CPA Pilot

CPA Pilot

CPA Pilot · Business

CPA Pilot is an AI tax assistant for CPAs, EAs, and tax firms. It reviews uploaded returns, drafts client emails, and answers federal or state tax questions with citations.

Interface preview of CPA Pilot

About CPA Pilot

What Is CPA Pilot

CPA Pilot is a web workspace built by a tax-focused team in Irvine, California. Instead of handing you a blank chat box, it ships ten fixed workflows: return review, individual and corporate return summaries, client organizers, email replies, tax research, planning notes, projections, entity selection, and a software import helper. The company reports more than 6,000 tax professionals on the platform and over 500,000 questions answered.

The pitch is narrow on purpose. Most CPA AI tools are chatbots with a tax prompt bolted on, and they won't read a 1040 the way a reviewer does or hold the shape of a client organizer. CPA Pilot works from the document you upload, whether that's a PDF, an Excel sheet, or a CSV export. What comes back is a review flag, a research note with code sections, or a draft you still have to edit. The firm keeps the judgment.

The limits matter as much as the features. Every plan is metered by AI messages rather than seats, and the entry tier gives you 20 a month. There's no free plan, only a 7-day trial that requires a card. The launch date isn't published, and no public API is documented.

Getting Started

  1. Create an account on the CPA Pilot site and put a card on file to open the 7-day trial with 20 messages.
  2. Choose a workflow in the workspace, such as Tax Return Review, Tax Research, or Client Tax Organizer.
  3. Upload the return or supporting document, or paste the client question you need answered.
  4. Read the output, check every citation and flag, then edit before anything reaches a client.

Product Information

A quick look at CPA Pilot's pricing, supported platforms, and performance.

Free PlanNo
Paid Plans$29 - $199/mo
PlatformWeb browser
DeveloperCPA Pilot
CategoryBusiness
Release DateJan 2024
Latest UpdatedOct 2026
Website Visits8.5K
Website Global Rank2.5M
API AvailabilityN/A

Best for

The users, tasks, and scenarios where this tool fits best.

Users

  • Solo CPAs and EAs
  • Small firms with a review bottleneck
  • Enrolled agents fielding IRS notices

Tasks

  • First-pass tax return review
  • Client email drafting
  • Tax projections and scenario work
  • Client organizer generation

Scenarios

  • Filing season crunch, when returns pile up faster than reviewers can clear them
  • Extension season and year-end planning
  • Training a new staff accountant

Key features

Tax Return Review Engine

You upload a return and the supporting documents, and the workflow returns flags on inconsistencies, missing forms, and items that need a second look before partner sign-off. Flags name the specific form or schedule involved, so a reviewer knows where to go. It's built as a pre-sign-off check, not a replacement for reading the return.

Tax Research With Citations

Ask a federal or state question in plain language and the assistant pulls from the Internal Revenue Code, Treasury Regulations, IRS publications, revenue rulings, and state guidance. Answers come back as structured notes with the code sections attached, which gives you something to document in the file. The output still needs your read before it goes to a client.

Client Email Drafting

Paste a client email and you get a reply draft that answers the question with research behind it. This is the workflow that saves the most wall-clock time for solo practitioners, since a single technical question can otherwise eat 20 minutes of drafting. You keep the tone and the caveats.

Tax Projections and Entity Selection

The projection workflow models how an income change, a deduction, or an entity switch affects a client's bill. The entity selection wizard compares Schedule C, LLC, S-Corp, and C-Corp options against the situation you describe and returns a structured comparison. Both are written for advisory conversations, so the output reads like planning notes rather than a tax return.

Return Summaries and Client Organizers

The 1040 summary turns a filed return into a client-ready document, and the corporate version covers 1120, 1120-S, and 1065. The organizer workflow goes the other direction: it reads a prior return and builds a document request list for the coming year. Both save the formatting work that usually lands on an admin.

Document Security and Local Anonymization

Client-identifying data is anonymized on your computer before the file reaches CPA Pilot, and stored data sits behind AES-256 encryption with TLS in transit. The company states that client documents, prompts, and outputs are not used to train AI models. Role-based access controls, audit logging, and enterprise agreements are available for firms that need them for approval.

Pros and cons

Pros

  • Review flags point at the specific form or document that's missing, so a first-year associate can act without asking.
  • Research output carries code sections and IRS publication references, which makes the workpaper trail easier to defend later.
  • All ten workflows sit under one subscription, and unused messages roll over on annual plans.
  • Client data is anonymized on your machine before upload, and the no-training commitment is stated on the security page.

Cons

  • Messages are the meter, and a single return review can consume several, so heavy users land on the $119 or $199 plan.
  • No free tier exists. The 7-day trial needs a card and stops at 20 messages, which is barely one busy afternoon.
  • No public API or automation integration is documented, so a firm can't wire the tool into its own intake stack.

Frequently asked questions

It runs ten AI workflows for tax work: return review, 1040 and corporate summaries, client organizers, email replies, tax research, planning notes, projections, entity selection, and software import prep. Each one starts from a document you upload or a question you type.