Method

How StackWatch verifies software prices

Where each figure comes from, how it is checked, and what we leave out.

Updated October 11, 2026

StackWatch records the list prices of the software that accounting firms and their clients use, and the history of how those prices have changed. This page explains where each figure comes from, how it is checked, and what we leave out. If a figure on this site is wrong, tell us (see the end of this page) and we will check it against its source.

What we mean by a price

A list price is the price a vendor publishes for a plan, in US dollars, excluding tax, optional add-ons, per-transaction fees and promotions. Vendors often show a promotional price beside the list price (“50% off for three months”, “first month free”). We record the list price and treat a promotion as a promotion, because promotions come and go without any price change. The guide on telling a price increase from a promotion explains why this matters.

Where prices come from

1. The vendor’s own pricing page, read every day. StackWatch has read each of the 14 vendors’ pages on 30 days since September 12, 2026. Where a page draws its prices with JavaScript or hides them behind a toggle, we read it in a browser view; otherwise we read the page text. A price change counts only when the new price shows on two consecutive reads, or when the vendor announces it.
2. Vendors’ own announcements and help pages, such as partner notices and product-update pages.
3. Trade press, such as Accounting Today, CPA Practice Advisor, Insightful Accountant and The Progressive Accountant.
4. Review and comparison sites, which often keep dated prices that vendors no longer show. These are the least authoritative sources, and each row says which one it came from.

How a historical figure is checked

Each historical price starts as a candidate: a figure found in a dated, linked source, with the plan, price, date and billing basis written down. A second, independent pass then opens the cited source again and checks that the page really says what was recorded. The pass returns a verdict for each candidate:

• Confirmed: plan, price and date match the source. These appear without a mark.
• Partly confirmed: the price and date match, but something else could not be confirmed. A † means the source does not say what the price is charged per (month or year, per user or per company); these figures are never compared with prices on a different basis. A § means the cited page does not name a country or currency. A ‡ means the old price is not stated and we worked it out (see below).
• Not confirmed: left out.

Of 354 candidate records collected from public sources, 215 passed and appear on this site: 184 price records, which are also in the downloadable data, and 31 plan or policy changes that carry no price figure. The rest were dropped because the source could not be confirmed, the figure was ambiguous or too weak to rely on, or it duplicated another record.

The records that passed come from 94 distinct sources published by 35 organisations. By record: 77 from review and comparison sites, 71 from trade press, 67 from the vendor’s own pages and announcements.

What we leave out

• Archived or cached copies of pages. We could not use them, so every figure is linked to a live or dated source.
• Single-source claims we cannot corroborate when a mistake would mislead, for example a discount reported by one trade article and not on the vendor’s page.
• Prices we cannot map to a plan. Some pages (tax-software configurators, for instance) show several prices for one product without saying which price belongs to which edition. We show those prices without edition labels, or leave them out.
• Promotions, taxes, add-ons and per-transaction fees.
• Prices in other currencies and regions. This site is about US prices.

How changes and percentages are calculated

• A price change needs a date and a new price. When the source also gives the old price, we show it. When it gives only the new price, we use the previous verified price of the same plan and billing basis as the “before” figure, only if that price is less than 18 months older, and mark the row ‡. When it states the size of the increase (“increase by $1 per month to $13”) but not the old price, the “before” figure is the new price minus that increase, also marked ‡.
• Percentages compare list prices only. What a plan includes can change over time, so we do not compare two readings whose stated allowances differ (for example, a plan that listed 5 users in one source and 30 users in another).
• Compounded yearly rates are shown only when the starting date is known to the month and the period is at least two years.
• Tax software is reported by several publishers that define a package differently (returns included, states, list price or promotion). We keep one table per publisher and never subtract a figure in one table from a figure in another.
• The number of changes we show is a floor, not a count of every change: vendors rarely publish old prices.

How to read the charts

On the vendor history pages that have a chart, solid lines mark a price level between two dated sources, dashed lines mark a stretch where no source documents the price or the step between two dates, and each ring is a dated data point (hover or tap for the source detail). A plan that is no longer on the vendor’s page ends at the label “last seen” with its date.

First-party rows

Rows marked first-party are StackWatch’s own reads of the vendor’s pricing page. For a vendor announcement with an effective date, we show that date and the day we first saw the new price on the page. Where the vendor states no effective date (SmartVault’s October 2026 increase), the date shown is the day we first saw the new price, and the row says so.

Limits

StackWatch is a small, independent project. It is not affiliated with any vendor named here; product names belong to their owners. Pages change, sources disappear and we can misread a page. This is information only, not tax, legal or financial advice: check the vendor’s page before you quote or buy.

Corrections

If you see a wrong price, a wrong date or a missing source, email obekheet+stackwatch@gmail.com with the page and the source. We re-check the figure and fix or remove it. The downloadable data lets you check every row yourself.