401kHunter vs Judy Diamond: A Sourced, Side-by-Side Comparison

Source: 401kHunter pricing, Judy Diamond store, and Retirement Plan Prospector+ product page (as published, read 2026-10-05).

People type "401kHunter vs Judy Diamond" — or "Judy Diamond vs 401kHunter" — when a 401(k) prospecting budget has narrowed to two very different answers: a self-serve tool that prices every click, and a long-standing incumbent that sells a research suite by the seat. We build a third product, FiduciarySignal, labeled as ours near the end, so every vendor fact below links to the vendor's own page and the date we read it.

401kHunter vs Judy Diamond: the short answer

Choose 401kHunter if you want to look before you pay and buy data in small, targeted amounts. Search is free without an account, signup adds 50 credits with no card required, and Pro is month-to-month. Its homepage organizes the product around three jobs — takeover opportunities in plans that already file, businesses that need a startup plan, and rollover leads — so it reaches past existing plans.

Choose Judy Diamond if you prepare for sponsor meetings as much as you prospect. Its Prospector+ product page describes Plan Score Cards against national, state, industry, and size peers; "over a dozen" red-flag plan characteristics; one-, three-, and five-year plan financials; pre-generated talking points; a dozen approach letters; and a report builder — lead to leave-behind, on a flat annual price instead of a meter.

Source: 401kHunter homepage, 401kHunter pricing, and Retirement Plan Prospector+ (as published, read 2026-10-05).

Side by side: what each vendor publishes

Source: 401kHunter pricing, FAQ, methodology, and homepage; Judy Diamond store and Prospector+ product page (as published, read 2026-10-05). The store's state and regional prices did not render for our reader on 2026-10-05, so we have not printed them.

What each one actually costs

Both companies publish real dollar figures; they just price different units. 401kHunter prices the *unlock*: 10 credits for a plan's financials and fee analysis, 30 for a decision-maker contact, 20 for a direct phone line, and 30 for a plan-signer contact, with failed lookups refunded automatically. One-time credits are 10¢ each with a 250-credit minimum (1,000 credits are $100); Pro is $100/month for 1,500 credits that roll over, or $1,000/year with 18,000 credits up front. Judy Diamond prices the *seat and territory*: single-user accounts by state, region, or country, with the National Edition at $3,900/Year and $750 a year as the product page's starting point.

Source: 401kHunter pricing and FAQ; Judy Diamond store and Prospector+ product page (as published, read 2026-10-05).

The arithmetic on those published numbers: a plan's financials plus its decision-maker is 40 credits, or $4 at the one-time rate, so the $3,900 national seat equals 975 such unlocks. That is not apples to apples — the seat includes benchmarking, letters, and reports, and you will not unlock all the plans you search — but it shows where the line sits. Light, targeted use favors the meter; heavy, territory-wide use favors a flat seat, or 401kHunter's Pro tier, where its pricing page puts credits under 7¢ each.

Source: 401kHunter pricing and Judy Diamond store (as published, read 2026-10-05).

Data: the same public filings, counted differently

Neither side has a private data source. Both start from the Department of Labor's Form 5500 filings. 401kHunter's FAQ claims "over 1 million active U.S. retirement plans" across Form 5500 and 5500-SF; Judy Diamond's product page claims "800,000+ retirement plans," and its store lists 953,666 for the National Edition. The counts are not measured the same way, so do not choose on the bigger number — ask each to pull your own county and compare the lists.

Freshness is the same constraint for both. Sponsors generally file on the last day of the seventh month after the plan year ends and can extend with Form 5558, per the IRS Form 5500 Corner; 401kHunter's FAQ says its most recent year is typically 12 to 18 months old, refreshed monthly. The Judy Diamond pages we read did not state a refresh cadence. And per 401kHunter's methodology page, plans with fewer than 100 participants generally file no Schedule C, so small-plan provider detail is thin in any tool built on these filings.

Source: 401kHunter FAQ and methodology; Prospector+ product page; Judy Diamond store; IRS Form 5500 Corner (as published, read 2026-10-05).

Contacts and exports

This is the cleanest practical difference. On 401kHunter a contact is a line item, paid in credits. Its methodology page says it finds the person responsible for the plan through licensed business-contact providers, checks that person against the sponsor's company domain, and returns a confidence score — "a probability, not a guarantee." Judy Diamond folds contact information into the subscription, with a CRM-Friendly Export to "upload any of our plan data and contact information into your other databases smoothly." 401kHunter's CSV export comes with Pro, up to 250 unlocked plans per request. If your workflow ends in a CRM import of a whole territory, price that path on both.

Source: 401kHunter methodology, pricing, and FAQ; Prospector+ product page (as published, read 2026-10-05).

Where Judy Diamond is the stronger choice

• A complete meeting-prep workflow. Score cards, red flags, benchmarking, talking points, approach letters, and a report builder sit in one product.
• Depth of filtering. Its product page claims 500+ advanced search fields — real surface for someone who knows exactly what they are filtering for.
• A predictable annual cost. One seat, one territory, one price, and no meter to watch during a heavy month.
• A free trial of the full product. The Prospector+ page invites you to start one.
• A wider catalog from the same company. Its login page also lists a directory of third-party administrators, a group insurance directory, and FreeERISA.

Source: Prospector+ product page and Judy Diamond login (as published, read 2026-10-05).

Where 401kHunter is the stronger choice

• Search before you pay. Fee grades, plan size, location, and sponsor name are visible with no account.
• A low entry cost. $25 of credits is the minimum purchase, and credits never expire.
• Month-to-month Pro. Cancel from billing settings; its FAQ calls the monthly plan "the closest thing to a trial."
• A fee screen you can check. Its methodology publishes the A–D cut-offs — A at 0.5% of assets or less, D above 1.5% — and says fund expense ratios sit outside the grade.
• Startup-plan and rollover prospecting in the same product as takeovers.

Source: 401kHunter pricing, FAQ, methodology, and homepage (as published, read 2026-10-05).

A third option: when the question is which plan to call first

Both tools are good at telling you what a plan looks like and who to contact. FiduciarySignal, which we build, starts from a different question: which plans in your territory are most likely to change providers, and so deserve this week's calls? Weigh this section with that in mind.

It is two tools on the same public filings. The 401(k) Report Card grades a plan from its own Form 5500 against comparable peers — administrative cost, participation, red flags, provider roster — and shows the Form 5500 signer's contact details. The Change Predictor ranks the plans in your territory most likely to change providers, back-tested against the next year's Form 5500 filings and strongest at the top of the list: likelihoods, never certainty about any single plan. Flagged plans carry talking points and a merge-ready email drawn from their own filing.

FiduciarySignal's pricing is published and self-serve: $90 a month after a 7-day free trial (card at checkout), or $900 a year billed today with no trial. FiduciarySignal does not offer free search, startup-plan prospecting, or rollover lead lists, and CSV exports come with the annual plan only. For the deepest research suite, Judy Diamond has the longer feature list; to pay per contact, 401kHunter is cheaper to start. Some advisors pair one of them with a ranking layer. Full terms are on our pricing page.

Related guides

• 401kHunter: Pricing, What It Does, and a Fair Comparison
• Judy Diamond Associates: Prospector, Pricing, and a Fair Comparison
• FreeERISA vs Judy Diamond: The Free Search and the Paid Prospector, Compared