What do Capitalize and Beagle charge to find and move an old 401(k), and can I do it free?

By Kaz · Published 6 October 2026 · How this site checks figures

Summary

Capitalize charges you nothing; it says it is paid by its IRA partners when you open an account with one of them. Beagle's home page doesn't state a price for its search, and its advisory arm, Beagle Invest, lists a $3.99 monthly subscription in a disclosure dated June 2, 2026, which is $47.88 a year. The search part can be done free: the Department of Labor says it "does not charge a fee to recover funds," and state unclaimed property offices are free to search. What these services add is someone else making the phone calls and filling in the forms.

Who pays whom

Route	What you pay	Who else pays	What it does	What it leaves to you
Capitalize	$0	IRA providers on its platform, if you open an account with one	Locates the old plan, manages the rollover "from start to finish"	Choosing the IRA and its investments
Beagle	No price on its home page for the search; Beagle Invest advisory accounts $3.99 a month	Not stated	Tracks down old 401(k)s, shows their fees, offers a rollover	Checking whether the subscription applies to you
DOL Retirement Savings Lost and Found	$0	Taxpayers	Lists private-sector plans tied to your Social Security number	Contacting each plan and doing the rollover
State unclaimed property offices	$0 to search	—	Shows money turned over to the state	Filing a claim in each state
The old plan and the new IRA provider	Whatever the plan charges to pay out	—	The actual rollover	The paperwork

Prices are from each organization's own pages, checked October 6, 2026.

How Capitalize gets paid

Capitalize's home page says, "We find, consolidate, and roll over your retirement savings into one account — for free," and "We get paid by our IRA partners if you choose to open a new account." Its FAQ repeats the point: "If you choose to open up an IRA with one of the providers on our platform then we may be compensated." The same FAQ says it will also move the money to an IRA you pick yourself: "We can still help you transfer your 401(k) into the IRA you want."

So the rollover costs you nothing through Capitalize either way, and its pay comes from the IRA provider when you pick one from its platform. One partner shows the arrangement from the other side: SoFi sends its IRA customers to Capitalize for 401(k) rollovers and says "SoFi and Capitalize will charge no additional fees to process a 401(k) rollover to a SoFi IRA." The same page adds, "SoFi is not liable for any costs incurred from the existing 401k provider for rollover." That last point applies whichever route you take: the old plan's own payout fee, if it has one, is yours.

What Beagle's disclosure says

Beagle's home page describes the steps (sign up, Beagle tracks down old 401(k)s, you see their fees, you roll over "with one click") but no price. The regulatory disclosure for Beagle Invest, LLC, filed with the SEC as a Form CRS dated June 2, 2026, lists "$3.99 per month," billed "monthly, in advance," for its advisory service, plus prime broker, wire and electronic transfer charges and the expenses of the ETFs in its portfolios. The form covers Beagle Invest's advisory accounts. Whether the search alone carries a charge isn't stated on either page, so ask before signing up.

When a flat monthly fee costs more than a percentage

A subscription doesn't shrink with the balance. Example: $47.88 a year is the same dollar amount as a 0.25% annual fee on $19,152. Below that balance, the flat fee is the larger one; on $5,000 it is 0.96% a year. Kept for 10 years, $3.99 a month adds up to $478.80. The SEC's bulletin on subscription advisory fees gives its own example, a $3 monthly fee on a $500 account, and says that's "more than 7% of the account's value." It tells investors to "do the math" before signing up.

Doing the search yourself

The Labor Department's Retirement Savings Lost and Found covers private-sector employer and union plans, not IRAs or government plans. Its site warns, "You should not provide payment to anyone claiming they can recover funds on DOL's behalf." USA.gov sends people to state unclaimed property offices, with a note to check every state you've lived in. For a pension from a plan that ended, it points to the PBGC's search. The order to work through these, starting with your own W-2s is on a separate page, along with the Form 5500 search that gives you a plan's exact name.

If a former employer moved a small balance into an IRA without asking you, the money is in an IRA with its own fee schedule; small-balance automatic rollovers explains what those accounts can charge.

The cost that lasts longer than the search

Any of these routes ends with your money in an IRA, and that account's fees run for as long as you hold it. The comparison of rollover IRA providers lists what to ask, and the transfer-out fees at each broker show what leaving later would cost. If you'd rather hand the paperwork to someone else, Capitalize's free rollover service is the service described above.

Sources

Written by Kaz, an independent publisher.
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