Benefits Decoder

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We're here to help you understand your benefits

Benefits Decoder exists for one reason: so that everyone can understand what their health coverage actually means for them, and choose it with confidence instead of guesswork.

Why we exist

Every year, millions of people pick a health plan they were never really given the tools to understand. The guide is forty pages long, the deadline is short, and the language was written for insurers rather than for the families covered by it. So most people choose whatever they chose last year and hope it works out. That guess can quietly cost hundreds or thousands of dollars.

We didn't think that was acceptable. Your benefits are part of your pay, and you deserve to know exactly what you're getting and what it will cost you. Benefits Decoder was built to translate your own benefits documents into plain English and show you, with the math laid out, what each option would really mean for your household.

How we help

Browse the free guides

How we make money

One payment$24 covers you and your spouse: both guides, plus re-runs when HR sends a better document. No subscription, no account, no upsell.
No commissionsWe do not sell insurance and take no commission or referral fee from any insurer, broker or plan.
No selling dataWe do not sell or share your information, and we do not run ads.

Nobody pays us to point you toward a particular plan, so the answer you get is simply the one the math produces.

Where the numbers come from

Two sources, and nothing else. The plan figures come from your own benefits documents — the guide or Summary of Benefits and Coverage you upload, paste or type in. The rules and annual limits come from primary government sources: the IRS, CMS, the Department of Labor and the Federal Register.

Guides and articles are published by Benefits Decoder Editorial and cite the underlying document. Dated figures are reviewed whenever the issuing agency publishes new ones, and every article shows the date it was last checked.

What we will never do

Plan details are governed by the official plan documents. When numbers conflict, the plan documents win. Read the privacy policy.

Who we are

Benefits Decoder is built and operated by Decoder Labs LLC, which also publishes the Benefits Decoder app for Android on Google Play. We are independent: not owned by, affiliated with, or endorsed by any insurer, broker, employer or benefits administrator. Nobody outside the company has a say in what our tools calculate or what our guides say.

If something here is unclear or you think a number is wrong, please tell us. Corrections make the next person's decision better.

Questions, corrections and press: support@benefitsdecoder.com

Note: we are not affiliated with any similarly named service.

Ready to see your own numbers?

Compare every plan in your benefits guide, or start with the free calculators.

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