Collective sells the back office of an S-Corp to people who do not want to run one: the election, the payroll, the books and the tax filings, bundled into a monthly service with an accounting team attached. The pitch only works above a certain profit level, and the arithmetic below shows where that line sits.
The plan structure and the exclusions on this page come from Collective's own bookkeeping engagement letter, read on September 27, 2026. The two membership prices come from the plans-and-pricing page, and the sources are listed at the end.
What Collective Is For
An S-Corp election splits what a business owner earns into a salary, which carries payroll taxes, and distributions, which do not. The saving is the payroll tax on the distribution portion. The cost is compliance: payroll runs, quarterly filings, a business return, and the requirement that the salary be defensible as reasonable.
Collective's product is that compliance, done for you, plus access to an accounting team. For a freelancer whose profit has grown past the point where a sole proprietorship is expensive, that is a sensible thing to buy. Below that point, it is a subscription that costs more than the tax it saves.
The Plans, the Prices and the Caps
Collective sells two memberships, and their prices are printed on the page it calls plans and pricing: the LLC tier at $199 a month and the S Corp tier at $349 a month, with yearly billing saving 15%, which the page describes as "from $169/mo" and "from $296/mo". The same two monthly figures are repeated in a help-centre article about membership costs. Everything on the LLC card is included: formation or a review of an existing entity, automated bookkeeping, invoicing with monthly financial reports, quarterly estimates, an AI assistant and a basic individual return. S Corp adds the election filing, the 1120-S, employer registration, payroll for members and contractors and a dedicated account manager.
Separately from those memberships, the engagement letter sets out three bookkeeping service tiers, and their limits are printed in the agreement rather than on a marketing page. Nothing published ties a given membership to a tier, so treat the table below as the scope your engagement letter will carry rather than as a choice you make on a pricing page.
| Plan | Card accounts | Transactions | Reconciliation and close |
|---|---|---|---|
| Basic | Up to 3 | Up to 75 a month | Quarterly |
| Advanced | Up to 4 | Up to 150 a month | Monthly |
| Pro | Up to 6 | Up to 300 a month | Monthly |
Two things stand out. The first is that the tiers differ by volume and frequency rather than by what kind of work gets done: a Basic client gets the same categories of service, quarterly instead of monthly. The second is that 75 transactions a month, which is the Basic ceiling, is not a high bar for a freelancer running business expenses through a card and a bank account.
What the Service Does Not Include
The most useful paragraph in the engagement letter is the list of things the bookkeeping service does not cover, because several of them are things people assume are part of a service like this:
- Sending or paying your invoices
- Calculating taxes
- Processing payroll payments
- Fulfilling orders
- Bookkeeping for a spouse or a spouse's business
The letter also states that certain services may be subject to additional fees, which is standard contract language and also the reason to read the scope before signing rather than after. None of this is a criticism of the product: the exclusions are what keep a bookkeeping subscription from becoming an accounting department. They are the reason to know what you are buying, because a payroll run that is not included arrives as a task on your calendar.
What the Site Prints, and What It Quotes
An earlier version of this review said Collective printed no prices, because every URL tried returned the same script-rendered shell. That is true of /pricing, which serves a lead form, and false of /plans-and-pricing, which prints the two memberships in text: $199 a month for the LLC tier, $349 for S Corp, and with the monthly-yearly toggle set to yearly the page's own description reads "LLC plan from $169/mo, S Corp from $296/mo", a 15% saving that checks out against the monthly figures. A help-centre article on membership costs repeats both monthly numbers.
What is not printed is the rest of the bill. The add-ons carry no prices: the pricing page lists bookkeeping catch-up and late election relief as add-ons, and the footnote says individual return packages are "billed as an annual, one-time add-on fee" without saying how much. Nothing published states which bookkeeping tier a membership lands in, and the engagement letter's 75, 150 and 300 transactions a month are the numbers that decide it. The one figure from older reviews that this check can retire is $299 a month, which appears nowhere on the site today.
The S-Corp Arithmetic
The saving comes from one rate and one factor, both published by the IRS: self-employment tax is 15.3%, applied to 92.35% of net earnings. Run it on a business netting $80,000 with a $45,000 salary, which is the sort of split a reasonable-salary analysis produces at that income.
- Self-employment tax as a sole proprietor: 15.3% × 92.35% × $80,000 = about $11,304
- Payroll tax on a $45,000 salary: 15.3% × $45,000 = about $6,885
- Difference, or the annual saving: about $4,419
That is the saving side before any cost. Against it go the monthly service fee, payroll processing, and the time the election adds. The reason the S-Corp conversation goes wrong so often is that calculators multiply 15.3% by the distribution and skip the 92.35% factor, which overstates the saving, and then compare the overstated number against a fee they did not look up.
Who It Fits, and Who Should Wait
It fits a freelancer whose profit has outgrown the sole proprietorship. If the arithmetic above produces a saving comfortably larger than the annual fee, bundling the payroll, books and filings into one service is a reasonable way to stop thinking about them.
Wait if the profit is in the low five figures. The salary the IRS would call reasonable eats most of the distribution at that level, so the saving shrinks while the compliance work stays the same size.
Wait if the volume is thin. A business under the Basic caps is paying for quarterly attention on a small book. Spreadsheet bookkeeping plus a preparer in March does that job for less.
Check the scope either way. Invoices, tax calculations and payroll payments sit outside the bookkeeping service, and knowing that before signing is cheaper than finding out in month three.
How This Score Works
The criteria below were written before this product was scored, and they are the same five on every review here. Each one takes only inputs you can check yourself on a vendor page: what a plan includes, where it caps you, what processing costs, what is sold separately, and what is printed versus quoted. Nothing in the score depends on how the software feels to use, because that is not something this page can evidence.
| Criterion | 2 points | 1 point | 0 points |
|---|---|---|---|
| What the entry plan includes | The cheapest paid plan does the product’s core job without an upgrade, and nothing a solo user needs monthly sits a tier up | Core job works, but at least one routine monthly need is only on a higher tier | The cheapest paid plan cannot do the core job without an upgrade or a paid add-on |
| Where the caps bite | No hard cap a one-person business would hit in a year | A cap exists but sits above ordinary solo use | A cap sits inside ordinary solo use |
| Cost of getting paid | Processing rates published, and a bank transfer path under 1.5% or capped | Rates published, but card only or the bank path is 1.5% or higher | Rates not published anywhere public |
| Add-on load | Nothing routine is sold separately; add-ons are genuinely optional | One routine need is priced as an add-on | Two or more routine needs are add-ons, or a required add-on costs half the plan again |
| Price transparency | Every plan price and the renewal price is printed, and promotions state what they renew at | Plan prices printed, but a material cost needs a call, a login or a quote | The entry price only exists as a promotion, or key prices are not public |
Ten points available, halved for a score out of five. A high score means the pricing is honest and the plan you buy is the plan you keep. It does not mean the product is the best one for you.
The Score
| Criterion | Score | Why, from the printed facts |
|---|---|---|
| What the entry plan includes | 1 / 2 | The entry plan is the LLC tier at $199 a month, and it covers the core job: formation, bookkeeping, invoicing, quarterly estimates and an individual return with Schedule C. It gives up a point because the published scope in the engagement letter reconciles and closes the books quarterly at its Basic tier, with monthly reconciliation, monthly closing and monthly statements in Advanced and Pro, while the plan card advertises monthly bookkeeping and monthly financial reports. |
| Where the caps bite | 1 / 2 | The caps are printed in the engagement letter: up to 3 card accounts and 75 transactions a month at Basic, 4 and 150 at Advanced, 6 and 300 at Pro. For the freelancers and consultants Collective targets, 75 transactions a month sits above ordinary use; a business that runs every purchase through the card will meet it, and the tier it lands in is not something the pricing page states. |
| Cost of getting paid | 0 / 2 | Collective processes payments for the customer: its invoicing page says clients "can pay instantly by card or ACH through Stripe", and a help-centre answer repeats it. No processing rate is printed on the pricing, invoicing, payroll or tax pages, none appeared in the help-centre articles searched on this date, and the pricing page’s only percentage is the 15% yearly discount, so the cost of getting paid through the product is not public. |
| Add-on load | 1 / 2 | Three add-ons are named on the pricing page, and one of them is a routine annual need: on the S Corp tier the owner’s own individual return is an add-on, with the footnote saying return packages are "billed as an annual, one-time add-on fee" and printing no amount. Bookkeeping catch-up and late election relief are add-ons as well, and the engagement letter adds that out-of-scope work may carry additional fees. |
| Price transparency | 1 / 2 | Plan prices are printed in two places: $199 a month for the LLC tier and $349 for S Corp on the pricing page, with yearly billing described by the page itself as "from $169/mo" and "from $296/mo" under a Save 15% toggle, and the help centre repeating both monthly figures. It gives up a point because the add-on prices are not printed and the tier a given membership lands in comes from the engagement letter rather than from the page. |
| Collective | 4 / 10 | 2 out of 5 |
Four out of ten, or 2.0 out of five. The strengths are the two printed memberships and the caps written into the contract rather than left to a support call, and the entry membership genuinely covers the job: books, invoicing, estimates and an individual return. The zero on payments and the point given up on the entry plan all trace to the same thing, which is that the published scope and the printed promise do not line up. The service is documented as quarterly at its Basic tier while the plan card advertises monthly bookkeeping and monthly financial reports, and the product takes card and ACH payments through Stripe without printing what they cost.
Read the score against the other services here rather than against a tax product: Keeper scores 4.4 with everything printed, Bench 3.8, and Collective's two published prices are honest and check out. What pulls the score down is the part of the bill a buyer cannot see, which is the part this rubric was written to measure.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does Collective cost?
Two prices are printed on /plans-and-pricing: the LLC tier at $199 a month and the S Corp tier at $349 a month, or $169 and $296 a month when billed yearly, which the page's own description states and which matches the 15% yearly saving. A help-centre article repeats the monthly figures. What is not printed is the add-on pricing: kickoff work like bookkeeping catch-up and late election relief, and on the S Corp tier the owner's individual return, are all quoted rather than listed.
What are the differences between the three plans?
They are printed in Collective’s bookkeeping engagement letter as caps. Basic covers up to 3 card accounts and 75 transactions a month, with quarterly reconciliation and a quarterly book close. Advanced covers 4 accounts and 150 transactions a month, monthly. Pro covers 6 accounts and 300 transactions a month, monthly.
What is not included in any plan?
The engagement letter lists the exclusions explicitly, and they matter because they are things a freelancer might assume are part of the service: sending or paying your invoices, calculating taxes, processing payroll payments, fulfilling orders, and bookkeeping for a spouse or a spouse’s business. The letter also states that certain services may be subject to additional fees.
Does an S-Corp election actually save money?
It can, and the arithmetic is specific. Self-employment tax is 15.3% applied to 92.35% of net earnings. On $80,000 of net income, that is about $11,304. With a $45,000 salary, the payroll tax on the salary is $6,885, so the saving on the distribution side is roughly $4,419 a year. The catch is that the saving has to exceed the cost of the service plus payroll processing, and the smaller the profit, the less room there is.
Who should not elect S-Corp status?
Anyone whose net profit is close to the salary the IRS would call reasonable. You cannot pay yourself a token salary and take the rest as distributions, so the savings shrink as the business shrinks, while the compliance work does not. At low five figures the honest answer is usually to wait.
What score did this page give Collective?
Four out of ten points, or 2.0 out of five. The two memberships are printed and the caps are written into the engagement letter, which earns points on transparency and on where the caps bite. It loses the payments criterion outright because the product takes card and ACH payments through Stripe without publishing a processing rate, and it gives up a point on the entry plan because the published scope reconciles quarterly at its Basic tier while the plan card advertises monthly bookkeeping and monthly financial reports.
Sources
Plan caps, exclusions and quoted wording were checked against this page on September 27, 2026; the tax rates come from the IRS pages below.
- Collective plans and pricing, for the LLC tier at $199 a month, the S Corp tier at $349, the yearly saving and the page's own "from $169/mo" and "from $296/mo" description, and for the add-on list
- Collective help centre, membership costs, for the standard monthly membership table repeating both figures
- Collective help centre, LLC tier overview, for what the LLC membership includes, including monthly reconciliations and the individual return with Schedule C
- Collective invoicing, for the Stripe payment path ("clients can pay instantly by card or ACH through Stripe") and the absence of a published processing rate
- Collective bookkeeping services engagement letter, for the Basic, Advanced and Pro caps on card accounts and monthly transactions, the reconciliation frequency per plan, and the exclusion list
- IRS, self-employment tax, for the 15.3% rate and the 92.35% factor used in the arithmetic
- IRS, S-corporations, for the salary and distribution structure an election creates
For the accounting software that sits underneath a setup like this, see the accounting software roundup. For what the election changes on your own return, see the side hustle tax guide.
