Tool review
Lettuce review
Lettuce is an accounting and tax platform built for businesses-of-one. It forms your entity, files the S-corp election, runs your payroll, makes estimated tax payments through the year, and prepares the business return — the recurring work an S election creates, bundled into one subscription.
The short version: Lettuce Pro costs $3,588 a year and is the tier that includes the S-corp election. That is a fixed cost against a variable saving, so the answer turns almost entirely on your net profit. In a state with no entity-level tax, the election typically needs somewhere around $100,000 of profit before it covers a subscription at that price; in California, Illinois, or Tennessee it needs considerably more. Above those levels the automation is worth paying for. Below them, no software fixes the underlying math.
What the plans cost
Grow
$99/mo
$1,188/yr
Solos earning $40K-69K, per Lettuce
LLC formation, EIN, business banking and debit card, expense and invoice management, contractor payments, automatic tax set-aside. No S-corp election at this tier.
Pro
$299/mo
$3,588/yr
Solos and existing S corps earning $70K+, per Lettuce
Everything in Grow, plus the S-corp election, monthly payroll, automatic salary management, year-round estimated tax payments, business tax prep and filing, audit protection, health insurance access, and a solo 401(k) through Carry.
Premium
$525/mo
$6,300/yr
Multi-entity or multi-state businesses
Everything in Pro, plus a dedicated account manager, senior CPA access, multi-state tax advisory, and custom deduction strategy. Lettuce notes healthcare access is not available at this tier.
Personal 1040 filing is not included in any tier — it is a separate $500/year add-on. Prices are as published by Lettuce at the time of writing; check their site before signing up. Lettuce also states that Pro customers who do not save more than the subscription cost can request a full refund.
The threshold that actually decides this
An S election saves money by moving part of your profit from salary, which carries 15.3% in payroll tax, to distributions, which do not. The saving scales with profit. The subscription does not. So there is a profit level below which paying $3,588 a year to save payroll tax is simply a worse deal than staying a sole proprietor — and above which it is clearly better.
Lettuce positions Pro at $70,000 and up. That is defensible as a general threshold but it does not account for where you live. Several states tax the S corporation itself: California takes 1.5% of net income with an $800 minimum, Illinois levies a 1.5% replacement tax, and Tennessee does not recognize the election at all. In those states the breakeven sits well above $70,000. Run your own figure rather than taking any vendor's threshold, including this one.
Check your own breakeven first
Enter your net profit, state, and $3,588 as the annual cost. If the result is negative, no amount of automation makes the election worthwhile yet.
Open the S Corp Breakeven Calculator →Lettuce vs doing it yourself
The election itself is not the hard part. Form 2553 is one page and free to file. What you are deciding is whether to run the machinery it creates.
| What it takes | Do it yourself | Lettuce Pro |
|---|---|---|
| File the election | Form 2553, free, once | Included |
| Payroll and tax deposits | Payroll software, roughly $500-1,500/yr | Included, salary set automatically |
| Business return (1120-S) | CPA, commonly $800-1,500/yr | Included |
| Personal return (1040) | Your existing filing method | Not included — $500/yr add-on |
| Bookkeeping | Yours to maintain, or paid separately | Included, transactions auto-categorized |
| Rough annual cost | $1,500-2,500 + your time | $3,588 |
On price alone the assembled-yourself route is usually cheaper. What Lettuce sells is that the salary gets set, payroll runs, and estimated payments go out without you scheduling any of it — and that a missed payroll filing has real penalties attached. Whether that premium is worth roughly $1,000-2,000 a year is a judgment about how reliably you would do it yourself, not a math question.
Before you sign up
- The 1040 is extra. Personal filing is a $500/year add-on, so the realistic all-in cost for someone who wants both returns handled is closer to $4,088 than $3,588. Use that figure in the breakeven calculator if it applies to you.
- Tax work involves a partner firm. Reviewers report filings are handled by Formations rather than entirely in-house, and that the extra hand-off has caused communication delays. Ask how support is routed before committing.
- No W-2 employees. Lettuce is built for businesses-of-one. If you plan to hire, you will outgrow it.
- Onboarding has drawn complaints. Positive reviews consistently praise the automation once it is running; the recurring criticism is that setup was clunkier than expected.
- A reasonable salary is still your responsibility. Automatic salary management sets a figure, but the IRS standard is reasonable compensation for the work you actually perform. That remains the most scrutinized number in a solo S corp regardless of who calculates it.
Who it fits
A good fit if
- Your net profit clears your state's breakeven with room to spare
- You are a business-of-one with no employees and no plans to hire
- You would rather not coordinate payroll software, a bookkeeper, and a CPA yourself
- Missing a payroll or estimated-tax deadline is a realistic risk for you
Look elsewhere if
- Your profit is below or near breakeven — the subscription eats the saving
- You operate in New York City, where the GCT ignores the S election
- You have or want W-2 employees
- You already have a CPA you trust and only need payroll
Try Lettuce
If your breakeven math works, Lettuce Pro is a reasonable way to run an S corp without assembling the pieces yourself. Confirm current pricing on their site — plans change, and the figures here are as published at the time of writing.
Opens Lettuce in a new tab. Check the current price on their site before signing up — plans change.
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Advertising disclosure: SwitchWize earns a referral fee if you sign up with Lettuce through this link. It does not change what you pay, and it did not decide what this page says — the thresholds and cautions here come from the same calculator math used everywhere else on the site.
Frequently asked questions
How much does Lettuce cost?
Three tiers: Grow at $99/month, Pro at $299/month, and Premium at $525/month, all billed monthly. Pro is the tier that includes the S-corp election, payroll, and tax filing, which works out to $3,588 a year. Personal 1040 filing is not included in any tier and is a separate $500 per year add-on. Setup on Grow is $0 plus state filing fees.
Is Lettuce worth it?
It depends almost entirely on your net profit, because the subscription is a fixed cost and the tax saving is not. Lettuce says most solopreneurs earning over $100,000 save $10,000 or more, and that its average customer saves $15,000 a year. Those are their figures, not ours. The honest way to check is to run your own numbers through the S Corp Breakeven Calculator with $3,588 entered as the annual cost — below roughly $100,000 of net profit in a state with no entity-level tax, and materially higher in California, Illinois, or Tennessee, the subscription costs more than the election saves.
Can I just file the S-corp election myself instead?
Yes. The election is a single form, IRS Form 2553, and it is free to file. What you would be taking on is the recurring work: running payroll on a schedule, making payroll tax deposits, filing quarterly employment tax returns, issuing yourself a W-2, and filing the annual 1120-S. Assembling that yourself from payroll software plus a CPA for the business return typically runs somewhere in the $1,500-2,500 a year range, below Lettuce Pro. You are paying the difference for it to be automated and in one place rather than coordinated across three vendors.
Who should not use Lettuce?
Anyone below the breakeven profit for their state, because the subscription will cost more than the election saves. Anyone with W-2 employees, since Lettuce is built for businesses-of-one and does not support them. Anyone who already has a CPA relationship they are happy with and only needs payroll, who would pay less buying payroll alone. And anyone operating in New York City, where the General Corporation Tax does not recognize the S election and can eliminate the benefit before any software is involved.
Who actually handles the tax filing?
Reviewers report that tax work is performed by a partner firm, Formations, rather than entirely in-house. That is not inherently a problem, but several users have said they did not realize a second company would be involved and found the extra hand-off a source of communication delays. Worth asking about directly during onboarding if a single point of contact matters to you.
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