Build vs buy
The build is only the beginning.
Every new regime, rule change, and year of upkeep adds cost.
Your profile
Start with where you report.
Which regimes, and how many forms a year?
Your profile2 regimes, 250,000 forms a year
Run my numbers
01 · The first build
12,000 hours for the initial build
That’s the midpoint of the IRS’s own estimate. It covers onboarding, validation, eligibility logic, form generation, and a filing channel, for one regime. Every regime after that reuses the foundation but still needs its own schema, rules, and transmission.
12,000Hours to build it without AI
For your first regime. Each one adds 60% after that.
7,200Hours to build it with AI
That’s 40% less time, but your team still has to keep it running.
3People, full time, for a year
Engineering, compliance, product, and ops, not just developers.
02 · Keeping it running
Then 15% of the build again, every year.
After launch, someone has to patch it, monitor it, and fix transmissions when they fail. The IRS and the European Commission both estimate that upkeep at 10-20% of the build cost every year, and we model 15%.
972Upkeep hours a year
Over three years, upkeep alone adds up to 41% of a second build.
Upkeep is on us. Patching, monitoring, and keeping every filing channel open is what you pay us for.
See how Taxbit handles it
03 · The rules move
The rules keep changing, on their own schedule.
The US alone changed its forms or filing system ten times in two years. We assume a slower pace: 3.5 changes per regime, every year.
Hover or tap a mark for a real example
Year 1Year 2Year 3Year 4Year 5
- Small133 hrs
- Medium667 hrs
- Large3,333 hrs
11Changes in three years
Across your regimes. None of them on your roadmap.
2,333Hours a year
Based on the mix of small, medium, and large changes.
1.1People, every year
Doing nothing but keeping up.
Our regulatory team tracks rule changes so you don’t have to, and every update lands in the platform.
See how Taxbit handles it
04 · Running it
A finished form isn’t a filed one.
Before you file a single form, you have to register with every authority and keep a working connection to each one. Forms that don’t reconcile land in a queue someone works through by hand.
Certificates
Every authority wants its own credential for every channel, bought from an approved provider and renewed each year.
$400 / regime / yr$400
Transmission upkeep
Each channel has its own credentials, endpoints, schema, and its own way of rejecting a file. A new IRS credential alone takes weeks to issue.
120 hrs / regime / yr120 hrs
Manual operations
When a tax ID doesn’t match, a correction needs refiling, or a customer asks why their form looks wrong, a system doesn’t catch it. A person does.
15 hrs / 10,000 forms0 hrs
Three years, priced
Pick a regime to see what it costs.
Choose what you file and how many forms a year.
Build it yourself
0
Hours to go live
The IRS puts the first regime at 12,000 hours. We take 40% off for AI.
$0
To get started
What does an hour of this work cost?
Tax, engineering, and support hours, not just developers. $66/hr is the IRS’s own figure.
- Every year after$0
- Over 3 years$0
Use Taxbit
48
Hours to go live
Go-live times vary with what you file and how your data reaches us.
$10,000
To get started
What about AI?
We factored in AI, and it still only takes 40% off the build.
$0Build, no AI
$0Build, with AI
AI writes the code faster. It won’t catch a rule change, work out what it means, or answer to an auditor.
2 people on payroll every year after launch, just to keep filing.
Upkeep, rule changes, transmission, and the exception queue. They stay on it for as long as you keep filing.
Build hours are anchored to two government estimates: the IRS costed its 1099-DA rules at $148.4M across 2,252,500 hours, and the European Commission costed CARF at EUR 1.4–1.7M per firm. We take 40% off the build for AI. Illustrative, not a quote.
Whatever you spend, the rule changes, the people, and the risk when a filing is wrong all stay with you.
Talk to a specialistGet a custom breakdown on your actual volumes.
- A breakdown built on your volumes, not our examples
- What changes when you add a regime or a country
- A specialist follows up to walk you through it
Request received. A specialist will follow up with a custom breakdown on your volumes.
Rule changes become our release notes, not your roadmap.
Our regulatory team tracks rule changes. Every update lands in the platform. You keep filing.
Talk to a specialistIllustrative estimates for planning, not a quote. Build hours are anchored to published IRS and European Commission estimates. Everything else is a Taxbit estimate.