AdvizorPro vs FreeERISA: Paid Plan Intelligence or a Free Form 5500 Search?

Source: FreeERISA product page and AdvizorPro PlanPro (as published, read 2026-10-05).

Comparing AdvizorPro with FreeERISA is a little like comparing a research subscription with a public library card. Both get you to the same government record. One adds a great deal on top and prices it privately; the other gives you the record and asks only for a registration. Neither is the wrong choice. They answer different questions for different people, and the fastest way to pick is to be honest about which question is yours. We build FiduciarySignal, a competing product, so each fact below links to the page we read it on.

AdvizorPro and FreeERISA, in one paragraph each

FreeERISA is a Judy Diamond Associates product. Its page says it "provides free access to all form 5500s filed with the Department of Labor over the past two years," across "2.6 million Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) Form 5500s, covering 1.3 million plans and 1 million plan sponsors," including 401(k), pension, life and health plans. It launched in 1999 and names financial planners, insurance professionals, legal professionals and business consultants as its users. www.freeerisa.com now redirects to freeerisa.benefitspro.com.

AdvizorPro is a sales-intelligence company whose homepage leads with "Find and Win More RIA & Family Office Clients" and "750,000+ Verified RIA and Family Office profiles." PlanPro is its retirement-plan data set, listed under Datasets as "Defined Contribution." The PlanPro page promises "deeper plan intelligence, richer contacts, and high-value targeting across 780,000+ retirement plans" and addresses "Sales and Distribution Teams."

Sources: FreeERISA product page, advizorpro.com and AdvizorPro PlanPro (as published, read 2026-10-05); direct HTTP request to www.freeerisa.com (301 redirect, 2026-10-05).

AdvizorPro vs FreeERISA, side by side

Sources: AdvizorPro PlanPro, AdvizorPro homepage, AdvizorPro demo page, a direct request to advizorpro.com/pricing (HTTP 404) and the FreeERISA product page, including its "3 levels of access" table (as published, read 2026-10-05).

What you are actually paying AdvizorPro for

The Form 5500 itself costs nothing. FreeERISA gives it away with a registration, and the Department of Labor publishes the full annual data sets on its Form 5500 Datasets page, with no fee or login mentioned for the downloads (read 2026-10-05). So a paid product earns its price only through what it adds.

AdvizorPro is explicit about that. PlanPro says it extracts "key contacts, investment menus, and provider insights beyond the standard Form 5500." Three additions stand out: investment menus pulled from audited filings, so you can target plans "by fund lineup and share class details"; enriched contacts for decision-makers, fiduciaries and administrators; and service-provider mapping of recordkeepers, TPAs and advisors, with filing alerts when plans file or change. For an asset manager trying to get a fund on a menu, those additions are the whole case. For an advisor who needs to read three filings a month, they are cost without use.

Pricing follows the buyer. AdvizorPro does not publish a PlanPro price, and the route in is a demo, after which its demo page offers a free trial of unstated length. That is a normal enterprise data purchase. FreeERISA, by contrast, asks for nothing but a sign-up, and its one published upgrade is the $59.95 Deluxe tier, whose billing period the page does not state.

Source: AdvizorPro PlanPro, AdvizorPro demo page and FreeERISA product page (as published, read 2026-10-05).

Where each one is stronger

• FreeERISA: cost. Zero, with a registration. For one filing, once, nothing is cheaper.
• FreeERISA: breadth of plan types. Health, life and other benefit plans sit beside retirement plans, which suits insurance and consulting work.
• FreeERISA: odd filings. Form 5310 and Top Hat filings, and non-qualified deferred compensation lookups on Deluxe, are rarely surfaced elsewhere.
• AdvizorPro: fund-menu detail. Investment lineups by fund and share class, extracted from audited filings.
• AdvizorPro: contacts and CRM. Enriched plan contacts, plus a platform that syncs with Salesforce, HubSpot and Dynamics.
• AdvizorPro: alerts. Updates when plans file or change, so the record comes to you.

A third option: FiduciarySignal

Bottom line: a lookup tells you what a plan filed, and a rich data platform tells you more about it. Neither one, on the pages we read, ranks the plans in your territory by how likely they are to change providers. That ranking is what FiduciarySignal is built to produce. Disclosure: it is ours.

Sponsors move often; the hard part is knowing which ones before the decision is made. FiduciarySignal's Change Predictor ranks the plans in your territory most likely to change providers, back-tested against the next year's Form 5500 filings. It is strongest at the top of the list, so work it top-down; it is never a certainty about any single plan. The 401(k) Report Card grades any plan from its own filing against comparable peers, with red flags and the provider roster, and each flagged plan arrives with talking points, a ready outreach email and the Form 5500 signer's contact details.

Sources: FreeERISA product page and AdvizorPro PlanPro (as published, read 2026-10-05). FiduciarySignal terms are on our pricing page.

Its limits: fund lineups are not a feature we publish. FiduciarySignal does not cover health or life plans, and does not send new-filing alerts; saved territories get weekly digests instead. CSV export is on the annual plan. It is built on public DOL EFAST2 data and is not affiliated with the Department of Labor.

Which should you choose?

Choose FreeERISA if your lookups are occasional, you want to spend nothing, or you need benefit-plan, 5310 or Top Hat filings. Choose AdvizorPro if you lead a distribution team that sells funds or services into plans and needs menu detail, contacts and CRM sync, with budget for a demo-led purchase. Choose FiduciarySignal if you are the advisor making the calls and want your territory ranked by who is most likely to move, at a price you can read before talking to anyone.

Related guides

• AdvizorPro PlanPro: What It Is, Who It Is For, and What It Costs
• FreeERISA: What It Covers, What Deluxe Costs, and When Free Runs Out
• Free 401(k) Prospecting Tools: What Each One Gives You, and the One Job None of Them Do