This is the hardest comparison in the tax software category to write honestly, and I am going to do it anyway. Cash App Taxes files your federal return and your state return for zero dollars, and it supports Schedule C. e-file.com charges $82.98 at list for the same two returns. Free is very difficult to beat on price.
So the question is not which one is cheaper. It is settled, and it is not close. The question is whether the free product covers your situation, because the moment it does not, it covers none of it, and you find that out somewhere in the middle of your return.
Before anything else: this is general information, not tax advice. Filing situations differ enormously, and two store owners with identical revenue can have completely different answers here depending on where they live, where they sold, and what they did in the prior year. Nothing on this page is a substitute for a professional who has read your books.
Disclosure. The e-file.com links on this page are monetised affiliate links and pay this site a commission. The Cash App Taxes link is not monetised. It is a plain redirect to cash.app that earns nothing, and I checked the target of that redirect before writing this sentence rather than assuming it. So the product that costs you nothing pays me nothing, and the product that costs $82.98 pays me. If that arrangement makes you want to weight this article sceptically, weight it sceptically. I have tried to write it so that a sceptical reader still finds it useful. The Shopify, Bizee and Hiscox links in the closing section are affiliate links too and they pay this site.
The Short Answer, Up Front
If you are a sole proprietor with a Schedule C, you live in one state, you earned income in only that state, and you are filing the current year, Cash App Taxes will very likely file your return for free and you should use it. That is the honest answer and it costs me money to write it.
If any one of those four conditions fails, Cash App Taxes will not file your return at all, and you are choosing between paid products. That is where e-file.com becomes the argument, and it is a real argument, but it starts from a much smaller pool of readers than the marketing would suggest.
Read the Disqualifiers First, Then Decide
Cash App Taxes does not support multiple state filings, part-year state filings, non-resident state filings, prior year returns, or filers residing outside the United States. If none of those describe you, use the free one. If any of them do, e-file.com lists Premium Plus at $49.99 plus $32.99 per state, verified 9 September 2026.
What Each One Costs, Verified
Both columns came off the vendors’ own live pages on 9 September 2026.
| Item | Cash App Taxes | e-file.com |
|---|---|---|
| Federal return, simple | $0 | $0 on the Basic tier if you qualify |
| Federal return with Schedule C | $0 | $49.99 Premium Plus, or $42.49 with coupon code FED15OFF |
| State return | $0 | $32.99 flat, on every tier including the free one |
| Second state return | Not supported at any price | $32.99 |
| Investments, crypto, stock sales | $0 | Covered on Premium Plus at $49.99 |
| Total for a store owner, one state | $0 | $82.98 at list |
| Phone support | Not offered | Included on Deluxe Plus and Premium Plus |
| Prepared for you by a person | Not offered | Professional preparation from $89.95 |
Cash App Taxes states on its own page that it is 100 percent free for state and federal returns, that it has filed over 12 million returns without charging anyone, and that this holds even if you received a 1099, are self-employed, have a side gig, do contract work or own a small business. It also says explicitly that selling stocks or bitcoin does not trigger a charge.
That is not a stripped-down free tier with an upsell waiting three screens in. It is the actual product.
Cash App Taxes Really Does Handle a Schedule C
This is the part that people get wrong, usually because they are pattern-matching from the free tiers at other companies, where a Schedule C is the exact thing that pushes you into a paid product.
The company’s own supported forms article lists Schedule C for profit or loss from business, Schedule SE for self-employment tax, Schedule E for supplemental income including rental property, Form 8829 for expenses for business use of your home, and Form 4562 for depreciation and amortization. That is the full working set for a single-owner store, including the home office and the equipment depreciation that most people assume will cost them.
So the argument that a store owner cannot use the free product is not true, and I have seen it made repeatedly by people who get paid on the alternative. A single-state sole proprietor with inventory, a home office and a truck can file federal and state at Cash App Taxes for nothing.
The Catch, Which Is Real and Is Not About Forms
The disqualifiers are almost all geographic and temporal rather than complexity-based, which is an unusual shape for a free product and it is why people get caught out.
Cash App Taxes publishes an article listing forms and situations it does not support, and the important entries for anyone running a store are these, in the company’s own words.
The Four That Will Actually Catch a Store Owner
Multiple state filings, part-year state filing, and non-resident state filing are not supported. That is one line in their article and it eliminates a very large slice of this audience. If you moved states during the year, you are out. If you earned income in a state you did not live in, you are out. If you have two state returns, you are out.
You cannot file state without filing federal first. Their article states you can file federal without state, or federal first and state later, but never state alone. That matters if you already filed your federal somewhere else.
Prior year return filings are not supported. If you are catching up on an unfiled year, this product cannot do it and you need either a paid product that supports prior years or a preparer.
Return filings for those residing outside the United States are not supported, and neither is foreign earned income. Form 2555 and Form 1116 both appear on the unsupported list. For the nomad end of this audience that is a hard stop.
The Others Worth Knowing
The unsupported list also includes married filing separately returns in community property states, returns for minors under 18, Form 2210 for underpayment of estimated tax, Form 3800 for the general business credit, Form 8824 for like-kind exchanges, Schedule K-1 income from an estate or trust, and Schedule J income averaging for farmers and fishermen.
Two of those deserve a store owner’s attention. Form 2210 matters if you underpaid your quarterly estimates, which self-employed people do constantly in their first profitable year. Cash App Taxes notes that the IRS or your state will calculate the penalty and send you a notice, which is true and is a perfectly workable outcome, but it means you file without knowing the number.
Form 3800 matters if your business has any general business credits to claim. Most small stores have none, but if you do, this product cannot file your return at all.
The Caveat On the Caveats
The unsupported-forms article I read is dated January 2025 and states that it covers what Cash App Taxes supports for tax year 2024. The supported-forms article is dated January 2025 as well. Both are the current published versions on the company’s help site, and neither has been refreshed for a later tax year at the time of writing.
That does not make them wrong. It means the list you should act on is the one published when the season opens, and you should re-read it in January rather than trusting a comparison article written in September, including this one.
Where e-file.com Actually Earns Its $82.98
Given all of the above, the case for paying is narrower than a monetised article would usually admit. Here is what I think it genuinely is.
You file more than one state return. This is the big one. e-file.com charges a flat $32.99 per state on every tier, so a two-state Schedule C return is $115.97 at list. Cash App Taxes cannot do it at any price. Multi-state is common for anyone who moved, who has a warehouse relationship in another state, or who has genuine nexus somewhere other than home.
You need a prior year filed. e-file.com sells professional preparation from $89.95 and lists prior year returns and amended returns among what that service covers. Cash App Taxes does not do prior years at all.
You want to talk to a person. e-file.com includes phone support on Deluxe Plus and Premium Plus. Cash App Taxes has a help site and does not offer phone support for tax filing. If you are the kind of filer who will freeze at an ambiguous question and needs someone to unfreeze you, $82.98 for an evening that actually ends is not a bad trade.
You are outside the United States. Nomad store owners, expats, anyone with foreign earned income. Cash App Taxes explicitly does not serve you. This is not a preference, it is a wall.
Two States, a Prior Year, or Living Abroad? Then You Are Paying Someone
e-file.com is $49.99 federal plus $32.99 per state at list, with a flat state fee on every tier and professional preparation from $89.95 for prior years. If you are single-state, current year, and inside the US, close this and use the free one instead.
Two Things People Say About Cash App Taxes That Are Not Reasons
“You have to download an app.” True, and it is a genuine friction point. The company states you need Cash App installed to log in and use Cash App Taxes, and that after downloading it you can file from a phone or a computer at their website. That is an annoyance, not a disqualifier, and pretending otherwise is how monetised articles pad out the case against a free competitor.
“It is free because they sell your data.” I am not going to assert that, because I have not read anything that establishes it and neither has anybody else writing that sentence. What is verifiable is that Cash App Taxes is an authorised IRS e-file provider and states that it complies with the security, privacy and business standards set by the IRS. If data handling is your concern, read the privacy notice yourself. It is not a claim I will make on someone else’s behalf to sell a paid alternative.
The Free Options That Are Not Either of These
Two more exist and neither company will lead with them.
IRS Free File offers guided tax software free for filers with adjusted gross income of $89,000 or less, and the IRS is explicit that you must start at IRS.gov, because going directly to a partner’s commercial website does not get you the Free File version. The IRS Free File page also notes that a partner may charge for state preparation, so free federal there does not always mean free state.
Free File Fillable Forms is the other. Any income level, no state filing, limited calculations, and you do the work. For a confident filer with a straightforward return it is genuinely free and permanently available.
What the IRS Actually Requires, Sourced
Neither vendor is a source for tax rules, so here is the short verified list from the IRS itself.
Net earnings from self-employment of $400 or more mean you have to file an income tax return, per the IRS self-employed individuals tax center. Below $400 you may still have to file if another filing requirement applies. Estimated tax for the self-employed is paid using Form 1040-ES, and the IRS notes that the form contains a worksheet for figuring it.
The filing deadline for calendar year filers is 15 April, moving to the next business day if the 15th lands on a Saturday, Sunday or legal holiday. The IRS when to file page currently shows 15 April 2026 for the cycle in progress and does not yet post a date for the following cycle, so I am not going to invent one. An extension is Form 4868, it gives six months to file, and the IRS states plainly that it is not an extension of time to pay.
Both products file an extension. Neither of them can make an extension delay a payment, and every year a large number of self-employed filers learn that the expensive way.
How I Would Actually Choose, In Order
Work down this list and stop at the first line that describes you.
| If this is you | Use | Cost at list |
|---|---|---|
| Plain W-2, no schedules, one state | IRS Free File or any free tier | $0 |
| Schedule C, one state, current year, living in the US | Cash App Taxes | $0 |
| Two or more state returns | e-file.com Premium Plus | $115.97 for two states |
| Moved states, or part-year resident anywhere | e-file.com Premium Plus | $82.98 and up |
| Prior year unfiled, or an amended return | e-file.com professional preparation | From $89.95 |
| Living outside the US or with foreign earned income | A preparer who does expat returns | Neither product serves you |
| An IRS notice, an audit letter, or a nexus mess | A CPA or an enrolled agent | Do not file this yourself |
Notice that the second row is where most readers of this site land, and the answer in that row is the free one. I would rather publish that than a table engineered to route everyone to the column that pays.
Running the Business Behind the Store
The return is the last two hours of a year of decisions. Almost everything that determines your tax bill happened long before you opened any software.
Margin decides whether the return is worth optimising at all, and margin is a niche decision. The list of proven high-ticket niches is the right place to start if you are still choosing what to sell.
If the model itself is new, the explanation of what high-ticket dropshipping actually is covers why fewer, larger orders change both the economics and the bookkeeping burden.
Cost of goods sold is the largest number on most store returns, and supplier terms drive it. The complete guide to finding high-ticket suppliers moves that number permanently in a way no software choice can.
Entity choice decides which return you file in the first place, and it is worth settling before your second profitable year rather than after. The guide to business formation for high-ticket dropshipping lays out the trade-offs.
The operating stack stays small. Most of these stores run on Shopify. The entity is commonly formed through Bizee, which keeps the formation invoice in one place for the first year file.
Product liability cover from Hiscox or another carrier is the third piece, because most real suppliers ask for a certificate before approving a dealer account.
If assembling that yourself is not how you want to spend the next eighteen months, my team builds and launches these stores through the done-for-you store build and launch service.
Frequently Asked Questions
If Cash App Taxes is free and handles Schedule C, why does anyone pay?
Mostly because they do not qualify, and they find out late. Multi-state, part-year, non-resident, prior year and living abroad are all hard stops, and between them they cover a lot of real people. The rest pay for phone support, for the option of having a person prepare the return, or because they already have last year’s data in another product and do not want to re-key it.
Does Cash App Taxes support a Schedule K-1 from my LLC or S corporation?
The unsupported list names Schedule K-1 for estate and trust income specifically, and does not name partnership or S corporation K-1s in that entry. I am not going to extrapolate from that in either direction, because the difference matters and the article is written against a prior tax year. If you receive a K-1, check the current supported-forms list before you start, and if it is ambiguous, treat it as unsupported and price a paid product.
What happens if I get halfway through and hit an unsupported form?
You start over somewhere else. There is no partial refund to ask for since you paid nothing, but there is a real time cost, which is the strongest practical argument for reading the unsupported list before you begin rather than after. Budget twenty minutes for that reading. It is the highest-value twenty minutes in this entire comparison.
Is the state return really free, including a state with its own complicated forms?
Cash App Taxes states its state filing is free with no caveat about which state, as long as it is a single resident-state return that is not part-year and not non-resident. What it will not do is a second state, and it will not do state alone without federal. The free part is genuine within that boundary and it is a boundary the company publishes rather than hides.
Does e-file.com carry forward my prior year data if I switch to it?
Not from another company’s product, no. Nothing carries across vendors, which is true in both directions and is the main switching cost in this category. Save a complete PDF of last year’s return before you move, because you will be typing figures off it, particularly anything with a depreciation schedule attached.
Which one is better if my books are a mess?
Neither, and the software choice is not the problem you have. A return built on uncategorised bank statements produces a number you cannot defend regardless of which product produced it. Spend the money on getting a bookkeeper to close the year properly, then file it in whichever product qualifies, and the free one will very likely qualify.
Bottom Line
Cash App Taxes is the better answer for a single-state sole proprietor filing a current year return from inside the United States, and that describes a great many store owners. Federal and state for zero, with Schedule C, Schedule SE, Form 8829 and Form 4562 all supported. I would use it, and the fact that it pays me nothing does not change that.
e-file.com is the better answer the moment you are multi-state, part-year, non-resident in any state, catching up on a prior year, or filing from abroad. Those are not edge cases in this audience, they are the normal shape of a growing store, and the flat $32.99 per state is a genuinely good structure once you are filing more than one.
The mistake to avoid is paying before you have checked whether you qualify for free, and the second mistake is starting the free one without reading its unsupported list. Twenty minutes of reading in January decides this, not an article in September.
For the comparison against the other end of the market, where you are paying for offices and human review rather than saving money, read e-file.com against H&R Block, which is a much easier case to argue and I say so in it.
If the Free One Cannot File Your Return, This Is the Cheap Paid Door
$49.99 federal plus a flat $32.99 per state at list, verified 9 September 2026. If you are single-state and current year, use Cash App Taxes instead and pay nothing. This is general information and not tax advice, and filing situations differ.
Related Articles
e-file.com vs H&R Block 2026: What the Retail Brand Premium Actually Buys a Store Owner
e-file.com vs FreeTaxUSA 2026: The Honest Price Comparison for Store Owners
8 Best e-file.com Alternatives for Self-Employed Filers in 2026
Best Tax Software for Self-Employed Filers in 2026
How to File Taxes as an Ecommerce Seller (2026 Step-by-Step Guide)
Trevor Fenner is an ecommerce entrepreneur and the founder of Ecommerce Paradise, a platform focused on helping entrepreneurs build and scale profitable high-ticket ecommerce and dropshipping businesses. With over a decade of hands-on experience, Trevor specializes in high-ticket dropshipping strategy, niche and product selection, supplier recruiting and onboarding, Google & Bing Shopping ads, ecommerce SEO, and systems-driven automation and scaling. Through Ecommerce Paradise, he provides free education via in-depth guides like How to Start High-Ticket Dropshipping, advanced training through the High-Ticket Dropshipping Masterclass, and fully done-for-you turnkey ecommerce services for entrepreneurs who want a faster, more hands-off path to growth. Trevor is known for emphasizing sustainable, real-world ecommerce models over hype-driven tactics, helping store owners build scalable, sellable, and location-independent brands.
Still deciding what to sell?
Grab the free list of 1,000+ niches that work for high-ticket dropshipping, sorted by category.
Free. Unsubscribe any time.
