R&D tax credits software sits between doing the claim yourself and paying a specialist to do all of it. The company enters its own projects and costs, the platform structures them into the format HMRC requires, and a reviewer checks the result. What is being bought is the format and the review, not the judgement about whether the work qualifies.
What the platform actually does
Three things. It collects the project descriptions in the shape the additional information form requires, which since 8 August 2023 has been mandatory for every claim. It structures the cost categories so that staff, subcontractors, consumables and software are separated the way HMRC expects. And it produces the figures for the company tax return. What it does not do is decide whether a project involved an advance in science or technology and an uncertainty a competent professional could not readily resolve; that judgement is the company's, with or without a reviewer.
Where a portal is the right answer
Where the company understands its own technical work well enough to describe it and wants the structure and the compliance rather than the argument. A software company whose developers can explain what was uncertain, with clean timesheets, is buying formatting. A manufacturer who suspects some of its process development qualified but cannot say which part was uncertain is buying judgement, and a portal will not supply it.
The one published price
Tax Cloud, the portal run by Myriad Associates, publishes 5% of the tax benefit up to £200,000 and 2.5% above, with a minimum fee of £2,750 + VAT, and states that the minimum applies to claims with a benefit up to £55,000. That is the cheapest published rate in this site's record, against 15% + VAT at Sleek and 15% at the first band from Myriad's own full-service arm. EmpowerRD publishes a price too, but only after the page loads in a browser, so nothing on the served page can be quoted.
Questions people ask about r&d tax credits software
What does R&D tax credits software do?
Collects the project and cost information in the format HMRC's additional information form requires, structures the cost categories, and produces the figures for the return. It does not decide whether the work qualifies.
Is a portal cheaper than a specialist?
On the published rates in this record, yes: the one portal that prints a price charges 5% of the benefit against 15% at the two full-service firms that publish, in exchange for the company doing more of the work.
When should I use a specialist instead?
When the difficult part is deciding what qualifies rather than describing it. A portal supplies structure and review; it does not supply a judgement about technological uncertainty.