Compare ACA Software Costs Using Your Actual Workflow

Begin with the reporting year, employer entities, estimated original return count and known historical work. Ask what each proposal means by a form: an employee identity, generated statement, original filing, corrected return or another unit. A shared label does not guarantee a shared billing definition.

Separate recipient delivery, agency submission, outcome review, source cleanup and correction services. The 2025 C-series instructions and Publication 5165 describe distinct reporting and electronic follow-up activities. The cost model should make clear which activities are included in the proposal and which remain with the employer.

Record the source of each volume assumption. Use an actual reviewed estimate when available, and mark planning assumptions when it is not. Keep optional service scenarios separate so a change in delivery method does not silently change the baseline comparison.

Use three logical areas: common assumptions, vendor-specific inputs and calculated totals. Add an open-question register so a missing fee or unclear inclusion has an owner. The downloadable worksheet is plain text with tabular rows that can be copied into a spreadsheet and edited.

Label taxes, minimums, tier changes and excluded items where relevant to the actual quote. The simplified example below excludes any unlisted charge and must not be treated as a complete vendor proposal.

Fictional example: two unnamed options are evaluated for 1,000 original forms. Both assume $300 for the same delivery scope and an internal planning rate of $50 per hour. All prices and hours are invented for the exercise.

The modeled difference is $1,600. It depends heavily on the assumed work hours and service scope. It does not establish that an actual product is cheaper or that the lower modeled total satisfies the employer's requirements.

In the fictional example, assume recurring internal effort falls to 40 hours for A and 30 hours for B, while platform, original processing and delivery inputs remain unchanged. Excluding one-time setup, A becomes $1,200 + $2,000 + $300 + $2,000 = $5,500. B becomes $2,000 + $1,500 + $300 + $1,500 = $5,300.

The recurring difference is only $200 under those assumptions. The reduction in effort is a planning hypothesis that should be checked against the workflow or a pilot. Do not automatically remove mapping work if annual source changes or new employers could require it again.

Preserve contract renewal assumptions separately from operational estimates. A price that applies to the first purchased year is not evidence that later pricing will remain identical. Use the actual written terms when building a real comparison.

Vary one input at a time: original volume, mailed statement count, correction activity or internal hours. For the fictional recurring comparison, four additional hours at $50 would add $200, equal to the modeled difference between the options. That shows why a small price difference may be less meaningful than uncertain workload.

Ask which tasks consume the hours. Source cleanup, identity matching, review meetings, outcome retrieval and support follow-up may not appear in a vendor fee schedule but still require staff time. Avoid counting the same task twice when a service fee already includes work removed from the employer's estimate.

Keep unresolved fees outside a falsely precise grand total. Show a known-cost subtotal and an explicit list of unpriced items until the vendor answers. The RFP template helps request consistent clarification.

Update estimated hours after a bounded proof of concept or a walkthrough of the employer's actual tasks. Record who performed the work, what assistance was needed and which activities the pilot did not cover. A short demonstration is not a complete measurement of annual effort.

Keep essential requirements and accepted service dependencies beside the cost results. A proposal that lacks a required historical workflow remains incomplete even if the known-cost subtotal is low. The model supports the decision; it cannot replace the requirement review.

Save the input version, quote date, assumptions and calculations used for selection. Revisit the affected rows when scope or service terms change so the implementation plan and the expected cost continue to describe the same operating model.