<story><title>TurboTax Freemium Funnel: Critical Analysis and UX Teardown</title><url>https://medium.com/@brandonscottread/turbotax-design-1a37356adc61</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>djcapelis</author><text>I stopped using TurboTax some years ago and switched to TaxAct as a less bad alternative.  I didn’t believe them to be necessarily tons better than giving money to TurboTax, but I figured at least it wouldn’t just keep solidifying a market leader who was capturing a significant market based mostly around actively lobbying to keep it that way.&lt;p&gt;In the last two years I took a leap to CreditKarma’s tax offering.  It is a bit basic and not quite as endlessly full featured, but it is simple, efficient, pretty quick and quite fast.  It’s also entirely free.  The first year I used it I ran my numbers in a competing product to check, I was self employed at the time, which meant my tax situation wasn’t exactly easy that year.&lt;p&gt;Anyway, the numbers lined up perfectly. So I used CreditKarma to file and have been happy with it ever since.  Honestly at this point I’d pay for it, just to give them a more solid business model and development budget, but as far as I know they don’t even have a paid option!&lt;p&gt;I filed in February this year.  It was easy.&lt;p&gt;I actively avoid Intuit products now.&lt;p&gt;(Though, pragmatism wins here to some degree: I did use their self-employment accounting tool for a few years even when I had switched away from their tax software.  That tool makes it annoyingly easy to keep accurate books and Xero just wasn’t as good and simple at what I was looking for.  If I was doing it again today, I’d definitely again look for alternatives.  And frankly I think I’d find them now.)</text></comment>
<story><title>TurboTax Freemium Funnel: Critical Analysis and UX Teardown</title><url>https://medium.com/@brandonscottread/turbotax-design-1a37356adc61</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>codehusker</author><text>This might not apply to many who frequent HN, but not enough people know about Free File options.&lt;p&gt;If your adjusted gross income is less than $66,000 you can likely file your federal and potentially state taxes for free.&lt;p&gt;If you make more than $66,00 AGI, the IRS provides fillable forms that are pretty easy to use for your federal but might not be applicable in all circumstances.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.irs.gov&amp;#x2F;filing&amp;#x2F;free-file-do-your-federal-taxes-for-free&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.irs.gov&amp;#x2F;filing&amp;#x2F;free-file-do-your-federal-taxes-f...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>