did not test any of these products, and every capability here comes from the vendor's own pages. Several vendors we looked at are missing because we could not read their pricing or product pages from a plain request: Gusto and Justworks returned an access error, and Paylocity returned no content. Rippling and BambooHR already appear elsewhere on this site under HR suites. A vendor is on this page only if its public pages describe all three must-have capabilities: online enrollment, carrier connections or plan setup, and eligibility tracking.

What to test during a trial or demo

• Ask the vendor to show a new hire's enrollment from invitation to carrier confirmation, and time each step.
• Enter a mid-year life event, such as a birth, and check the date the system sets for coverage and payroll deductions.
• Ask for the list of carriers connected for your state and group size, and which of them receive files and which receive API calls.
• Request a sample ACA measurement report for a part-time employee who averages close to 30 hours a week.
• Ask in writing what happens to your enrollment history, carrier connections and payroll deductions if you leave, and what it costs to export them.