The Principal^® Difference: Understanding Fees

When comparing retirement plan providers, it's important for you to understand your program's fees and the value you get in return.

We support clear and meaningful fee disclosure for our comprehensive service package. We'll help you understand what's included in the total cost, so you can make a well-informed decision.

We support clear fee disclosure to help you understand what's included in the total cost, so you can make informed decisions.

What retirement plan fees pay for

There are two main categories of expenses covered by retirement plan fees:

Investment expenses
Plan administrative services

Investment expenses

These refer to the cost of offering and managing investment options.

Plan administrative services

These refer to the day-to-day administrative services and recordkeeping of the retirement plan not already covered by the investment expense. These may include services like:

Setting up and tracking participant retirement accounts in the retirement plan
Daily updates to retirement account balances
Printing, mailing and online access to retirement plan statements
Telephone and online access

Flexible pricing structure

Fees can be calculated and collected in a variety of ways. We'll provide you with fee payment options so you can determine what makes the most sense for your organization.

If your program has special requirements, your retirement plan financial professional can help provide different service and pricing options.

We offer a comprehensive service package, and when you decide to take advantage of an optional service, we'll tell you about additional fees before any charges are incurred so you can make an informed decision.

Fees for optional services

If you decide to take advantage of an optional service, we'll tell you about additional fees before any charges are incurred so you can make an informed decision.