TapTax vs Lendlord
Free at everything except the filing
Lendlord's free plan is one of the more generous in property software: unlimited properties, bookkeeping and portfolio analysis at £0. The one thing it does not include is the submission HMRC obliges you to make.
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.
Lendlord's free plan is better than most paid plans in property software. Unlimited properties, bookkeeping, portfolio tracking and a deal analyser, all at £0, as checked in August 2026. If you had never heard of Making Tax Digital you would call it a bargain.
The catch is not hidden and it is not unusual. HMRC filing lives on Premium at £12 a month or £99 a year. So the free plan does everything a landlord wants except the one thing the law now requires.
HMRC's own directory captures this more neatly than any review could. Lendlord is graded not included on a free version. A free plan exists, and the directory still says no, because the directory is a register of software that files.
- Lendlord's free plan covers unlimited properties, bookkeeping and portfolio analysis at £0, but HMRC filing is Premium-only at £12 a month or £99 a year, as checked in August 2026.
- HMRC grades Lendlord as not included on a free version, which is correct rather than an error: the directory's free column is about software that can file.
- Lendlord is graded 0 of the 16 tax-return items ready, with all 16 registered as in development. That is the fullest forward commitment any landlord platform on the directory has made.
- It covers UK property income only. Sole trader and foreign property income are both graded not included.
- Bridging and agent software are also graded not included, so you cannot feed it from a spreadsheet and your accountant cannot work inside it.
How HMRC's directory grades Lendlord
These are HMRC's grades on its find-MTD-software service, scraped across all 127 listings on 9 August 2026.
Lendlord
£12/mo or £99/yr for Premium(checked August 2026)
- Free version: no
- Android; Apple iOS: yes
- Sole trader income: no
- UK property income: yes
- Foreign property income: no
- Keeps digital records: yes
0/16 tax-return items ready, 16 more in development.
HMRC MTD for Income Tax directory, scraped 9 August 2026. Feature flags are vendor-declared. Vendor site
The free plan is generous on portfolio tooling but does not file. HMRC filing is Premium-only. Lendlord also earns from mortgage and bridging finance introductions and insurance, so the subscription is not its whole commercial model.
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.
Three of those not-included grades are worth pulling out, because none of them is obvious from Lendlord's marketing and each rules out a real use case.
Bridging is not included. You cannot connect an existing spreadsheet to it. If your records live in Excel today, Lendlord means moving them, not bridging them. Across the directory, 70 of 127 (55%) offer bridging, so this is a genuine minority position.
Agent software is not included. Your accountant cannot log in and work alongside you. For a landlord who does the bookkeeping and hands the year end to a professional, that is a workflow problem rather than a feature gap.
Sole trader and foreign property are not included. UK rent is the only income source it reports.
The free plan, read properly
This is the most instructive part of the comparison, and it generalises well beyond Lendlord.
31of 127 (24%)list a free versionHMRC MTD for Income Tax directory, scraped 9 August 2026That count is the single most misused number in this market. A free version on the directory does not mean free filing, and a product with no free version on the directory does not necessarily mean no free plan. Lendlord is the second case: the plan is real, the filing is not in it.
We set out the recurring patterns in full on our genuinely free MTD software page, and Lendlord is the textbook example of the first one. Free records, paid filing. Crunch does the same thing at £10 plus VAT a month, and PaTMa's own materials are genuinely ambiguous about which of its tiers files.
There is nothing dishonest about the model. Filing is the moment a customer's need becomes non-negotiable, so it is the rational place to put a paywall. But it means the comparison you want is not "is there a free plan" but "what does a filed year cost". For Lendlord that is £99. For TapTax it is £0.
The useful question is never whether a product has a free tier. It is whether the free tier can submit, how many times, and until when.
Zero ready, sixteen in development
- In development (HMRC directory)
- HMRC's middle grade, which exists only for the 16 tax-return items. It means the vendor has committed to delivering that item for the 2026-27 return but has not shipped it. It carries no date and no guarantee, so it never counts towards a ready total. It is a statement of intent, published by HMRC on the vendor's word.
Lendlord is graded ready on none of the 16 items. So are most landlord platforms, and so is most of the directory.
89of 127 (70%)cannot complete a single tax-return itemHMRC MTD for Income Tax directory, scraped 9 August 2026What is different about Lendlord is that it has registered every single one of the 16 as in development. Nothing on the directory commits to more than the whole return, and among the landlord platforms only SmartPropertyManager.com matches it. Hammock has registered 15, Landlord Vision six, and both Landlord Studio listings and GetGround have registered none.
That contrast is the fairest thing the dataset says about any of these products. A vendor with zero ready and zero in development has told HMRC it does not intend to complete your return. A vendor with zero ready and sixteen in development has told HMRC it intends to complete all of it. Those are very different postures behind an identical-looking zero.
98of 127 (77%)carry at least one "in development" promiseHMRC MTD for Income Tax directory, scraped 9 August 2026None of which helps you this quarter. In development has no date attached, and the only sensible response is to ask Lendlord for a shipping commitment in writing before you buy a year on the strength of it.
Pricing in detail, checked August 2026
| TapTax Free | TapTax Starter | Lendlord Free | Lendlord Premium | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly cost | £0 | £4.99 | £0 | £12, or £99/yr |
| Cost of a filed year | £0 | £49 | Cannot file | £99 paid annually |
| Property cap | None | None | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| HMRC filing included | Yes | Yes | No | Yes |
| Bookkeeping | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Portfolio and deal tools | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| Sole trader income | Yes | Yes | Not included (HMRC grade) | Not included |
| UK property | Yes | Yes | Ready (HMRC grade) | Ready |
| Foreign property | Yes | Yes | Not included (HMRC grade) | Not included |
| Return items ready | 6 to 8 of 16 | 6 to 8 of 16 | 0 of 16, all 16 in development | 0 of 16, all 16 in development |
| Mobile app | iOS and Android | iOS and Android | iOS and Android | iOS and Android |
| HMRC directory status | Not listed; recognition in progress | Not listed; recognition in progress | Listed | Listed |
Lendlord prices are its published pricing as checked in August 2026. Feature grades in the Lendlord columns are HMRC's, from the 9 August 2026 scrape. TapTax pricing is our own published pricing. The TapTax annual figures are its published annual-plan prices, £49 for Starter and £99 for Pro, rather than twelve times the monthly rate.
At £99 a year Lendlord Premium is twice TapTax Starter at £49 and exactly level with TapTax Pro at £99, both paid annually, so on price alone these products sit in the same band. Price is not the deciding factor here. What you are buying is.
Where Lendlord genuinely wins
Portfolio finance. Lendlord's centre of gravity is leverage: what your properties are worth, what they are mortgaged for, when the fixes end, and whether a refinance or a new purchase stacks up. Its deal analyser is aimed at people buying, not just holding. TapTax does none of that and has no ambition to.
The free plan itself. Unlimited properties and full bookkeeping at £0 is a real offer, and if you are willing to file elsewhere it is close to free portfolio software.
Mobile. HMRC records iOS and Android for Lendlord, which several of its landlord competitors do not have on their listings.
Calendar quarters. Graded ready, so your update periods can run 1 April to 31 March.
And it is listed with HMRC today, which TapTax is not.
Where TapTax fits better
The filing itself, at £0. TapTax's free tier includes submissions with no property cap and no upgrade wall on the submit button. That is precisely the gap in Lendlord's free plan.
Mixed income. Lendlord reports UK rent only. TapTax covers sole trader, UK property and foreign property. On the directory itself, only 59 of 127 (46%) listed products are graded ready on all three.
Return items today rather than in development. TapTax is mid-pack, at roughly six to eight of the 16, 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. Behind the top of the directory, ahead of a zero.
Records that come in by themselves. Open banking import, AI categorisation, receipt capture and CSV import on iOS and Android, so the quarterly update is a review rather than a data-entry evening.
Before deciding, work out what the tax will actually be with the rental income tax calculator, which applies the finance-cost restriction limiting mortgage interest relief to a 20% credit. On a leveraged portfolio that restriction is usually the largest single number in the calculation, and it is the reason Lendlord's kind of software exists.
Who should choose which
Buying, refinancing and running a leveraged portfolio. Lendlord, and take Premium if you want the filing in the same place.
Holding a couple of properties and wanting to file cheaply. TapTax Free. £99 a year to submit is a lot when the submission is free elsewhere.
Wanting free portfolio tools and free filing. Keep Lendlord's free plan for the portfolio and file separately. It is a legitimate two-product setup and it costs nothing.
Rental income plus a trade. TapTax. Lendlord cannot report the trade at all.
An overseas property. Not Lendlord. Our foreign property landlord guide has the shortlist that can.
A return with dividends, pensions, CIS or capital gains in it. Neither product finishes it today. The analysis of all 127 listed tools shows which ones do.
Filing a live submission this month. Lendlord is listed. TapTax is MTD-compatible and going through HMRC's recognition process, and that difference is real right now.
The bottom line
Lendlord is a good product with a paywall in the most predictable place, and a forward commitment on the tax return that is more ambitious than any of its landlord rivals. If you are running a leveraged portfolio it earns its money on the finance side, and the filing comes along for £99 a year.
TapTax is the better answer if what you actually need is the submission, if your income is not only UK rent, or if you want the free tier to include the thing HMRC obliges you to do. And the standing caveat applies: TapTax is MTD-compatible and going through HMRC's recognition process rather than listed on the directory today.
Check the grades yourself on the MTD software directory before you commit either way.
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