TapTax vs Untied for MTD Sole Traders (2026)
Both apps are mobile-first and affordable, but only one was built specifically around MTD for Income Tax from the ground up. Here is the honest difference.
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.
These two apps do not cost the same. untied Pro is £129.99 a year against £49 a year for TapTax Starter, roughly two and a half times the price, so cost is a real part of this decision and the question worth answering is what the extra money buys. Untied has been quietly serving self-employed people for years; TapTax was designed from scratch with MTD for Income Tax as the spine of the whole product, not a feature bolted on later.
Price is one deciding factor and we set it out in full below. The other is trajectory and depth. Both apps are affordable and both will get you through a Self Assessment return. Where they diverge is in how much they help you during the year, not just at filing time, and how confidently they are built around the new quarterly-update world that is now mandatory for sole traders earning over £50,000 from April 2026.
- Both TapTax and untied are mobile-first, affordable and aimed at UK sole traders, so neither is obviously wrong.
- TapTax was purpose-built for MTD for Income Tax from day one; untied started as a Self Assessment app and added MTD capability.
- TapTax's AI expense categorisation and bank feeds give it a stronger year-round workflow, not just an end-of-year one.
- Untied has a longer track record and may suit someone who simply wants a clean digital tax return with minimal extras.
- Neither app includes invoicing or payroll, which keeps both lean but means neither replaces a full accounting suite.
What HMRC's own directory says about untied
Before either side's marketing, here is the independent record. HMRC publishes a feature grid for every product on its find-MTD-software service, using its own three-state scale of ready now, in development, or not included. We scraped all 127 listings on 9 August 2026. HMRC lists the product in lower case, as untied.
untied
£129.99/yr Pro, £64.99/yr Lite(checked August 2026)
- Free version: no
- Android; Apple iOS: yes
- Sole trader income: yes
- UK property income: yes
- Foreign property income: yes
- Keeps digital records: yes
15/16 tax-return items ready, 1 more in development.
HMRC MTD for Income Tax directory, scraped 9 August 2026. Feature flags are vendor-declared. Vendor site
No free tier, 30-day trial. Lite carries a £90,000 self-employment income cap; Pro covers quarterly updates and the year end.
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.
This is a strong listing and it should change how you read the rest of this page. untied is graded ready on 15 of the 16 tax-return items, with only partnership income outstanding, and ready on all three business income sources including foreign property. It also offers bridging and agent software, and supports calendar update periods. In a directory where 89 of 127 (70%) products cannot complete a single return item, untied is in the top cohort.
TapTax's own honest position on that axis is mid-pack: roughly six to eight of the 16 items are live, with pensions income, CIS, capital gains and partnership income still to come. untied is ahead of TapTax on return-item completeness today. The full picture for all 127 products is in our analysis of the HMRC MTD directory, and you can filter the list yourself in the MTD software directory.
The headline question: are these apps solving the same problem?
- MTD for Income Tax
- HMRC's requirement for sole traders and landlords to keep digital records and submit quarterly income and expense updates, replacing the single annual Self Assessment return. Mandatory for those earning over £50,000 from April 2026.
Untied began life as a personal tax app, a smarter way to file your Self Assessment return from your phone. It later added MTD for Income Tax support as the regulation moved from proposal to reality. That history shows in the product: the Self Assessment journey is polished, the interface is clean, and it does a respectable job of handling quarterly updates.
TapTax was designed the other way around. The quarterly filing workflow, the bank connection, the AI categorisation of every expense, the receipt scanner that captures a photo and logs the transaction without you typing a single field: all of that was in the brief from day one. The Self Assessment return is not the product; the year-round MTD compliance cycle is. That is a meaningful structural difference when you are a sole trader who now has four quarterly deadlines every year on top of the annual one. You can check every one of those MTD deadlines for 2026, 2027 and 2028 in one place if you want to map out the calendar now.
Pricing in detail
| Feature | TapTax Free | TapTax Starter | TapTax Pro | Untied |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly cost | £0 | £4.99 | £9.99 | ~£10.83 (Pro, billed yearly) |
| Annual cost | £0 | £49 | £99 | £129.99 Pro, £64.99 Lite |
| Free tier | Yes | n/a | n/a | None; 30-day trial |
| Return items ready | 6 to 8 of 16 (our estimate) | 6 to 8 of 16 (our estimate) | 6 to 8 of 16 (our estimate) | 15 of 16 (HMRC grade) |
| Foreign property | Yes | Yes | Yes | Ready (HMRC grade) |
| HMRC directory status | Not listed; recognition in progress | Not listed; recognition in progress | Not listed; recognition in progress | Listed |
| Built for | UK sole traders and MTD | UK sole traders and MTD | UK sole traders and MTD | Self-employed and individuals |
| MTD ITSA quarterly filing | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Bank feed connection | Limited | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| AI expense categorisation | No | Yes | Yes | No |
| Receipt scanning | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Mobile-first design | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Invoicing | No | No | No | No |
| Self Assessment return | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| UK-headquartered, sole trader focus | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
These two do not cost the same, and an earlier version of this page implied they did. As checked in August 2026, untied Pro is £129.99 a year, roughly £10.83 a month, covering quarterly updates and the year end. untied Lite is £64.99 a year but carries a £90,000 self-employment income cap, so it stops being an option once you are into the higher end of the first MTD wave. There is no free tier and the trial runs 30 days.
Against that, TapTax Starter is £49 a year and Pro is £99, and the free tier is permanent. So TapTax Starter is £80.99 a year cheaper than untied Pro, call it £81, and TapTax Pro is £30.99 cheaper.
What that £81 a year buys at untied is completeness. HMRC grades untied at 15 of the 16 tax-return items ready against TapTax's six to eight, so if your return has pension income, dividends, capital gains or CIS in it, untied can finish the job today and TapTax cannot yet. That is the honest trade, and for plenty of people it is worth more than £81 a year.
MTD compliance fit
Both apps will satisfy HMRC's requirements. Both can submit the quarterly updates and the end-of-period statement that replace the old single Self Assessment return. The question is how much friction sits between you and that submission.
TapTax is built so that the quarterly filing is a one-tap action once your transactions are categorised, and because the AI has been working through the year, most of them already are. The sole trader tax calculator on the TapTax site also lets you sense-check your position at any point in the year, which is useful when you are trying to decide whether to buy equipment before the quarter closes.
Untied handles the compliance mechanics competently, but the workflow is more sequential: you enter or review data, then file. If you prefer to have full manual visibility at every step, that is actually a feature. If you want the categorisation done in the background so you can concentrate on your work, untied asks more of you.
Where untied genuinely wins
The strongest argument for untied is not history, it is HMRC's own grading. untied is ready on 15 of the 16 tax-return items, with only partnership income outstanding, and ready on all three income sources including foreign property. TapTax is at roughly six to eight of 16 today. If your return includes pension income, dividends, capital gains, CIS or the High Income Child Benefit Charge, untied can complete it now and TapTax cannot yet. That is the clearest reason to choose it and no amount of workflow polish on our side changes it.
untied has also been in the market longer, which means a more established user base, more community knowledge and a track record of surviving multiple HMRC API changes without disappearing. For a sole trader who is risk-averse about fintech longevity, that history is not nothing.
Untied also has a clean, simple interface that some users will prefer precisely because it does not try to automate everything. If you are a self-employed person with straightforward income, very few expenses, and a preference for reviewing every line before it goes to HMRC, untied's more deliberate workflow suits that temperament.
And for anyone sitting below the £50,000 MTD threshold who is still voluntarily going digital, untied's Self Assessment roots make it a solid, uncomplicated option.
Ease of use and mobile experience
Both apps are genuinely mobile-first, not desktop tools with a mobile version grafted on. You can complete the entire compliance cycle on your phone with either product. The distinction is in the day-to-day texture. TapTax uses your bank connection to pull in transactions automatically, so the app is doing background work even on weeks when you do not open it. Untied is more of a dedicated-session tool: you go in, you work, you file.
The quarterly planner tool on TapTax's site complements the app nicely if you want to map out your income and expenses across the four quarters and see where you stand before you commit to a submission.
Who should choose which
If you are a plumber or electrician turning over £60,000
You have dozens of supplier transactions a month, mixed personal and business card spending, and approximately zero interest in categorising receipts on a Sunday evening. TapTax's AI categorisation and bank feed will do most of that work for you. The quarterly filing becomes a review-and-tap action rather than a data-entry project. TapTax Starter at £4.99 per month is the call here.
If you are a freelance writer or tutor with simple finances
You earn from a handful of clients, your expenses are modest and predictable, and you like to stay hands-on with your numbers. Untied's clean, manual-friendly interface is a reasonable fit. You do not necessarily need AI to categorise three regular expenses, and you may prefer the transparency of entering everything yourself.
If you are approaching the £50,000 threshold for the first time
You need to be MTD-ready before April 2026, and you need confidence that the app you choose was built for that world, not adapted to it. TapTax's MTD-first architecture gives it the edge here. The transition to quarterly reporting is less jarring when the app has been designed around that rhythm from the start.
The bottom line
Untied is a legitimate, affordable option and it deserves credit for sticking around in a market that has seen better-funded rivals come and go. But TapTax was built to solve the specific problem of making MTD for Income Tax manageable for a sole trader who would rather be doing their actual job. The bank feeds, the AI, the receipt scanner and the one-tap quarterly filing are not extras; they are the whole point.
If you are above the MTD threshold, or heading there, and you want software that treats quarterly compliance as a year-round process rather than a deadline scramble, TapTax is the more purposeful choice, and at £49 a year against untied Pro at £129.99 it is also much the cheaper one.
Different prices, different philosophies: untied asks you to manage your tax; TapTax manages it around you.
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.