Karbon vs. Canopy: Which is a better practice management platform?

Karbon outperforms Canopy

	Karbon	Canopy
Powerful workflow automation		Limited
Kanban workflow dashboards
Invoicing and payments
Client tasks and auto-reminders
Client portal
CRM and client management
Email integrated into workflow		Limited
Calendar integrated into workflow		Limited
Document management
Time tracking
Budget planning and tracking
Reporting
Advanced analytics
GPT-powered AI

Why accounting firms choose Karbon over Canopy

Contextual UI of task automation in Karbon.

Integrated workflow and automation

Karbon is built for accounting firms—from how you initiate work, to how you complete and deliver it. That’s why Karbon’s workflow, task management, and collaboration features deeply integrate with each other, bringing you connectivity, automation, and peace-of-mind.

Whether it’s immediately turning your emails into templated job tasks, creating custom Kanban boards, or automating client communication, Karbon’s integrated workflow tools enable you and your team to get work done faster, better, and smarter.

Explore Karbon's workflow features

Abstracted analytics dashboard in Karbon.

Unparalleled reporting and analytics

Your practice management solution is your accounting firm’s central source of client, team, and profitability data. It's what you need to make critical business decisions.

With Karbon’s advanced reporting and analytics tools, you can create capacity planning dashboards, analyze firm profitability, track employee performance, uncover workflow bottlenecks, and much more.

Discover Karbon's reporting capabilities

Two cards comparing Canopy's features and pricing to Karbon's.

Transparent pricing with no surprises down the road

Karbon’s most popular Business Plan starts at $89 USD/month, per user, paid annually. You get all the features you need right out of the box: email integration, client Portal, CRM, document management, workflows, time and budgets, and invoicing and payments. Plus, you get 2,000 free client contacts.

Compare Karbon plans

Composite UI image depicting tag filtering, messaging, and Karbon community members.

An active user community

Nothing speaks more for Karbon’s product and customer support than its vibrant user community. Karbon Community has over 2,900 members with new discussion threads created daily. Members can submit new feature requests, share tips and best practices, and connect with their peers from around the world.

Karbon Community is a global network of progressive CPAs, bookkeepers, and tax professionals helping each other deliver exceptional client work and services.

Explore Karbon Community

Experience the Karbon effect.

On average, Karbon saves every employee 18.5 hours each week.

Findings obtained through Karbon’s 2024 Firm Usage Survey, with responses representing 15% of Karbon’s total customer base.

3 hours

Saved chasing clients

3.7 hours

Saved managing and completing work and tasks

3 hours

Saved reading, actioning and searching for email

3.9 hours

Saved with more efficient team collaboration

2 hours

Saved organizing and accessing documents

2.9 hours

Saved with automating and AI

3 of 4

Say Karbon helps them meet deadlines

2 of 3

Say Karbon directly contributes to their firm's growth

Exceeds expectations
Karbon has solved the 'silo' problem in my business. Complete visibility of communications between team members and customers is now a reality. The Karbon development team and support team are amazing and really care about me and my business.
Kirk J, CEO, Capterra

Keeping the dispersed team connected
Syncing with my Outlook email and calendar helps me prioritize my day. The project management side gives me visibility into my team's work. Karbon's functionality allows our bookkeeping and accounting teams to keep projects on track and ensure future projects don't get missed. I appreciate the insights into what is being worked on, the due dates and the workflow.
Victoria P., Chief Growth Officer, G2

Finally in control of my practice
There are many features I love, but overall, I love being able to see at a glance exactly where we are with client deadlines and what we need to prioritize. Before this, the practice management system I was using required me to download data into Excel, mess about for hours and the next day, it had all changed. I love being able to allocate work directly from my inbox, moving things to My Week to do later — it's great!
Ali R., Director, G2

Karbon has 98% positive reviews on G2.com.

Frequently Asked Questions

How does Karbon help bookkeeping, tax, and accounting practices be more productive?

Teams using Karbon save 18.5 hours per employee each week, on average.
Productivity per employee increases by 18%.
9 out of 10 customers say Karbon beats all competitive products for workflow management.

How much does Karbon cost?

Team

$59/month, per user, paid annually

Or $79/month per user, paid monthly

Business

$89/month, per user, paid annually

Or $99/month per user, paid monthly

Enterprise

Custom Pricing

Karbon has three pricing plans: Team, Business, and Enterprise. Firms under 50 users can choose either a Team or Business plan and the total cost is simply the number of users multiplied by the monthly cost of an annual contract. For example, for a 5-user firm on an annual Business plan, Karbon would cost $445 USD per month in total.

How much does Canopy cost?

Canopy has a modular pricing model that charges by the number of features you add on.

Their Standard and Pro pricing tiers include 250 free contacts and charges extra for these add-ons:

Document Management: starting at $40 USD/month, per user
Workflow: starting at $35 USD/month, per user
Time & Billing: starting at $25 USD/month, per user
Tax Resolution: starting at $50 USD/month, per user

Canopy also offers two other tiers for firms with fewer than four staff members:

Starter: $45 USD/month per user, plus $50 USD/month per user for their tax resolution feature.

Essentials: $45 USD/month per user, plus $50 USD/month per user for their tax resolution feature.

To translate their pricing model into the equivalent of a 5-user firm on an annual Karbon Business plan, Canopy would cost $1,003 USD/month in total ($460 USD/month for 1,950 contacts, $180 USD/month for document management, $205 USD/month for workflow, and $158 USD/month for time & billing) whereas Karbon costs $445 USD/month.

When should I choose Karbon over Canopy?

Karbon and Canopy are both comprehensive practice management platforms for accounting and tax firms. This means that both products have essential features like email management, project management, CRM, client portal, and billing and payments to help run your practice.

Karbon’s biggest advantages are its robust workflow management features, integrated collaboration tools, and advanced data analytics capabilities.

Canopy’s biggest advantages are its in-depth tax workflow solutions, including a direct integration with the IRS and automated tax resolution services.

Full-service accounting and tax firms with distributed teams often find Karbon to be best at giving them the visibility, customization, and time savings they need to support their teams and clients wherever they are.

Specialist tax firms with complex tax clients will likely benefit from more automated and streamlined tax compliance workflows that Canopy offers.

The choice between Karbon and Canopy ultimately comes down to your firm’s unique needs, budget, and preferences (although Karbon costs less than Canopy for the same features).

If you are curious about Karbon, you can start a trial or book a demo here. Or you can hear directly from Karbon customers about what Karbon is enabling them to do at their firm (and for their clients).

What business and accounting software integrations does Karbon offer?

Karbon integrates with Gmail, Microsoft Outlook 365, Microsoft Exchange, DropBox, OneDrive, and an ever-growing suite of popular accounting apps including QuickBooks Online, Ignition, GoProposal, and more. You can also connect Karbon to over 5,000 apps through Zapier. To learn more about Karbon’s integration capabilities, visit the integrations library here.