Independent by design.
Built for small business.
We're a team of HR and retirement professionals who answer to one group — the small businesses we serve. No product affiliations. No kickbacks. Just honest, flat-fee work.
Independence isn't a tagline.
It's the whole model.
Most firms that administer retirement plans or advise on HR earn commissions, referral fees, or revenue-share from the products they recommend. That's a quiet conflict of interest — and it's the one we were built to avoid.
Inde was founded in 2006 in Lake Oswego, Oregon on a simple premise: a small business should be able to hire expert HR and retirement help without wondering which hidden incentive is shaping the advice. We take no commissions. We take no product fees. We take a flat monthly subscription from the client, and that's the only place our paycheck comes from.
Twenty years later we support more than 600 small and mid-sized businesses — most of them in Oregon, but increasingly across the country as our cloud-based delivery model has let us serve clients from Maine to Hawaii. What started as a one-office retirement TPA has grown into two specialized sub-brands — IndeHR for HR services and Independent Retirement for retirement plan administration — united by the same independent model and the same team-based support.
We're still headquartered in Oregon. We still know our clients by name. And we still answer to exactly one group: the business owners who hire us.
The people who
run the place.
A small, credentialed leadership team split across our two sub-brands — each with deep experience in their domain and a direct line to the clients they serve.
Colleen Windham
Director of Retirement Plan Services
Why Inde
Independent professionals.
Not another software subscription.
Ruthlessly independent
No affiliations, no kickbacks, no product incentives. Our only revenue comes from the clients we serve — so our advice is always in your interest.
Dedicated support
Every client gets a named point of contact backed by a full team — not a ticket queue, not a chatbot, not a rotating help desk.
All-inclusive flat-fee pricing
Whether it's HR services or retirement plan administration, you pay a predictable monthly fee that covers the work. No nickel-and-diming for routine work — ever.
Built for small business
We work exclusively with small and mid-sized businesses. Our services, pricing, and team are built around the way you actually operate — not scaled down from an enterprise model.
Real results, real reviews.
Questions we hear
all the time.
If something is not answered here, reach out and we will get you a straight answer — no sales pressure.
About Inde What does "independent" actually mean in your name?
It means we have no affiliations with investment providers, fund companies, or recordkeepers, and we take no commissions or revenue-share. Our only source of revenue is the flat monthly subscription our clients pay us, which means the advice you get is the advice we think is best for your business — not the advice that pays us the most.
About Inde How is Inde different from IndeHR and Independent Retirement?
Inde is the parent brand. IndeHR is our HR services sub-brand, and Independent Retirement is our retirement plan administration (TPA) sub-brand. Many clients work with both, but you can engage either one on its own. Both operate under the same independent, flat-fee, team-based model.
About Inde Where is Inde based, and do you work with clients outside Oregon?
We are headquartered in Lake Oswego, Oregon with eight local offices across the state. Our delivery is cloud-based, so we actively support small businesses in dozens of states. If you prefer a local team you can meet in person, our Oregon offices are available — but geography is not a constraint.
HR Services When should a small business hire an HR partner?
Most of our HR clients come to us somewhere between 10 and 50 employees, when informal HR processes start breaking down and compliance risk becomes real. If handbook updates, termination conversations, or employee relations issues are landing in your lap at 11pm, that is usually the signal.
HR Services Do you replace our existing HR person?
We can, but most often we augment an in-house generalist with specialized expertise — employment law guidance, compliance reviews, handbook development, termination support, and escalation help. We scale to your team, not the other way around.
HR Services Is IndeHR a PEO?
No. PEOs co-employ your workforce and typically bundle payroll, benefits, and HR at a premium. IndeHR is an outsourced HR advisory and administration model — you keep your own EIN, your own payroll, and your own benefits, and we provide the expertise on top. That usually costs substantially less and gives you more control.
Retirement Plans What kinds of retirement plans does Independent Retirement administer?
401(k), Safe Harbor 401(k), profit-sharing, cash balance, defined benefit, and combo plans. We handle plan design, adoption agreements, nondiscrimination testing, Form 5500 filings, required amendments, and participant support — all under one flat monthly fee.
Retirement Plans What happens if the IRS audits our retirement plan?
We engage the IRS directly on your behalf. IRS representation is included in our flat subscription fee — it is not a billable extra. Most TPAs will not make that commitment, which is one of the main reasons clients switch to us.
Six cities.
One local team.
Headquartered in Lake Oswego with deep expertise across every major Oregon and SW Washington market. Your city, your compliance rules, your workforce — handled.
Work with a team that
actually likes this stuff.
Inde is a small, credentialed team that takes pride in doing the unglamorous work well. No sales quotas, no product pressure — just HR and retirement professionals who want to help small businesses succeed.
See all open rolesCurious whether the independent model
fits your business?
Free 30-minute conversation. No pitch deck. No obligation. Just a straight answer about whether we can help.