TapTax vs Hammock
A portfolio platform and a filing app
Hammock is one of the better-built landlord platforms in the UK and HMRC lists it today. It is also graded 0 of 16 on the tax-return items, with 15 of them in development. Here is what that actually means for where you file from.
Estimate your self-employed tax in seconds
See what you would owe for the year, then file the real figures with TapTax in a couple of taps.
Total turnover before expenses
Under £1,000 we use the trading allowance automatically
Estimated tax bill
£6,872
15.3% effective rate for 2026/27
- Income tax
- £5,286
- Class 4 NI
- £1,586
Take-home pay
£32,128
after tax, NI and expenses
This is an estimate using HMRC-confirmed rates for 2026/27, not your official tax calculation. TapTax is MTD-compatible, so you can connect to HMRC and file the real figures in a couple of taps.
Hammock and TapTax are not really competing for the same job, and the most useful thing a comparison page can do is say that in the first paragraph rather than the last.
Hammock is a landlord platform. It exists to give you a live view of a property portfolio: which rent has landed, which has not, what each property is costing you, and how the bank feed reconciles against the tenancies. MTD filing was added to that. TapTax is a tax-filing app that happens to handle property, built around getting four quarterly updates and a final declaration out of your phone with as little bookkeeping as possible.
That difference explains almost everything below, including the one line on HMRC's directory that surprises people.
- HMRC lists Hammock as Hammock for landlords and grades it 0 of the 16 tax-return items ready, with 15 of them in development.
- That 0 is not a verdict on Hammock as property software. It measures readiness to complete specific items on the tax return, and Hammock is graded ready on the things a landlord files quarterly.
- Hammock is graded not included on sole trader income, so a landlord with a side trade cannot report both from it.
- Hammock is one of the minority of landlord tools graded ready for foreign property, which is genuinely uncommon.
- Hammock starts at £8 plus VAT a month for one to three properties, up to £31.50 plus VAT, with MTD included on every tier, as checked in August 2026. TapTax is £0, £4.99 or £9.99 a month.
How HMRC's own directory grades Hammock
This is HMRC's grading, not ours. Every product on the find-MTD-software service carries a feature grid using HMRC's three-state scale of ready now, in development, or not included. We scraped all 127 listings on 9 August 2026.
Hammock for landlords
From £8 + VAT/mo, up to £31.50 + VAT/mo(checked August 2026)
- Free version: no
- Android; Apple iOS: yes
- Sole trader income: no
- UK property income: yes
- Foreign property income: yes
- Keeps digital records: yes
0/16 tax-return items ready, 15 more in development.
HMRC MTD for Income Tax directory, scraped 9 August 2026. Feature flags are vendor-declared. Vendor site
Basic covers one to three properties. No free version, 30-day trial instead. MTD quarterly updates and the final declaration are included on every tier. Roughly a fifth off for annual billing.
HMRC lists what each vendor declares. Feature flags, mobile-app support in particular, are vendor claims rather than verified facts, and listings change. Check with the vendor before you buy. Data: HMRC find-MTD-software service (tax.service.gov.uk), scraped 9 August 2026.
Two grades in that card deserve more than a tick. Foreign property is graded ready, which puts Hammock in a group of 63 of 127 (50%) across the whole directory and in a much smaller group among landlord specialists. Several of the best-known landlord products cannot report overseas rental income at all. Sole trader income is graded not included, which is the line that decides this comparison for a lot of people.
The 0 of 16, read properly
Hammock is graded ready on none of the 16 tax-return items. It is easy to read that as a quality signal and it is not one.
- Tax-return items (MTD ITSA)
- The 16 categories HMRC grades separately on its software directory, covering everything outside your quarterly business updates: UK interest, employment (PAYE), UK dividends, state and private pension income, partnership income, foreign dividends and interest, pension contributions, Construction Industry Scheme, charitable giving, capital gains, student loan, marriage allowance, voluntary Class 2 National Insurance and the High Income Child Benefit Charge. A product graded at zero can still file quarterly updates. It cannot, today, finish the return around them.
Two things follow from that definition. The first is that Hammock can do the work most landlords think of as MTD: keep the digital records, and send the four quarterly updates for UK and foreign property. The second is that if your tax year also contains a workplace pension, some dividends, a student loan, employment income or a capital gain, the return does not finish inside Hammock as HMRC grades it today.
This is not a rare position. It is the normal one.
89of 127 (70%)cannot complete a single tax-return itemHMRC MTD for Income Tax directory, scraped 9 August 2026So Hammock is in the majority of the directory here, not an outlier. What makes Hammock more interesting than most of that majority is the second column.
Hammock carries 15 of the 16 items as in development, with partnership income the only one not registered at all. In development is HMRC's middle state: the vendor has committed to the item for the 2026-27 return but has not shipped it. It is a stated intention rather than a capability, so it never counts towards anything you can rely on this quarter. But there is a real difference between a product with nothing ready and nothing in development, and a product with nothing ready and almost the whole return committed. Hammock is unambiguously the second kind, and that is the fairest thing the dataset says about it.
98of 127 (77%)carry at least one "in development" promiseHMRC MTD for Income Tax directory, scraped 9 August 2026The practical advice that follows is boring and correct: if the return items are the reason you would choose Hammock later, ask Hammock for a shipping date in writing before you pay for a year.
The sole trader gap
Hammock is graded not included on sole trader income. If your income is entirely rental, that is irrelevant. If you also do consultancy, contracting, a trade or anything else self-employed, it is decisive, because MTD is assessed on your combined qualifying income from self-employment and property, and both sources have to reach HMRC.
13of 127 (10%)serve landlords but not sole tradersHMRC MTD for Income Tax directory, scraped 9 August 2026Hammock is one of that group. So are Lendlord, GetGround, Landlord Vision and both Landlord Studio listings. It is the defining feature of the landlord-platform category, and it is invisible if you shop on marketing pages, because a product built for landlords has no reason to advertise the thing it does not do.
Pricing in detail, checked August 2026
| TapTax Free | TapTax Starter | TapTax Pro | Hammock Basic | Hammock Beyond | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly cost | £0 | £4.99 | £9.99 | £8 + VAT | £31.50 + VAT |
| Approx. annual cost | £0 | £49 | £99 | £96 + VAT | £378 + VAT |
| Annual billing discount | n/a | n/a | n/a | Around a fifth off | Around a fifth off |
| Free version | Yes | n/a | n/a | No, 30-day trial | No, 30-day trial |
| Property cap on entry tier | None | None | None | 1 to 3 properties | Higher portfolios |
| MTD filing included | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes, on every tier | Yes, on every tier |
| Sole trader income | Yes | Yes | Yes | Not included (HMRC grade) | Not included |
| UK property | Yes | Yes | Yes | Ready (HMRC grade) | Ready |
| Foreign property | Yes | Yes | Yes | Ready (HMRC grade) | Ready |
| Return items ready | 6 to 8 of 16 | 6 to 8 of 16 | 6 to 8 of 16 | 0 of 16, 15 in development | 0 of 16 |
| HMRC directory status | Not listed; recognition in progress | Not listed; recognition in progress | Not listed; recognition in progress | Listed | Listed |
Hammock prices are its published tiers as checked in August 2026 and are quoted plus VAT, which is how Hammock quotes them. Feature grades in the Hammock columns are HMRC's, from the 9 August 2026 scrape. TapTax pricing is our own published pricing and includes VAT. The TapTax annual figures are its published annual-plan prices, £49 for Starter and £99 for Pro, rather than twelve times the monthly rate.
The comparison that matters is not £8 against £4.99. It is £8 plus VAT for a portfolio system that includes filing, against £0 to £9.99 for a filing system that does not manage a portfolio. If you need the portfolio system, Hammock's price is fair. If you do not, you are paying for tenancy tooling to get a quarterly update sent.
The honest answer for a lot of portfolio landlords is not one product or the other. It is the portfolio tool you already like, plus something that can finish the return.
Where Hammock genuinely wins
Reconciliation. Hammock is built around connecting your accounts and matching money against properties and tenancies, so the question of whether the rent on flat two arrived this month has an answer on a dashboard rather than in a bank statement. Nothing in TapTax does that, and for someone with five tenancies it is the difference between knowing where you stand and finding out at quarter end.
Per-property visibility. Yield, costs and performance broken down property by property is a landlord's actual management report, and it is a different artefact from a tax return.
Foreign property. It is graded ready, which most landlord platforms are not, and it means an overseas rental does not immediately push you off the product.
Agent software. Hammock is graded ready for agent access, so an accountant can work in it alongside you. That is a serious advantage for anyone whose accountant does the year end.
And it is listed with HMRC today. TapTax is not, and we will not dress that up.
Where TapTax fits better
Mixed income. If you have rental income and a trade, TapTax covers sole trader, UK property and foreign property in one place. Only 59 of 127 (46%) listed products are graded ready on all three, so it is a scarce combination in the market generally. Hammock covers two of them.
Finishing the return. TapTax is mid-pack on return items rather than strong, at roughly six to eight of the 16 today, with interest, dividends, charitable giving, the High Income Child Benefit Charge and voluntary Class 2 National Insurance among the ones handled, and pensions income, Construction Industry Scheme, capital gains and partnership income still to come. Mid-pack is a long way ahead of zero and a long way behind the top cohort, and both halves of that sentence are true.
Cost when you are small. One or two properties and no interest in portfolio analytics is the case where £8 plus VAT a month buys you very little that you use, and TapTax's free tier includes the filing.
Phone-first work. Open banking pulls transactions in, AI categorisation sorts them, receipt capture and CSV import handle what the feed misses, and the quarterly update becomes a review rather than a data-entry evening. Hammock's mobile position is the one thing in this comparison we could not pin down, and we would rather say so than pretend otherwise.
Before choosing either, run your numbers through the rental income tax calculator, which applies the finance-cost restriction that limits mortgage interest relief to a 20% credit rather than a deduction.
Who should choose which
Three or more properties, tenancies to manage, no self-employment. Hammock, and it is not close. You are buying a management system and the filing comes with it.
One property, no self-employment, cost-sensitive. TapTax Free, or RentalBux Free if you want a listed product today and can live with its one-property cap and its March 2028 date.
Rental income plus a trade. TapTax. Hammock cannot report the trade at all, so the alternative is two products.
A return with pensions, capital gains or CIS in it. Neither of these finishes that return today. Look at the complete end of the directory, or plan for an accountant at year end. Our analysis of all 127 HMRC-listed tools sets out which products are on the right side of that line.
You need to file a live submission this month. Hammock is listed. TapTax is MTD-compatible and going through HMRC's recognition process, and that is the honest position.
The bottom line
Hammock is a good product being judged here on a narrow axis, and the narrow axis is the one this site is about. As a landlord platform it does things TapTax does not attempt. As the place your tax return gets finished, HMRC grades it at zero today with almost the whole return committed for later.
TapTax is the better answer when your income is mixed, when the portfolio is small enough that management tooling is overhead, or when you want the filing to happen from a phone at £0. Hammock is the better answer when the portfolio is the problem.
Check Hammock's current grades yourself rather than taking either vendor's word for it. TapTax has no row on that list yet. The whole dataset, filterable, is in the MTD software directory, and the MTD for landlords guide covers thresholds and the finance-cost rules around it.
People also ask
Frequently asked questions
Other comparisons
Tap. File. Done.
TapTax connects to your bank, categorises expenses automatically and submits quarterly updates to HMRC. Free plan, no card required.