What a Client Portal Actually Costs Your Firm
Every client portal has a number on its pricing page. That number is almost never what you pay.
The reason is that these tools bill on three completely different things, and only one of them has anything to do with how many clients you have. Before you compare $35 to $59 to $80, you need to know what each vendor is counting.
Here is the breakdown, with the math run at three firm sizes.
The three pricing models
Per user, per month. You pay for every person on your team who logs in. Practice management platforms use this model almost universally. Your cost is a function of headcount, so hiring a second bookkeeper is also a software purchase.
Per active request. You pay for how many client requests are open at the same time. Clients are free, seats are capped. Your cost spikes during month-end close and tax season, exactly when you have the most open requests, and drops in the quiet months if you remember to close things out.
Per firm. One price covers the whole practice regardless of headcount or volume. Your cost is a line item you can forget about.
Most firms compare sticker prices without noticing they are comparing three unrelated units of measurement.
Firm A: two people, eight clients
A solo bookkeeper with one part-time assistant.
| Model | Annual cost |
|---|---|
| Per user (practice management) | $1,600 to $2,400 |
| Per active request (entry tier) | around $420 |
| Per firm (EasyRequests Starter) | $290 |
At this size everything is affordable and the per-user platforms are not unreasonable, because two seats is two seats. The gap is real but it is a few hundred dollars a year, and if you also need billing, e-signatures and tax organizers, the bigger platform may be worth it.
This is the one firm size where the pricing model barely matters.
Firm B: five staff, twenty-five clients
A small firm that has hired past the founder.
| Model | Annual cost |
|---|---|
| Per user (practice management) | $4,000 to $6,000 |
| Per active request (mid tier) | around $1,400 |
| Per firm (EasyRequests Growth) | $590 |
Here is where the models separate. Adding three staff multiplied the per-user bill by two and a half without adding a single client. The per-request tool went up because five people need five seats and twenty-five clients generate more concurrent requests than the entry tier allows.
The flat price did not move.
Firm C: twelve staff, fifty clients
An established practice.
| Model | Annual cost |
|---|---|
| Per user (practice management) | $8,500 to $14,000 |
| Per active request (top tier) | $2,600 and up |
| Per firm (EasyRequests Growth) | $590 |
At this size the per-user model costs more than a part-time employee. That is the point of the model from the vendor's side. Your growth is their revenue.
The part where we are honest with you
Those per-user numbers are not for a document collection tool. They are for full practice management: CRM, time tracking, invoicing, e-signatures, tax organizers, client billing, the whole operation. If you need all of that, comparing it to a document portal on price alone is not a fair fight, and you should not make the decision on price.
What we do is narrower. Intake forms, document collection, approval routing, encrypted fields for Tax IDs and EINs, and an audit trail on every decision. We do not do your billing. We do not do e-signatures. We do not prepare returns.
So the real question is not which tool is cheapest. It is whether you need one system that does everything at a per-seat price, or whether the document chase is the specific thing that is eating your week.
If it is the second one, you should not be paying headcount rates to solve it.
What flat pricing actually means here
One price for your firm. Not per user, not per client, not per open request.
Free covers one client workspace, which is enough to test the whole loop end to end. Starter is $29 a month and covers ten client workspaces. Growth is $59 a month and covers fifty. Beyond fifty, talk to us.
Add a bookkeeper in March and your bill does not change. Onboard six clients in January and your bill does not change. Close twenty requests during tax season and your bill does not change.
The reason we built it this way is not generosity. It is that per-seat pricing punishes firms for growing, and we would rather you grow.
Run your own numbers
Take your current tool. Count what you actually pay per year, not per month. Then ask what happens to that number if you hire two people and take on ten clients over the next eighteen months.
If the answer makes you wince, the pricing model is the problem, not the tool.
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Vendor pricing verified July 2026 from public pricing pages and third-party review sites. Plans change often. Check current rates before you decide.