Canopy lists three per-user tiers on annual billing: Standard at $74, Plus at $109 and Premium (marked coming soon) at $149 per user a month, plus a custom Enterprise tier. Extras are metered: Tax Workflow Automation from $34 per client credit, Close Automation at $10 per connected client a month, and Tax Resolution at $50 per user a month.
Seats are the small part of the bill for a tax-heavy firm. The credit line usually costs more than the subscription, and card fees add a third meter. Paying monthly instead of annually lifts the seat prices to $93, $136 and $186. Some older comparison pages claim Canopy shows no base price; the page I read in November 2026 did, so check the live page, and get every credit rate in writing because the headline figure is a "starting at" rate with volume discounts behind it.
Every price on the Canopy pricing page, in one table
This is what the Canopy pricing page lists for a firm that is not on the custom tier. The first three rows are per seat. Everything below them has its own meter.
| Item | List price | Charged per | What the page says |
|---|---|---|---|
| Standard | $74 ($93 billed monthly) | user a month, billed annually | CRM and client management, document management with e-signing, client portal and secure messaging, automated and recurring task workflows, invoicing and payments |
| Plus | $109 ($136 billed monthly) | user a month, billed annually | Everything in Standard plus user roles and access controls, more client intake capacity, advanced task views and filters, capacity planning and forecasting, custom reporting |
| Premium | $149 ($186 billed monthly) | user a month, billed annually | Labelled 'coming soon'. Everything in Plus plus advanced workflows and automation, advanced billing scenarios, deeper reporting and insights |
| Enterprise | Custom | quoted | Written for very large firms; the page itself says it is probably not for a firm under about 200 people |
| Tax Workflow Automation | from $34 | client credit, annual billing | AI intake, AI delivery with e-signatures, paywall and identity checks, live return status; volume discounts; five credits included in each plan, renewed each term |
| Close Automation | $10 | connected client a month, annual billing | AI scan of the ledger for issues, close status across clients; first five connections included |
| Tax Resolution | $50 | user a month, annual billing | Transcript pulling, notice tracking, form automation; volume discounts |
| Knowledge-based authentication (KBA) | $1.25 | KBA credit | Identity check before a client can open and sign documents |
| Card payments | 3.30% + $0.20 | transaction | Standard and premium cards shown at the same rate in every tier |
| ACH payments | 1% | transaction, capped at $10 | Same in every tier |
| AI Notetaker | Included | user a month, by tier | 8 hours on Standard, 12 on Plus, 16 on Premium; marked beta |
| AI Document Renaming | Included | Plus and Premium only | AI applies firm-wide naming rules to uploads; the comparison table shows a dash for Standard |
| Smart Tax Prep | Partner's price | partner plan, by return volume | Ticked on every tier; AI extraction and mapping through Filed, Byron or Juno, each on its own subscription |
Two things are missing from that list on purpose. The page shows no price for Canopy Coworker, the AI layer that plans and runs multi-step work, and it carries a beta label. Smart eSignature Fields (AI that finds and fills signature, date and text fields) is also beta, with no separate price, and the comparison table ticks it only on Plus and Premium. If either matters to you, ask whether it will stay free once it leaves beta.
Seat, client credit, connected client: three meters
A seat is a person with a login. Your seat cost moves when you hire or let someone go. A client credit is tied to the number of clients you push through Tax Workflow Automation, so it moves with your client list, not your headcount. A connected client is a client whose books are linked so Canopy's Close Automation can scan the ledger and report book health. That meter moves with the number of bookkeeping clients you take on, and it ticks every month.
Two practices with identical staff can sit at opposite ends of the price range. A five-person firm that prepares 80 complex returns pays mostly for seats. A five-person firm that prepares 500 simple returns, and runs every one through the automation, pays mostly for credits. When you compare Canopy with another platform, compare the meter that matches how you earn, not the headline seat price.
The credit is better defined than the headline "credit/client" suggests, once you read the FAQ at the foot of the pricing page. One credit gives unlimited use of Tax Workflow Automation (Smart Intake and Smart Delivery) for one client for the rest of the subscription term, extensions and re-deliveries included. It is drawn the first time you use the AI on that client: generating a questionnaire or document checklist with AI, sending a questionnaire with "Pre-Fill with AI", or creating a tax delivery task. Questionnaires and checklists you build and send without AI never use one. The five included credits sit in each plan's column, and notetaker hours are the only allowance marked per user. What the page leaves open is whether a married couple counts as one client or two, and whether an owner's business return draws a second credit. Canopy's 15 July 2026 launch announcement, as reported by CPA Practice Advisor, described Tax Workflow Automation as a bundled intake and delivery package with Smart Prep alongside and gave no pricing, so the household question goes first on your call.
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Buy nowA five-seat practice priced line by line
Take a five-person practice that does tax work for 300 clients, keeps books for 25 of them, and has one person handling notices and transcripts. It wants the Plus tier because it needs separate permissions for preparers and reviewers. All figures are illustrative, at list rates, with the five included credits and the first five connections subtracted.
| Line | Quantity | Unit price | Annual cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Plus seats | 5 users | $109 a month | $6,540 |
| Tax Workflow Automation | 295 paid credits (300 minus 5 included) | $34 | $10,030 |
| KBA credits | 120 e-signed returns | $1.25 | $150 |
| Close Automation | 20 paid connections (25 minus 5 included) | $10 a month | $2,400 |
| Tax Resolution | 1 user | $50 a month | $600 |
| Total before payment fees | $19,720 |
The seats are $6,540 of that, about a third. Tax Workflow Automation is $10,030, just over half. That is the line volume discounts act on, and each 10 per cent off the credit rate is worth about $1,003 a year here. If a salesperson offers a free month on the subscription instead, the saving is about $545, so you can see which concession is worth more.
Per seat, the bill is $3,944, which sounds steep against a platform priced at a flat seat rate. Per client it is about $66 (the $19,720 spread over 300 tax clients), and the 25 bookkeeping clients are buying a second service that you presumably already bill for. That comparison is the fairer one: what does each client cost to serve on the platform, and what do you charge them?
Three other firm shapes at list rates
The same arithmetic for firms with a different shape. These are illustrations; real quotes will differ once discounts and term lengths come in.
| Firm | Seats | Add-ons | Annual total at list |
|---|---|---|---|
| Solo preparer, 150 clients | 1 Standard: $888 | Tax Workflow Automation, 145 paid credits: $4,930 | $5,818 (about $38.79 a client) |
| Same preparer, automation on only 60 complex clients | 1 Standard: $888 | 55 paid credits: $1,870 | $2,758 |
| Four-seat practice, 600 clients | 4 Plus: $5,232 | 595 paid credits: $20,230; 200 KBA credits: $250 | $25,712 (about $42.85 a client) |
| Bookkeeping-led firm, 40 clients | 6 Standard: $5,328 | Close Automation, 35 paid connections: $4,200 | $9,528 |
The second row is the useful one. A solo preparer with 150 clients does not need AI intake for the client who sends one wage statement and a bank letter. The 60 clients who send forty documents each are where AI checklists and file matching save real minutes. Splitting the client list this way cut the add-on from $4,930 to $1,870 in the sum above, and the FAQ makes the split practical: a credit is drawn only when you first use the AI on a client, so clients handled with plain questionnaires never touch the meter. The page does not say whether extra credits come in fixed blocks, so ask. One catch on a Standard seat: the comparison table ticks AI Document Renaming (firm-wide naming rules) only on Plus and Premium, so if renaming is the main draw, confirm what Standard gets before you choose it.
The four-seat practice shows the reverse. At 600 clients the undiscounted ceiling is over $25,000, which is exactly why you ask for a volume rate and compare against TaxDome's seat-based pricing, where the cost does not move with client count. The bookkeeping-led firm lands at $8.75 per connected client a month on average ($350 a month over 40 clients), which is the number to set against what you charge for monthly review.
Payment fees scale with invoices, not seats
Canopy shows card payments at 3.30% plus $0.20 and bank transfers (ACH) at 1% with a $10 cap, the same in every tier. Run both on a $450 tax-preparation invoice. The card fee is $450 × 0.033 + $0.20, which comes to $15.05. The ACH fee is 1%, or $4.50. Across 600 invoices of that size, cards cost $9,030 and bank transfers cost $2,700, a gap of $6,330 a year.
The cap matters at the other end. A $2,500 advisory retainer paid by ACH would be $25 at 1%, but the page caps it at $10. The same retainer on a card is $82.70. If your clients pay larger invoices, steering them to bank transfer in the engagement letter is worth more than any seat discount. Check whether your engagement wording lets you pass the card fee on to the client, and whether that is allowed where you practise. Ask a qualified adviser rather than guessing.
Whether 8, 12 or 16 notetaker hours is enough
Canopy's AI Notetaker joins meetings, records and transcribes them, and writes an accounting-aware summary linked to the client record. It is marked beta, and the pricing page gives each user 8 hours a month on Standard, 12 on Plus and 16 on Premium. In a busy month a preparer might hold 14 client calls of 35 minutes. That is 490 minutes, or 8 hours 10 minutes, so a Standard seat is ten minutes over before a single internal meeting is counted.
The page does not say what happens at the limit: whether recording stops, or whether Canopy bills overage. Before you count the notetaker as free, ask for the answer in writing. If you already run Canopy's other AI features and a separate note-taking tool on your video calls, check whether the second tool makes the first redundant.
Does a $34 credit pay for itself in staff time?
Canopy's launch announcement, as reported by CPA Practice Advisor, claims Smart Intake saves 20 to 50 minutes per client. That is a vendor claim, not a measured result, but it gives you a break-even test. A credit at $34 pays back when the minutes saved, multiplied by what a minute of your staff time costs, exceeds $34.
| Staff time costs | Value of 20 minutes saved | Value of 50 minutes saved | Break-even minutes per client |
|---|---|---|---|
| $30 an hour | $10.00 | $25.00 | 68 |
| $45 an hour | $15.00 | $37.50 | 45 |
| $60 an hour | $20.00 | $50.00 | 34 |
| $80 an hour | $26.67 | $66.67 | 26 |
Read the table against your own rates. At $45 an hour the vendor's best case just clears the credit price and the low case does not, so the automation only pays for itself on clients who really are paper-heavy. At $80 an hour even the low case is close. The test covers intake and delivery, and the delivery half has its own vendor figure: Canopy's Smart Delivery FAQ says setting up a delivery by hand typically takes 30 minutes, which its AI populate step does in seconds. Add the delivery minutes you measure to the intake minutes before you compare the total with $34. Canopy also claims Smart Prep populates returns four times faster with up to 70 per cent less manual work, but that part runs through a preparation partner on its own subscription, so it is a separate sum. The only way to settle it is a pilot: time ten clients the old way and ten the new way, and compare minutes per client, not impressions.
Standard, Plus or Premium: what each step up costs
The gaps between tiers are $35 a user a month from Standard to Plus ($420 a year per seat) and $40 from Plus to Premium ($480 a year). For five seats that is $4,440 on Standard, $6,540 on Plus and $8,940 on Premium, so Standard to Plus adds $2,100 and Plus to Premium adds $2,400. The page does not say whether you can mix tiers across seats, so ask. If you can, the people who need roles and capacity planning (usually the owner and a reviewer) are the only seats that need to move up. Premium also carried a "coming soon" label when I read the page, so confirm it can be bought before you plan around it.
A realistic mistake shows why the definitions matter. A firm read "5 credits included" as five per user, budgeted for 275 paid credits instead of 295, and expected a bill $680 lower than the real one. The gap only showed up when the first invoice arrived. Nothing about the product was wrong: the comparison table lists the five credits in each plan's column, and the only allowance it marks per user is notetaker hours. Ten minutes with the table would have caught it.
Costs the price list leaves out
Five items sit outside the main sum, and the pricing page prices none of them.
- The preparation partner. Smart Tax Prep is ticked on every tier, but Canopy's Smart Prep page says each partner (Filed, Byron or Juno) needs its own subscription or plan, priced by partner and by the number of returns. Ask the partner for its rate at your volume and add it to the total.
- Your tax software. Smart Prep maps source documents into your existing tax software (Canopy names Drake, CCH Axcess, ProConnect and UltraTax as examples) and drafts returns for review. You still pay for that software.
- Unused credits. The five included credits renew each term. If you buy 300 and a quiet year uses 260, ask whether the other 40 roll over or vanish.
- Term and renewal. Get the contract length and the renewal uplift cap in writing. A three-year price that resets after year one is a different product.
- Your own time. Say setup takes 12 hours of an owner's time at $60 an hour. That is $720 before the first return, and it is the cost most often left off the spreadsheet.
Check a quote with an assistant, then fix what it gets wrong
Pasting your quote into a general assistant such as ChatGPT or Claude is a quick way to catch arithmetic slips, as long as you give it the pricing rules and no client data. Here is a prompt for that, with the kind of answer you might get back.
I run a five-person tax practice. Here are Canopy's published rules:
- Plus: $109 per user per month, billed annually
- Tax Workflow Automation: $34 per client credit, 5 credits included per term
- Close Automation: $10 per connected client per month, first 5 included
- KBA: $1.25 per credit
Quote: 5 Plus users, 300 clients on Tax Workflow Automation, 25 connected clients, 120 KBA credits.
Calculate the annual cost line by line and show the working. Flag anything in the rules that is ambiguous.An illustrative reply came back with Plus seats at $6,540 and KBA at $150, which are right. It priced the credits at 300 × $34 = $10,200, forgetting the five included credits, and it treated Close Automation as $10 × 25 × 12 = $3,000, forgetting the five free connections. Both slips are the sort that make a quote look $170 or $600 worse than it is. The fix is to tell the assistant explicitly that included units come off the quantity, then rerun. It also flagged whether "5 credits" is per firm or per user. The comparison table already answers that (five per plan, with no per-user label), so check the page before you spend a question on it.
A quote request you can send
This wording asks for the facts that change the total, in a form that is easy to answer line by line.
Subject: Canopy quote request: 5 seats, tax and bookkeeping
Hello [first name],
We are a five-person practice looking at the Plus tier. Please quote in writing:
1. Seat price per user per month on annual billing, and on a three-year term if available.
2. Tax Workflow Automation: price per credit at 150, 300 and 500 credits; whether extra credits are sold in blocks; whether a couple or an owner plus their business counts as one client or two.
3. Whether purchased credits that go unused roll over to the next term.
4. Which Smart Prep partner suits our return mix, and what that partner charges at our volume.
5. Close Automation for 25 connected clients: is the first-five allowance per firm?
6. Notetaker: what happens when a user passes the monthly hours.
7. Any onboarding or data-migration charge, and the cap on renewal price increases.
8. Whether Premium can be bought now or is still coming soon.
Thank you,
[your name]If the reply comes back with a credit rate below $34 at your volume, the saving is easy to size. At a hypothetical $29, the 295 paid credits in the main example cost $8,555 instead of $10,030, a difference of $1,475 a year. At that point the seat tier barely matters.
Where to trim without losing the AI features
Start with the meter that dominates your bill, which for most tax-heavy firms is the credit line. Use automation on the clients who send the most paper, as the solo-preparer sum showed. Standard may cover you: the Plus bullets that matter in tax season are user roles and access controls, more client intake capacity and capacity planning. If none of those solves a problem you have today, price Standard first and ask what moving up mid-term costs.
Count seats honestly. Each seat is $888 to $1,788 a year depending on tier, so a part-time reviewer who logs in twice a month is a decision, not a default. Push bank-transfer payments for large invoices. Keep the tier you can justify to a client in one sentence. Then compare the final number to the alternative on the same basis, using the side-by-side in Canopy vs TaxDome for tax-heavy practices and the broader comparison with a general assistant.
One last point on timing. The toggle on the page says annual billing saves 20 per cent, and the monthly figures behind it are $93, $136 and $186 a user. One Standard seat paid monthly comes to $1,116 a year against $888 paid annually, a $228 difference; five Plus seats come to $8,160 against $6,540, a $1,620 difference. Buying annually is cheaper, and it also commits you before you know how many credits you will really use. A quiet pilot on ten returns in the shoulder months tells you more than any demo.
Canopy pricing questions answered
Does Canopy publish a base price per user?
Yes. In November 2026 the pricing page showed Standard at $74, Plus at $109 and Premium at $149 per user a month on annual billing, or $93, $136 and $186 billed monthly. Premium carried a 'coming soon' label, and a custom Enterprise tier is aimed at firms of around 200 people.
Is the Canopy AI notetaker an extra cost?
Canopy's notetaker page says it is included in every instance of Canopy at no additional cost, and the pricing page gives each user 8 hours a month on Standard, 12 on Plus and 16 on Premium. The page marks the notetaker as beta. It does not say what happens when a user passes the hours, so ask that before you rely on it.
What counts as one Canopy client credit?
One client for the rest of your subscription term. The FAQ on the pricing page says a credit gives unlimited Smart Intake and Smart Delivery use for that client, including extensions and re-deliveries, and is drawn the first time you use the AI on them. Checklists and questionnaires sent without AI never use one.
Are payment processing fees part of the subscription?
No. Canopy lists them separately: 3.30% plus $0.20 on card payments and 1% capped at $10 on ACH payments, shown at the same rates in every tier. They are charged on each payment your clients make, so the total grows with your invoice count and invoice size, not with your seat count.
Further reads
- Accounting Software for CPA Firms: Automation Features Compared — Sets Canopy against other practice platforms on automation features.
- TaxDome vs Karbon for a Small Firm: AI, Cost and Fit — A third platform to price against if both Canopy and TaxDome feel heavy.
- TaxDome Automations: What to Automate First in a Small Practice — What to automate first once a platform is chosen.
- How to Evaluate an AI Implementation Proposal or Quote — A checklist for reading any vendor quote before you sign.
- Per-Seat SaaS Fees vs One Custom Tool: Five-Year Costs Compared — Shows how per-seat fees compound over five years.
- AI Powered Bookkeeping Platform: How a Practice Chooses One — Useful if Close Automation is the add-on you are weighing.
- AI Tax Prep Software for CPAs: What to Test Before You Switch — A pre-switch test for CPA firms: ten filed returns, a scoring sheet, planted errors and the checks that separate Canopy Smart Prep partners, Juno and others.
- Double (Formerly Keeper): AI Bookkeeping Features and Cost per Client — What Double charges per client on Core, Plus and Scale, which AI features each tier adds, and a 40-client monthly bill worked through line by line.
- AI Tools and AI Development: The Complete 2026 Guide — the AI hub, including every tutorial in the AI-for-business series.
Sources: Canopy pricing page (plans, comparison table and FAQ), Canopy AI, Smart Prep, Smart Delivery and AI Notetaker pages, all read on 1 November 2026; Canopy's 15 July 2026 launch announcement as reported by CPA Practice Advisor.