Bench vs Pilot

Two accounting tools side by side. Prices are the starting plan a small business would pick, in USD.

Compare	BenchEmployer.com	PilotPilot
In one line	A bookkeeping team that does your books each month	Done-for-you bookkeeping and tax for startups
Starting price	From $199/mo	From $99/mo
Six-person team	$199/mo	$99/mo
Plans	Bookkeeping Light $199/mo (up to $250K revenue/yr); Bookkeeping $399/mo; Bookkeeping + Tax $649/mo; 20% off yearly; catch-up free on yearly plans	Bookkeeping Essentials from $99/mo billed yearly (up to $100K monthly expenses); tax filing from $750/yr for newly formed companies, $2,000+ for partnerships and S-corps, $2,450+ for C-corps
Pricing model	Paid	Paid
Free trial	—	—
Users	n/a (service)	n/a
Both connect to	No shared connections on record.
Also connects to	Square POS, Gusto, Shopify, Stripe Invoicing, BigCommerce, Shoeboxed	Ramp10,000+ listed by the vendor
Team size	Just me · 2–10 people · 11–50 people	2–10 people · 11–50 people
Available in	US	US
Phone support	Every plan	Core and up
Live chat	Every plan	Every plan
Support hours	Phone: weekdays 7am to 5pm PST	Not published
Incidents posted	We found no public status page for Employer.com.	We found no public status page for Pilot.
Capterra score	Not listed	4.9 / 5 from 29 reviews
Trustpilot score	4.1 / 5 from 1,355 reviews	2.9 / 5 from 20 reviews
Fit: Retail shop	65	35
Fit: Restaurant or café	60	30
Fit: Service business	80	65
Fit: Agency or studio	80	78
Fit: Trades or contractor	70	40
Fit: Online store	75	75
Why people pick it	A bookkeeper you can message any time Free catch-up on yearly plans	A team does the books Tax filing from the same people
Where it falls short	Costs far more than software Service paused in late 2024 before the sale	Costs more than software Built around startups
	Visit Bench ↗	Visit Pilot ↗

Six-person prices are what a team of six would pay on the published plans; "Not listed" means those plans don't cover six. How we calculate prices