Why am I getting a mutual fund cheaper than the fund ticker symbol?

I am a new 401K investor. My 401K provider is through company x but they also offer funds through company a, b,c etc. . One of the funds I invest in are in company a and the fund is an R3 class. I found the actual ticker to the fund through morningstar and noticed the price per share is around $36 but I am getting them for around $14 per share through company y. Why is this?

I know the funds are the same. I have looked at the prospectus at both morningstar (way more detailed) and through company x who handles my 401k. All main points match perfectly to the percentage, the investments,etc.

It's probably a class of the fund, not the exact same one. A lot of 401ks have funds available from various mutual fund companies that are derived from a certain mutual fund but might be slightly different. An example would be American Funds, which outside of a 401k are loaded funds, they are sold with a sales charge, however you might have one of these you can contribute to in your 401k, it is virtually identical but you won't have to pay the sales charge.

There are all kinds of examples to this, other plans have institutional funds that are only available in that specific plan. GM has the promark funds only available in their 401k, they are not publicly available.

Also this happens with company stock, when it is unitized. In a 401k it will be a stock fund that has a unit price which will be different from the share price. You own units of the fund, which is comprised of shares of the stock and a small percentage of cash, which allows for 1 day settlement as opposed to 3 day settlement. There are many more examples like this, so it helps.