TaskDrop is free and TradesOffice is £19.99 a month, so this ought to be a short comparison. It isn't — because of what happens at the end of the tax quarter.
Start your 14-day free trialLet's be straight about this one. TaskDrop is free to use, and if you send a handful of invoices a year and have no interest in Making Tax Digital, it will cost you less than we do. That is a real answer and we would rather give it than pretend otherwise.
Two things are worth reading the small print on. The free tier is capped at 25 documents a month, and their pricing page explains that the cap lifts permanently once you have made your first MTD submission. That submission is £80 — and at four quarters a year, their own page puts the annual figure at £320.
TradesOffice is £19.99 a month — about £240 a year — with no document cap and no per-filing charge. The quarterly pack your accountant needs is part of it, not an extra. So on a year where you actually file, the free option is the more expensive one.
| TradesOffice | TaskDrop | |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly cost | £19.99, everything included | Free |
| Cost in a year you file MTD | About £240 | £320 (4 × £80 per submission) |
| Document limit | None | 25 a month until your first MTD submission |
| Where it runs | The WhatsApp you already use | |
| Accountant pack | Quarterly pack included, sent on your say-so | Priced per submission |
| Proactive daily briefing | Every weekday — what is owed, overdue and on today | Not offered |
| Getting paid | Your bank details and a pay link on every invoice and chase | Bank details printed on the invoice PDF |
Nothing is capped and nothing costs extra at quarter end. You are never deciding whether this job is worth one of your 25 documents, or whether to put off filing because it costs £80 to press the button.
CIS at 0, 20 or 30% with gross, deduction and net kept apart; PO numbers on contractor invoices; HMRC expense categories from a photo; mileage; a running tax pot. Built to be handed to an accountant, not just to make a PDF.
A weekday briefing tells you what is overdue and what is on today, and Amy chases late payers with your bank details and a pay link. The admin happens without you remembering to start it.
A real company behind it — Trades Office Limited, No. 17181500, ICO ZC133896 — with legal terms, a DPA and a named human who answers. Worth checking on anything that will hold your income records for six years.
The core product is, yes — genuinely free, with a fair-use cap of 25 documents a month. What is not free is Making Tax Digital: their pricing page lists £80 per submission, and £320 for a full year of quarterly updates. So the honest answer is that it is free right up until the point you need the thing MTD actually requires.
It depends entirely on whether you file. If you never make an MTD submission, TaskDrop costs you nothing and we cost £240 a year — they win, plainly. If you do file all four quarters, they are £320 and we are about £240, with no document cap and the accountant pack included. Check both current prices before you decide; ours is on our pricing page and theirs is on theirs.
TradesOffice does not file — we keep records to MTD standard as you work and produce a quarterly pack your accountant files from. TaskDrop sells a paid submission product. If filing-it-yourself matters more to you than the records underneath, that is a fair reason to pick them, and we would rather say so than talk around it.
Yes — 14 days free and we do not ask for a card. Save Amy as a contact, message her about a job you finished today, and see the invoice come back. If it is not for you, do nothing and it stops.
£19.99 a month, nothing capped, nothing extra at quarter end. 14 days free and no card to start.
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