ATX

Wolters Kluwer sells ATX as five separate editions, and choosing between them is most of the buying decision. Entry is the Pay-Per-Return System at $939, which includes six individual returns and charges for the rest. ATX 1040 at $1,249 gives unlimited federal individual returns but only three states, with business returns still on a per-return basis. ATX MAX at $2,829 is the edition most small firms land on, and Total Tax Office at $4,189 and ATX Advantage at $6,859 sit above it. The product itself is forms-based: the preparer works on a replica of the form rather than through an interview, which is the reason long-time users stay and the reason newer preparers often bounce off it.

Coverage is the strong part. More than 6,000 compliance forms span 1040, 1120, 1120S, 1065 and 1041 work plus the returns that trip up cheaper packages, including 706 estate, 709 gift, 990 exempt organization and 5500 benefit plan filings. Payroll compliance e-filing for W-2, 1099, 940, 941 and 944 is in the box, which matters for a firm that does year-end payroll reporting for its bookkeeping clients rather than pushing it to a separate service. CCH AnswerConnect with the Master Tax Guide comes bundled from the 1040 edition upward, so research is not a separate line item the way it is with Drake.

The trade-off is the state count and the edition ladder. Three states on ATX 1040 is thin for any firm near a state line or with remote clients, and once the extra states and business modules get added the price converges on the tier above, which is exactly how the pricing is designed to work. The interface has aged, and Wolters Kluwer's own investment narrative now points at CCH Axcess rather than ATX. Wolters Kluwer pages also block automated retrieval, and neither SOC 2 status nor scan-and-populate detail could be confirmed from the material available, so a buyer should ask directly what document automation costs on top.

Against Drake Tax, ATX loses on states, since Drake includes every state in every package, and wins on research bundling and on breadth of specialty forms in the higher editions. Against ProSeries the comparison is closer, and comes down to whether a firm prefers ProSeries' guided flow or ATX's forms view. Firms outgrowing ATX are usually pushed toward CCH Axcess Tax, which is the same vendor but a different product, a different price and a real conversion.

Strong-option stands. ATX is a working, currently sold product with genuine form breadth at a price a small firm can absorb, and the specialty returns in the upper editions solve a real problem. It is not a top pick because the state limits on the cheaper editions and the vendor's clear preference for its cloud line make it a harder product to adopt fresh in 2026 than to keep running.