Drake Tax
Full 1040 and business tax-prep suite — the high-volume, low-cost favorite of sole practitioners.
| Category | Tax Preparation |
|---|---|
| Best for | Solo firms |
| Pricing | From $2,145/yr · 16.3% share |
| Integration | Export only |
| Official site | www.drakesoftware.com |
How it connects. It has no public API; data moves in and out by file export. Compare every tool by integration openness →
Drake Tax pros and cons
Pros
- Flat annual price with unlimited returns — the cost story that built its following among small firms
- Fast forms-based data entry once learned; keyboard-driven preparers are notably quick in it
- All states included rather than sold per-state
- Support has a long-standing reputation for picking up the phone
- Bundles extras (Drake Accounting, tax planner) without per-module upsells
Cons
- Interface looks and feels dated next to cloud-native competitors
- Desktop-first: multi-office or remote work means hosting it yourself or paying a third-party host
- No public API — getting data out is an export exercise
- Thinner fit for complex multi-state entity work than Lacerte or UltraTax
Who Drake Tax is for — real-world scenarios
The 1040-shop that watches every dollar
A two-preparer firm running a high volume of individual returns with a modest fee schedule. Unlimited returns at a flat price means software cost per return approaches zero at volume — the classic Drake profile.
The firm leaving a per-return pricing model
Firms migrating off pay-per-return products often land here first: the total-cost math is easy to defend to partners, and the conversion tooling for common competitors is mature.
Bottom line
The value benchmark in professional tax prep. If your work is volume 1040s and straightforward entities — and you can live with a desktop product and no API — Drake is hard to beat on cost per return. Firms with complex multi-entity work or a cloud-only stack should look up-market.