Introduction: two leaders, two paths

If you’re in the TPA world, you’ve heard PensionPro for years. Stax.ai is the newer, AI-powered platform built specifically for TPAs. Both promise smoother operations and better sponsor collaboration—but they get there differently.

For the bigger landscape, start with our Best CRM for TPAs guide. Here, we’ll go deep on daily experience, not just feature lists.

Stax.ai gives you a TPA-specific CRM with clients, plans, advisors, custodians, payroll providers—plus a Smart Inbox that pulls in sponsor communications so tasks and context stay together.

PensionPro also understands the TPA data model and has mature tasking, but it’s more traditional—great if your team already works like its templates.

Plan Sponsor portal: make everyone's lives easier

Stax.ai ships with a white-label Client Portal (see the Stax.ai CX Platform) for payroll connection management, distribution requests, secure uploads, forms, e-signatures, guided tasks, and contribution workflows. It feels like a dashboard your sponsors will actually use.

PensionPro’s PlanSponsorLink handles document exchange and census collection through a web port and Excel files—a “by-the-book” approach many firms appreciate.

However, upon conducting surveys from plan sponsors and plan advisors who transitioned to Stax.ai's Client Portal, 89% indicated that they preferred Stax.ai's solution.

Payroll & census: the real time-saver

Stax.ai connects to most major payroll providers via API (partnered with Finch and Payroll Integrations) and standardizes native payroll report file uploads with document AI. You skip the messy clean-up and pass validated data forward.

PensionPro supports intake through its portal and templates, but you’ll still rely more on internal review to standardize and validate. PensionPro has also partnered with Finch, Payroll Integrations, and 7 Simple Machines to integrate their payroll integration capabilities into PensionPro's CRM. This still requires TPAs to pay separately for these solutions and PensionPro doesn't manage the connections.

Automations & workflows: less chasing, more doing

Stax.ai uses event-driven automation tied to plan cycles—RMD reminders, year-end notices, and task creation that just happens. Additionally, Stax.ai's solutions let you use its AI-assisted automations and AI agents to perform tasks on behalf of users, saving countless hours.

PensionPro provides robust task templates and scheduling. Still powerful, just more setup and ongoing coordination on your side. PensionPro excels in providing a system to track workflows, but lacks on automating the workflows.

See this topic in the BenefitsLink forum about Key Differences Between PensionPro and Stax.ai in Workflow Automation.

Trust accounting: one less system to manage

Stax.ai includes Trust Accounting (see the Stax.ai Trust Accounting Product page): statement processing, balances/transactions surfaced alongside plan records.

PensionPro does not have any trust accounting products. TPAs using PensionPro either use Stax.ai for Trust Accounting (can be purchased separately without the CRM/CX) or perform this task manually.

Side-by-side (what it means day-to-day)

• Time to census: Faster with Stax.ai because of payroll APIs + AI file standardization.

• Plan Sponsor response rates: Improve with both; Stax.ai’s guided tasks often reduce back-and-forth. Response times are monitored for each client by Stax.ai CX.

• Plan Sponsor satisfaction: Higher with Stax.ai CX with a has proven average 29% increase in plan sponsor satisfaction within 90 days of implementation.

• Admin overhead: Lower with Stax.ai’s automation; PensionPro’s templates keep teams consistent.

Bottom line: which should you pick?

If your firm loves templates and is happy pairing with other tools for payroll, census, and trust, PensionPro is a safe, familiar pick. As of the end of 2024, PensionPro has had hundreds of TPAs using them.

If you want one modern platform that handles CRM, portal, payroll/census, automation, and trust accounting without duct-taping systems together and want to quickly scale up business while automating manual tasks and maximizing your operational efficiency, Stax.ai deserves a hard look.