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Clarity vs Your CPA: pricing, features, and fit
Your CPA is great at filing. They are not your books. Clarity is the layer that runs all year — clean cost basis, every account in one ledger, a record of last April's decisions — so the filing engagement stops with a forensic phase.
Your CPAHourly · varies by firmClarity Pro$19/mo or $179/yr
30-day money-back guarantee. Read-only — Clarity never moves your money.
Best fit for Clarity
High earners and self-directed investors who want one ledger between filings — banks, brokerages, retirement, crypto, on-chain — with cost basis maintained against real lots and Form 8949 / Schedule D that print without reconstruction.
Best fit for Your CPA
Anyone whose return needs human judgment: filing position, deductions, multi-state, K-1 income, audit risk, planning conversations. A CPA does work no piece of software can do.
Score at a glance
Average across 7 criteria — every cell dated and sourced below.
- Clarity4.7
- Your CPA3.7
Where Clarity goes further
Year-round books, not an April reconstruction
Your CPA: CPA engagements are usually annual. Between filings, your books live in your inbox, your spreadsheets, and your memory.
Every transaction across banks, brokerages, exchanges, and wallets stays on one ledger continuously. Last April's decisions are still there next April.
Lot-level cost basis maintained, not reconstructed
Your CPA: CPAs usually receive cost basis from broker 1099s after the fact — if a lot transferred between brokers or chains, the basis often arrives wrong and gets reconciled in April.
FIFO/HIFO/LIFO across exchanges and wallets, wash-sale flags across venues your broker can't see, basis preserved through transfers.
Tax artifacts that print clean
Your CPA: Without a year-round ledger, CPAs build these from scratch using broker statements and client CSVs each tax season.
Form 8949, Schedule D, and Form 6781-ready exports straight from your books — handed to your CPA as input, not asked of them as work.
A live view of net worth, cash, and exposure
Your CPA: CPAs don't run a portfolio dashboard. You either have one elsewhere or you don't have one.
Daily net-worth snapshots, anomaly monitoring, and AI grounded in your real ledger — answer questions the other eleven months without billing hours.
Crypto and on-chain treated as books, not a footnote
Your CPA: For many CPAs, crypto arrives as a client-built CSV — error-prone, basis-missing, and a major source of April fire drills.
130+ exchanges via API keys, 40+ chains via on-chain reads, wash-sale detection between centralized and self-custody.
Feature comparison
| Feature | Clarity | Your CPA |
|---|---|---|
| Account Coverage Range of financial accounts and asset types supported. | Leads, score 5 out of 5 Banks, brokerages, retirement, 130+ crypto exchanges, 40+ chains, manual assets — one ledger. May 2026 | Behind, score 0 out of 5 CPAs work from documents you provide. Coverage is whatever you hand them, however clean it is. May 2026 |
| Sync Reliability How consistently account data syncs without errors or manual intervention. | Behind, score 4 out of 5 Daily syncs, connection-health monitoring, explicit error states. May 2026 | Leads, score 5 out of 5 A good CPA is the most reliable human in your financial life. Filing position, audit defense, planning judgment — software can't replace that. May 2026 |
| Pricing Predictability How transparent and stable the pricing is over time. | Leads, score 5 out of 5 Flat $19/mo or $179/yr. 30-day money-back guarantee. May 2026 | Behind, score 2 out of 5 Hourly or engagement-based, with overage common when crypto, multi-state, or K-1s appear. Costs scale with how messy your inputs are. May 2026 |
| Data Freshness How quickly new transactions and price changes appear. | Leads, score 5 out of 5 Multi-sync daily, on-demand refresh, real-time crypto prices. May 2026 | Behind, score 1 out of 5 CPA engagements are typically annual. Your books are as fresh as your last filing. May 2026 |
| Historical Depth How far back transaction and portfolio history extends. | Tie, score 4 out of 5 ~24 months from Plaid for TradFi. Full on-chain history from wallet addresses. Daily net-worth snapshots after sign-up. May 2026 | Tie, score 4 out of 5 CPAs keep your filed returns and supporting workpapers — the institutional memory of what you filed and why. May 2026 |
| Export & Reporting Ability to export data and generate financial reports. | Tie, score 5 out of 5 Form 8949, Schedule D, Form 6781-ready CSVs. Hand them to your CPA instead of asking your CPA to build them. May 2026 | Tie, score 5 out of 5 Your CPA files the actual return. That's the artifact that matters. Clarity produces the inputs. May 2026 |
| Privacy & Security Data protection practices, encryption, and privacy controls. | Tie, score 5 out of 5 Read-only, encrypted at rest, no advertising business model, no training on your financial data, deletion ≤30 days. May 2026 | Tie, score 5 out of 5 CPAs are bound by professional duty of confidentiality and (under §7216) federal restrictions on disclosure of tax-return information. May 2026 |
Where your CPA genuinely wins
Filing the return. Reading the code. Defending an audit. Choosing a filing position. Knowing whether the §1031 you want is actually a §1031. These are judgment calls a piece of software shouldn't make, and Clarity isn't trying to. The point of this page is not to replace your CPA — it's to make sure your CPA opens a clean ledger in April, not a folder of receipts.
What we verified
- Clarity is software, not a tax filer or CPA
- Clarity does not prepare or file tax returns, give tax advice tied to a specific filing position, or represent clients before the IRS. Clarity produces accounting-grade outputs (lot-level basis, Form 8949 / Schedule D exports) that your CPA or filing software ingests. Clarity terms of service ↗
- 1099-DA reporting is now the broker default for crypto
- As of 2025-tax-year reporting, U.S. crypto brokers are required to issue Form 1099-DA. Lots transferred between brokers or between centralized and self-custody often arrive with missing or incorrect basis — a known reconciliation burden that lands on CPAs in April. IRS: digital asset broker reporting ↗
- CPA confidentiality is bound by §7216 and professional rules
- U.S. CPAs preparing tax returns are bound by IRC §7216 (federal limits on disclosure of tax-return information) and AICPA confidentiality rules. Both Clarity and a CPA take confidentiality seriously — Clarity's threat model is the broader product surface; a CPA's is a smaller human one. AICPA confidentiality rule ↗
Deeper, if you want it
How to get started with Clarity
easy·15 minutes to connect; one tax cycle to compound the value
- 01Connect your banks, brokerages, retirement accounts, and crypto exchanges to Clarity (about 15 minutes).
- 02Add any on-chain wallets by address — Clarity reconstructs the basis from the chain.
- 03Let Clarity run for a tax cycle. Cost basis stays clean, anomalies get flagged, decisions get logged.
- 04In April, export Form 8949 and Schedule D directly from Clarity and hand them to your CPA as inputs. Pay your CPA for judgment, not reconstruction.
Frequently asked questions
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Hand your CPA a clean ledger this April.
Connect once. Cost basis stays clean. Form 8949 and Schedule D print straight from your books. Your CPA bills for judgment, not reconstruction. 30-day money-back guarantee.
Sources
Trademarks belong to their owners. Clarity is independent and not affiliated with Your CPA. Comparison reflects publicly available info as of 2026-05-21; verify current pricing on each vendor's site.