Last Updated on September 17, 2026
Finding
IRIS Elements publishes no price for any of its practice management tiers while the challengers publish everything, Capium from £140 a month and BrightManager from £42.63 + VAT per user, Whito found reading the vendors’ own pricing pages in September 2026.
Source: Whito, whito.co.uk/for/accountants/best-software-for-uk-accountants, September 2026. Free to quote with a link to this page.
Accountants price other people’s decisions for a living. The software market that sells to them splits cleanly into vendors that publish a price grid and vendors that want a discovery call, and the split is not random: the challengers publish, the incumbents do not.
The mistake is starting with the incumbent’s demo because that is what the last firm you worked at used. Start with the published grid, cost the stack, and make everything else beat it.
The published stack
Every figure read on the vendor’s own page on 2 September 2026.
| Tool | Published price | VAT | Source, read 2 Sep 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|
| TaxCalc | Full per-client grid: practice management from £9 (up to 5 clients), tax return production from £187, accounts production from £164; most products billed annually | Excluding VAT, stated | taxcalc.com/pricing |
| Capium | Suite £140 (to 100 clients), £280 (to 300), £420 (to 500) a month, unlimited users; modules £20 to £167 | Excluding VAT, stated | capium.com/pricing |
| BrightManager (was AccountancyManager) | £42.63 or £57.85 a user a month, or £409.25 / £694.26 a year | Plus VAT, stated | brightsg.com |
| GoProposal | £75 to £255 a month by proposal volume; AML add-on £39 to £89 | Excluding VAT, stated | goproposal.com/pricing |
| IRIS Elements AML | £250 a year for 30 clients up to £4,578 for 3,000; checks £3.75 to £25 each | Not stated | iris.co.uk AML pricing page |
| Digita (Thomson Reuters) | Starter pack from £54 a month for 10 users on desktop, £98 hosted, introductory offer for new customers | Not stated | tax.thomsonreuters.co.uk |
| Xero partner programme | Free to join, free Xero subscription for the practice | n/a | xero.com/uk/partner-programme |
| QuickBooks Online Accountant | Free to join | n/a | quickbooks.intuit.com/uk |
| FreeAgent | Free for clients banking with NatWest, RBS, Ulster or a primary Mettle account | n/a | freeagent.com/accountants |
The unpriced tiers
| Vendor | What its pages showed on 2 September 2026 |
|---|---|
| IRIS Elements Practice Management | All three tiers say contact us; the Essentials tier shows a £0.00 placeholder |
| Digita beyond the starter packs | Contact sales |
| Karbon | Publishes US dollar prices on the page as served; no pound figure shown |
Our wider software research found only 9 of 27 business vendors publish a genuine UK price in pounds. Accountancy is better served than most sectors, but the gap sits exactly where the switching costs are highest.
How to buy, in order
Start: cost your current stack per client per year. TaxCalc and Capium price per client band, Bright per user; know which shape fits your practice before comparing anything.
Build: assemble the published stack on paper. A sole practitioner can get practice management, tax and accounts production plus a free partner ledger platform with every number public.
Scale: if an unpriced incumbent is genuinely the right tool, fine, but get its number in writing against your published-stack total. You would tell a client to do exactly this.
The takeaway: in this market the price grid is the tell. The vendors that publish are pricing for comparison. The vendors that do not are pricing for the switch you will never make.
Common questions
Which accountancy practice software publishes UK prices?
The challengers publish everything: TaxCalc has a full per-client price grid (practice management from £9 for up to five clients, with most TaxCalc products billed annually), Capium publishes suite prices of £140, £280 and £420 a month excluding VAT, BrightManager from £42.63 plus VAT per user a month, and GoProposal from £75 a month excluding VAT.
What does IRIS Elements cost?
For practice management, IRIS does not say. On 2 September 2026 all three tiers on its practice management page said contact us for pricing, with the Essentials tier showing a £0.00 placeholder. The one IRIS Elements product with a published price list is its AML module, from £250 a year for 30 clients.
Is any of it free?
The partner programmes are. Xero’s partner programme is free to join with a free Xero subscription for the practice, QuickBooks Online Accountant is free to join, and FreeAgent is free for clients who keep a business current account with NatWest, RBS, Ulster Bank or a primary Mettle account.
How should a small practice choose?
Price the published stack first. A sole practitioner can assemble practice management, tax and accounts production from vendors with public price grids and free partner platforms, and know the total to the pound before any sales call. Then make the unpriced incumbents beat that number in writing.
Before you spend any of this, check what the machines can read
The free Whito Visibility Check runs seventeen checks on your practice website, scored out of 100, every result shown on the page, no email needed.
