Ledgers vs untied

Check the income ceilings before anything else

untied's plans state limits on the income they cover: self-employment up to £90,000 (SA103s) and property income up to £90,000 (SA105). For most sole traders and landlords that is plenty of headroom. But it is the first thing to check rather than the last, because it is a hard edge rather than a soft one — and £90k of turnover is also roughly where VAT registration has already become your problem, which untied does not handle at all.

It handles your whole personal tax position, not just the business

A salaried employee with a side trade, some rental income and a crypto disposal has one tax return covering all of it. untied is built for exactly that: SA102 employment alongside SA103s self-employment, SA105 property, SA108 capital gains, SA109 non-residence. Ledgers keeps a business's books and does not attempt your personal return — if your complexity is on the personal side, untied is the right shape of tool.

Genuinely good for gig and light self-employment

For a delivery rider, driver or gig worker, untied Lite at £64.99 a year covers the ground without asking you to think about double-entry anything. Mileage, simple income logging, file and pay directly to HMRC. Setting up a general ledger for that would be over-engineering the problem, and we would rather say so.

MTD for Income Tax is on the paid plan today

untied Pro includes MTD. Ledgers prepares VAT returns from your books (direct MTD filing is coming) and has not shipped ITSA submission yet. If your deadline is April 2026 and you want a tool that is filing quarterly updates now rather than one that plans to, that is the strongest single reason to choose untied over us.

One annual price, no transaction metering

untied charges a flat yearly fee regardless of how many transactions run through it. Our pricing is tiered by transaction volume, so a high-volume, low-margin trade can cost more with us than the flat fee — worth checking against your own numbers rather than taking the headline.

No income ceiling to grow into

untied's plans are scoped to self-employment and property income up to £90,000 each. That is a real limit, and it sits uncomfortably close to the point at which a growing trade also picks up VAT registration, possibly an employee, and a genuine need for management accounts. Ledgers has no such ceiling, and the things that arrive with growth — VAT, payroll, CIS — are part of the same product rather than the reason to leave it.

A ledger, not a return

untied assembles a tax return from income and expense records. Ledgers keeps double-entry books with balanced journals and integrity checks that cross-check the reports against the ledger. The practical difference is what you can answer: a return tells you what you owe for a year that has ended; a ledger tells you what the business is worth, who owes you money, and whether last month was profitable.

The bookkeeping is done, not deferred

Any personal tax app ultimately depends on you having categorised your income and costs correctly. untied helps you log them; it does not do them. Ledgers runs agents over the bank feed that categorise every transaction and never leave a line blank, then surface the genuinely ambiguous ones for you to approve — with the reasoning visible, so you are checking work rather than doing it.

It survives incorporation

If your side trade becomes a limited company, a personal tax app has nothing to offer you: you need statutory accounts, Corporation Tax, Companies House deadlines and probably payroll. That is a hard stop and a migration. On Ledgers it is a change of entity type on the books you already have.

What does untied cost?

As listed on their site: untied Lite is £64.99 a year and covers PAYE employment and self-employment up to £90k, without MTD. untied Pro is £129.99 a year and adds MTD, property income up to £90k, capital gains and non-residence. There is a 30-day free trial, and you need a paid plan to actually file.

Does untied do Making Tax Digital for Income Tax?

Yes, on the Pro plan. That is the clearest advantage it has over Ledgers today — we prepare VAT returns from your books (direct MTD filing is coming) and have not yet shipped ITSA quarterly submission.

What happens if I earn more than £90,000?

Check directly with untied, because their plan pages state the £90k ceilings on the self-employment and property pages and that is the sort of limit you want confirmed rather than assumed. It is also roughly the territory where VAT registration and a real bookkeeping system stop being optional, which is the case for looking at something like Ledgers.

Can untied do my company accounts?

No. It is a personal tax app, built around the individual's Self Assessment return. Limited company accounts, Corporation Tax and Companies House filings are a different product category.

I am employed with a small side business. Which one?

untied, most likely. Your complexity is on the personal return — combining PAYE with a small trade — and that is precisely what it is built for. Come back to a bookkeeping system when the side business is big enough that you need to know how it is doing, not just what it owes.