Why is this suddenly a question?
For years many small companies paid nothing at all, because HMRC ran a free online service that filed the company tax return and the accounts together. That service has closed. It shut on 31 March 2026, and HMRC now points companies to commercial software instead.
So if you filed for free last year, your old route is gone, and for the first time you are genuinely price-shopping. Two routes are left: do it yourself with software, or hand it to an accountant. Here is what each one costs, what is included, and what is quietly left out. If you want the full story of the closure itself, our guide on what happened to HMRC's free filing service covers it.
What does filing with software cost?
With software, the price of the software is the whole price. You do the answering, the software does the working out, the formatting and the sending. HMRC publishes a list of recognised commercial software suppliers, and it accepts returns filed using the products on that list. Prices and shapes vary from product to product: some charge monthly, some charge yearly, and some charge per filing.
SimpleReturns charges £99, flat, once, when you file. There is no subscription and no monthly fee, and the one £99 covers both of the filings your company owes: the CT600 tax return goes to HMRC and the accounts go to Companies House, together. If a submission is rejected, trying again for the same year costs nothing extra. Starting is free and needs no card, so you can see the whole process before you pay a penny.
Two things to check with any software, ours included:
- Does the price cover both filings? Your company owes HMRC a tax return and Companies House a set of accounts. They are separate organisations with separate deadlines and separate fines. A price that only covers one half is only half a price.
- Is your company a fit? Software built for simple companies suits simple companies. SimpleReturns, for example, is built for micro-entities: the smallest class of company, which most one-person and small limited companies fall into.
Our guide on what "HMRC-recognised" actually means explains how to read that software list when you compare.
What does an accountant cost, and when is one worth it?
An accountant costs more than software, and the honest reason is that you are buying more than a filing. You are buying a person who looks at your numbers, spots things you would not, answers questions through the year, and takes the preparation off your plate entirely.
We are not going to print a made-up "average accountant price" here, because fees genuinely vary and any single number would mislead you. What we can tell you is what moves the price:
- The state of your records. Tidy books cost less to work with than a shoebox of receipts. If the accountant has to do your bookkeeping before they can start, that is extra work, and it is priced as extra work.
- How complicated the company is. More income streams, property, several directors, money moving between the company and the people in it: each one adds time, and time is what you are paying for.
- What else is bundled. Some quotes cover just the year-end accounts and the return. Others include payroll, VAT and advice all year round. A bigger bundle costs more, and is sometimes exactly what you need.
And here is the part a software company should say plainly: for some companies an accountant is simply the right answer. If your company is not a straightforward small trading business, if big decisions hang on the numbers, or if you just do not want to think about any of this, pay the professional. That is not a defeat. It is a sensible purchase.
What is included, and what counts as extra?
The word "filing" hides a bundle of jobs, and each route includes a different slice of them. Before you compare prices, compare what the price buys:
- With software: the software prepares, formats and sends the filings from the answers you give it. What is not included is anyone checking your judgement: you decide what counts as what, and the software keeps you inside the lines. With SimpleReturns the £99 includes both filings and any re-tries for that year, and nothing else is sold on top.
- With an accountant: the quote usually wraps preparation and filing into one bill, and often judgement and advice too. The thing to check is the edges: is bookkeeping included or extra, is advice included or billed per call, and does the price cover both the HMRC filing and the Companies House one? A good accountant will tell you exactly what is in and what is out. You just have to ask.
- With the old free route: nothing, because it no longer exists.
What about the cost nobody prints: your own time?
Every price list misses one line: your evening or your weekend. Doing it yourself costs hours, and your hours are not free.
Be fair in both directions, though. The do-it-yourself hours are fewer than people fear when the company is simple: a typical micro-entity run through SimpleReturns takes about thirty minutes, because the software asks plain questions and does the working out. And the accountant route is not zero hours either: you still gather the records, answer their questions and check the drafts. So the real comparison is thirty-ish minutes with software against a smaller-but-not-zero slice of your time plus their fee. If your books are messy or your year was unusual, the do-it-yourself hours grow, and that is exactly the point where paying a professional starts to earn its keep.
If you want to see what the do-it-yourself route actually involves before deciding, our walkthrough on filing your company tax return yourself in 2026 lays out every step.
What does deciding nothing cost?
Here is the one price on this page that is not optional. Your company tax return is due 12 months after the end of the accounting period it covers, and you must send one even if the company made a loss or has no tax to pay.
Miss the deadline and the costs start immediately:
- 1 day late: £200. Not a warning letter. A £200 penalty on day one.
- 3 months late: another £200.
- 6 months late: HMRC estimates your tax bill and adds 10% of the unpaid tax on top.
- 12 months late: another 10%.
- Late 3 times in a row: the £200 penalties become £1,000 each.
Companies House runs its own separate fines for late accounts, from £150 rising to £1,500 for a private company, and those double if you are late two years running.
So compare honestly: £99, or an accountant's invoice, against £200 gone on the first day of doing neither. Dithering is the only option on this page with a guaranteed loss.