Instead

Filing and planning arrive in the same product here, which is unusual in this category. Instead is an AI platform that carries a client through research, planning, preparation, e-filing and notice resolution, and it now owns Corvee, the strategy-library planner that many firms in this category already run. The planning side generates strategy memos with a current-state analysis, identified approaches and estimated savings, plus projections and quarterly estimates. The preparation side has IRS authorization to e-file all five entity types, 1040, 1120, 1120-S, 1065 and 1041, across 48 or more states and local jurisdictions. Multi-entity linking runs across a client's related returns rather than treating each one separately.

The commercial model is the most distinctive thing about it and needs care. The platform itself is free, with unlimited users, unlimited entities, and unlimited e-filing, and firms pay only when the AI agent does work, in credits. Simple returns consume fewer credits than multi-state returns with several income streams. This inverts the usual per-seat and per-return licence, and for a firm doing a lot of straightforward work it could be much cheaper. It could also be much more expensive, and there is no way to know in advance, because the two vendor pages disagree: the homepage quotes credits starting at $30 with an annual agreement required, while the pricing page says credit pricing depends on volume and routes to sales. Credits expire twelve months after purchase.

The obvious risk is that Instead is asking a firm to change its tax software, not to add a planning tool beside it. Its own CPA firm page targets users of CCH Axcess, GoSystem, UltraTax, Lacerte, ProConnect, Drake, ATX, TaxWise, ProSeries and TaxAct as replacement candidates. That is a large bet to place on a young platform with unpublished unit pricing, no matter how good the agent output is, and a firm that gets it wrong finds out during busy season. There is also no published detail on which projection calculations the planning module actually carries, so AMT, net investment income tax, QBI phase-outs and the excess business loss limitation are worth testing case by case in a trial rather than assumed.

Set against Intuit Tax Advisor, the two are not really competing for the same money. Intuit is free with a Lacerte or ProConnect licence and does one job well for resident-state 1040 planning. Instead wants to be the whole stack. Set against Corvee, which it now owns, Instead is the successor product: the same acquirer describes Corvee as the established planning tool and Instead as the bigger vision, so a firm choosing between them is really choosing when to move, not whether.

One-to-watch is the right place, and it stays there. The security posture is stronger than the tier implies, with SOC 2 Type II, MFA, SSO and IRS e-file authorization all documented, and the Corvee acquisition gives it a real install base rather than a pilot list. What is missing is the thing a tier depends on: evidence that firms of 2 to 50 have run a full season on it and a published price a buyer can model.