10 Years of Bnchmrk: Lessons from a Decade of Data

Ten years ago this month, we launched Bnchmrk with 900 employers across 7 markets and a simple belief: benefits professionals deserved better data.

A decade later, we've grown to over 10,000 employers and 73,000+ verified plans. We cover all 50 states. We serve thousands of consultants, brokers, and HR teams. And we're still independently owned, still bootstrapped, still focused on the same mission.

Here's what we've learned along the way.

Lesson 1: Independence Matters

When we started Bnchmrk, we made a deliberate choice to stay independent. No venture capital. No carrier partnerships that might compromise objectivity. Just angel investment from people who believed in what we were building.

That independence has been our greatest asset. We've never had to chase growth metrics at the expense of data quality. We've never had to compromise our recommendations to please an investor or partner. Every decision we make is about serving the consultants and employers who rely on our data.

Lesson 2: Data Quality Beats Data Quantity

The temptation in our industry is to chase scale—more records, bigger numbers, impressive statistics. We've watched competitors buy datasets, scrape the web, and aggregate survey responses to inflate their counts.

We took a different path. Every plan in our database traces back to an actual employer document. Every data point runs through our validation engine. We've rejected data that didn't meet our standards, even when accepting it would have boosted our numbers.

That discipline has paid off. When consultants present Bnchmrk data to a client, they know it's defensible. When HR teams use our benchmarks to make decisions, they're building on a foundation they can trust.

Lesson 3: Listen to Practitioners

We didn't build Bnchmrk in a vacuum. Every feature we've shipped—from state-level filtering to contribution modeling to plan scoring—came from conversations with the people using our platform every day.

Benefits consultants told us national averages weren't specific enough. So we built granular geographic filtering. HR teams told us they needed to model scenarios before committing. So we built contribution modeling. Advisors told us they needed a quick way to communicate competitiveness. So we built plan scoring.

The best product decisions come from listening, not guessing.

Lesson 4: The Industry is Ready for Change

When we started, we weren't sure if the market would embrace a new approach to benchmarking. Surveys had been the standard for decades. Relationships with the big research firms were entrenched.

But benefits professionals were hungry for something better. They knew the limitations of survey data. They felt the pain of outdated reports and broad averages. They were ready for an alternative.

That readiness gave us permission to build something different. The market didn't need convincing that the old way was broken—they just needed a better option.

What's Next

Ten years in, we're more energized than ever. The platform we've built is the foundation. The dataset we've assembled is the asset. Now we're focused on extracting more value from that foundation—better insights, faster workflows, more actionable recommendations.

This year alone, we've expanded stop-loss benchmarking and we're launching plan scoring and contribution modeling. We've deepened our data across every plan type we cover.

And we're just getting started.

To the consultants, brokers, and HR teams who've trusted us over the past decade: thank you. You've shaped this platform. You've pushed us to be better. And you've proven that there's a market for doing things the right way.

Here's to the next ten years.