The plans differ on one axis only — the returns your firm processes. Every one of them includes unlimited internal users and unlimited clients. Each price is a twelve-month term: prepay the year for the lower total, or spread it across twelve payments. The whole credit pool is available at the start of the term either way.
For firms above 3,500 returns, or high-volume teams that need flat pricing. Above 3,500 returns — or if a per-return meter is the wrong shape for your practice — we price flat against your actual mix of federal, state, and entity work rather than counting credits.
* One return credit. One return credit is consumed when a unique federal taxpayer or entity workspace for a tax year reaches its first production review package or export/handoff event. Associated state returns, repeated exports, document reprocessing, corrections before finalization, prior-year documents used only for comparison, and K-1 output from an entity workspace are all included in that one credit. An extension-only engagement consumes no credit until the production return workflow begins; an amendment after a finalized original return consumes one additional credit; an owner's separate 1040 is a separate credit from the entity return; test, demo, sandbox and deleted pre-production records never consume a credit. Credits belong to the term, not the tax year, and the full allowance is available at the start of the term under both payment options — the schedule changes, the allowance does not. Prepaying costs less in total; paying across twelve months costs more and buys the same credits.
Beyond your credits, work never stops during filing season — additional returns bill at the rate shown on your plan, and the rate falls as the plan grows. We notify you at 70%, 90%, 100% of your allowance so the bill is never a surprise. Upgrading always beats accumulating overage: 390 returns makes TaxScout Firm cheaper than TaxScout Solo plus overage, 1140 makes TaxScout Practice cheaper, and 2804 makes TaxScout Volume cheaper. We tell you when you cross one rather than letting overage pile up quietly.
Team members and clients are unlimited on every plan. AI assistant included under fair use; document extraction and classification are unmetered. E-file for supported returns is included on every plan; firms can instead export approved data to their existing tax software.
How we protect your client data and ensure IRS audit-readiness
Free, unlimited 7-year retention in line with IRS recordkeeping best practice, with current-year records kept on fast storage and older records in an off-site encrypted archive.
90-day grace period to export all client archives in bulk ZIP format (full PDFs + structured data).
Leaving the platform? Keep your entire client history securely stored and accessible in read-only mode for 7 years — stay fully audit-ready without maintaining your subscription.
Competitors price per seat; TaxScout prices per firm. Your tenth team member costs the same as your first — $0 extra.
| TaxScout | TaxDome | Canopy | Karbon | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| How it is metered | Per firm, by returns processed | Per seat | Per seat | Per seat |
| Published price | $470–$1430/yr for the whole firm | $800–$1,200/seat/yr (1-year term) | $74/user/mo (billed annually) | $59/user/mo (billed annually) |
| Team members included | Unlimited | Entry plan: 1 member | Billed per seat | Billed per seat |
| AI Extraction | Classification + extraction | Not available | Not available | Not available |
| 7-Year Retention | Extra cost | Not available | Not available |
Its entry plan, Essentials, is limited to a single team member. TaxDome figures read from their published pricing on 2026-07-31; Canopy and Karbon from their pricing pages on 2026-08-01. We do not publish estimated totals for a firm of N people — those are extrapolations, not published prices.