For small businesses with fewer than 100 employees, offering great benefits can feel like a constant trade-off. You want to stay competitive and take care of your people, but you’re also working with tighter budgets and leaner teams. That’s why it helps to know what other companies like yours are doing. 

The SMB Edition of Sequoia’s 2025 Benefits Benchmarking Report breaks down how small companies are approaching healthcare, wellbeing, leave, and retirement this year. Below, we’re sharing a few standout insights to help you see where you’re ahead, where there’s room to grow, and what to consider as your plan evolves.  

Healthcare Benefits: Containing Costs by Fine-Tuning Existing Plans 

Cost control is still a priority in 2025. Instead of making sweeping changes, many employers are adjusting their existing plans to better manage healthcare expenses.

Here’s what that looks like in practice: 

  • While 47% of employers are focused on managing healthcare costs, only 14% are increasing both employee contributions and cost sharing. 
  • Most companies haven’t yet taken steps to improve affordability for employees — 73% report not implementing strategies like salary-banded contributions, narrow networks, or value-based care models.  
  • While 33% are phasing out low-value programs, bold innovation in plan design is still uncommon.  

Wellbeing Benefits: Stability Now, Innovation Later? 

Companies are largely holding steady on wellbeing, focusing on emotional and physical support while selectively testing new programs that are starting to gain traction.

Here’s what that looks like in practice: 

  • 77% of companies are maintaining current wellbeing offerings. Only 19% are expanding benefits, and 4% are scaling back. This signals a preference for stability over bold changes.  
  • Most wellbeing programs lack dedicated funding, which limits their potential to grow. Just 32% of companies have a standalone wellbeing budget, while others rely on carrier funds (25%) or ad-hoc approvals (24%). 
  • Only 10% of companies offer a lifestyle spending account (LSA), but adoption has more than doubled since 2024. Category-specific LSAs, focused on things like fitness or childcare, are growing faster than broad, all-inclusive options. 

Leave Policies: Less About Perks, More About Process 

Companies are reworking their leave strategies to strike a balance between administrative efficiency and workforce support. They’re streamlining operations while making only selective policy changes.  

Here’s what that looks like in practice: 

  • Most companies are holding steady on leave. Only 11% plan to add or expand policies to support talent attraction and retention, while 89% say no changes are planned. 
  • Compliance and administration drive most decisions. 60% cite compliance as their top challenge, and 49% say reducing administrative burden is their top priority. 
  • Paid leave is still heavily reliant on short-term disability (STD). While 74% structure parental leave through STD with top-ups, only 15% offer full employer-paid leave, and 71% stop paid leave once STD coverage ends. 

Retirement Plans: Progress on Matching 

Retirement plans are evolving, with more companies adopting automation and offering employer matches.  

Here’s what that looks like in practice: 

  • 49% of companies now offer a match (up from 46% last year), and 10% of those increased their match rate in the past 12 months. 
  • Automatic enrollment continues to gain traction: 61% of companies use it, but only 22% include auto-increase features, which can help employees build long-term savings. 
  • 48% allow part-time employees to take part in retirement plans.  

Want More Insights from the Report? 

The full benchmarking report is only available to survey participants and those who meet with us for a complimentary benefits benchmarking exercise, but you can see even more data from the report by downloading the Sneak Peek version.  

Complimentary Benefits Benchmarking 

Get an experienced Sequoia advisor to benchmark your benefits against the data in the full benefits benchmarking report at no cost. Reach out to an advisor to get started.  

Related story:
2025 Benefits Benchmarking Report: Highlights for Mid-Size Companies

2025 Benefits Benchmarking Report: Highlights for Enterprise Companies

Dylan Hughes — Dylan has more than 7 years of experience delivering market insights on compensation and benefits with a primary focus on benchmarking. He leads the market insights program at Sequoia, which provides the latest analytics, market trends, and benchmarking data.