Why I Started Paidly

The Paidly Story is simple: we wanted to stop losing good people to student debt.

Years ago, I ran a technology company that built out software for companies like Chime Bank, Bestow, and Earnest. We were small and scrappy and very proud of the team we'd built. We couldn't outspend bigger competition, so instead we found talented, hungry people early in their careers, trained them, and watched them grow.

Much too often, we also watched them leave.

When asked what would make them stay, the answer was a bigger 401(k) match. So we raised our match and saw that almost nobody used it.

That’s because to get a match, you have to contribute first, and our people didn't have the extra money to set aside. Their paychecks were going to student loans before anything else. One of our employees couldn't buy the car he needed. Another couldn't afford to move into a two-bedroom apartment. Yet another told me he couldn't afford to get married.

We needed to stop student debt from making decisions for our employees

None of our employees lacked ambition – they were simply all stuck under student debt. Too often, that meant looking for a higher salary elsewhere, even when they didn’t want to leave their job with us.

We’d been offering retirement savings to people still struggling to get through their twenties. So instead, we started helping them pay down their student loans.

Through a student loan repayment benefit, one of our employees paid off his student loan three years early. And he never left. Johnny is still with me today at Paidly.

That was the moment it really clicked. We hadn't handed Johnny a raise that would disappear into rent and groceries and day-to-day life. We’d lightened the burden weighing on him most, and he answered with years of loyalty. For a small business (heck, for any business) that’s a return we can’t replicate any other way.

We’d always said our employees are our greatest resource and Johnny showed us what that truly means in practice.

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The solution was surprisingly simple: Section 127

We weren't the only ones losing great people to student debt. Every business owner we talked to was facing the same problem we had: student debt was making decisions for their employees, forcing them to put off cars, apartments, weddings, children, and retirement.

The tools to address the student debt issue already exist. Section 127 of the tax code lets employers contribute up to $5,250 a year toward an employee's student loans, tax-free for both sides.

Any employer can offer the benefit, but most don't. Why? Because running student loan assistance on your own is a major headache. You have to track every loan, pay every servicer, and keep it all compliant – we learned that firsthand.

So we built the tool we wish we'd had, and that was the beginning of Paidly.

Student loan repayment is the benefit for a modern workforce

My co-founders and I started Paidly around the simple idea that any employer should be able to do for their people what we did for Johnny. Not only that, but anyone should be able to set up the benefit in days rather than quarters. With Paidly, there's no need for HRIS integration or a new department to manage the benefit. Contributions go straight to loan servicers or 529 plans, and employees feel the impact right away.

Today, our clients see employee retention rates at 92%. That's Johnny's story, repeated across dozens of workplaces.

Student loan repayment assistance is the new necessity. In the 1940s, employer healthcare went from a perk to an expectation in a single generation. The 401(k) did the same thing a few decades later. I believe student loan repayment is next. More than 40 million Americans carry student debt, and they're choosing employers based on who helps them get out from under it.

Taking care of your people is the best investment a business can make. Big companies figured that out a long time ago. Paidly exists so everyone else can too.

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