Pros & Cons
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- Low price
- Comprehensive coverage of tax topics
- Thorough imports of previous Jackson Hewitt returns
- Proactive error checking and excellent final review
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- Can't import a prior year's return from competitors
- Context-sensitive and searchable help is lacking in amount and quality
- User experience isn't on par with alternatives
- Many pages don’t save automatically
Jackson Hewitt 2026 (Tax Year 2025) Specs
| All Major IRS Forms and Schedules | |
| Chat Help | |
| Hyperlinked Help In Interview | |
| Mobile Access | |
| Searchable Help Database |
Jackson Hewitt has offered in-person tax preparation for more than 40 years, but the company’s expertise doesn't translate well to its online tax software when compared with the competition. On the one hand, we like that the service is available for a modest flat rate, supports all major IRS forms and schedules, and offers a capable final review check. On the other hand, its help tools are sparse, and its user experience doesn't inspire confidence. You're better off with our Editors' Choice winners for the category: TurboTax excels for its state-of-the-art design and crystal-clear guidance, while FreeTaxUSA lets you file even complex federal returns for free.
Pricing: A Very Affordable Flat Rate
Jackson Hewitt charges $25 for both your federal and state returns. That's a very low price and accessible even for gig workers. Most other online tax services charge more just for filing a federal return. Jackson Hewitt supports all major IRS forms and schedules, as mentioned, so you should be able to complete complex returns that involve self-employment and investment income, as long as you don’t need much help.
For comparison, H&R Block Self-Employed, the plan you need if you want to access a similar set of forms and schedules, costs $85 for federal returns and an extra $37 per state. The equivalent version of TurboTax ($99 for federal, $39 per state) is similarly pricey. TaxSlayer has a self-employed version, but the Classic tier ($22.99 for federal, $39.99 per state) supports all major forms and schedules; it's sufficient for the self-employed, but it doesn’t match H&R Block's and TurboTax's quality or quantity of guidance. I expect prices for most of these services to go up later in the filing season, as they do every year. However, all of them have a better user experience and provide more help than Jackson Hewitt.
FreeTaxUSA, which also supports all major forms and schedules, undercuts Jackson Hewitt on price. It allows you to file your federal return for free and charges just $15.99 per state return.
Interface and Ease of Use: A Simple Interface With Some Quirks
All tax preparation websites work similarly, though their user experiences and guidance resources vary greatly. Jackson Hewitt interviews you like a human preparer, asking questions about your income and expenses from the previous tax year. It does this with a wizard-like tool. You can progress through the site using this approach or just select the tax topics from lists to create your own path.
You answer the questions on each page by clicking buttons, entering data, or selecting from lists. You never see official IRS forms and schedules (unless you want to), which is ideal. On some pages, such as mortgage interest, the site shows only the most commonly used fields and provides a link to advanced options if needed.
(Credit: Jackson Hewitt/PCMag)Jackson Hewitt works in the background, doing all the required calculations and depositing your answers on IRS documents. Some help is available along the way. When you complete all the relevant tax situations (also called tax topics), the site reviews your answers and points out possible errors and omissions. The last step is to pay for the service, as it helps you print or e-file your return.
To use Jackson Hewitt, you must first create an account and set up your security options. Then the site launches into its lengthy Q&A, asking for personal details such as your family members' dates of birth and Social Security numbers, as well as your filing status. If you used Jackson Hewitt for your 2024 taxes, the site can import that information, and it brings in more data than competitors. Every other online tax prep site, except for Jackson Hewitt and Liberty Tax, lets you import data from a competitor.
Once you lay the groundwork for your tax return, you can move on to income, deduction, and credit topics using a combination of lists and Q&A walk-throughs.
Competing tax prep services help taxpayers by making navigation extremely intuitive. Jackson Hewitt handles your returns’ overall flow just fine, but it has some navigation quirks that can cost you time and create frustration. Every time you log in, for example, it takes you right back to the beginning instead of asking if you want to start where you left off. The site also doesn't autosave every page like most competitors (Liberty Tax is another offender here).
Help and Support: Could Use Improvement
Although Jackson Hewitt displays some links within the Q&A that open brief explanations of topics (such as the difference between the cash and accrual methods of accounting), it's still behind the competition in terms of guidance. These callouts are few and far between, and I didn’t often see them where they were really necessary, like on the 1099-B data entry page when I was trying to report a stock sale. The site includes explanatory text within the Q&A in some places, but not nearly as often as competitors do.
(Credit: Jackson Hewitt/PCMag)The Help link opens a separate page that displays a lengthy list of FAQs. Some of these direct you to IRS instructions, while others provide brief explanations, sometimes with step-by-step instructions. Some provide helpful general information, and others offer obscure details about state returns. You can enter search words or phrases or form types, but I didn’t have much luck with this in many cases. I didn’t get any hits for "cryptocurrency,“ "medical expenses,” or “IRA,” for example.
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Other tax sites provide more guidance and instructional content within the Q&As. They also have much more information and lots of tutorials in their help databases, along with better search tools.
You can chat with support representatives and send emails with procedural questions, though you can’t connect with tax professionals to ask about tax law. TaxAct and FreeTaxUSA, among others, offer professional help on such topics for an extra fee. H&R Block provides it for free.
Self-Employment: Sufficient Coverage
Reporting self-employment income and expenses on your Schedule C can sometimes be time-consuming and confusing, but Jackson Hewitt thoroughly handles all the moving parts. Even if you are a gig worker who makes only, say, roughly $5,000 driving for Uber, it’s the only way to offset your income with expenses. No matter how small your business is, you should go through every step to get the maximum tax breaks.
The site walks you through self-employment topics in a little different order than competitors, but that’s not a problem. It first asks general business questions and inquires about your non-1099 income (cash and checks) and business expenses. It provides a handy way for you to split each expense into related groupings and enter a subtotal for each. For example, you might want to divide your advertising costs into types, such as brochures and business cards.
(Credit: Jackson Hewitt/PCMag)Then, it moves on to ask about your 1099-NECs, 1099-MISCs, car and truck expenses, and business use of home. It also covers retirement income. It dives deep into depreciation, too, which is one of the more complex financial concepts you’ll encounter in tax preparation. To its credit, Jackson Hewitt supplies more help than usual in this area. Still, if you haven’t dealt with depreciation before, we recommend you consider using Jackson Hewitt’s full-service tax preparation, especially if you also have to report investment sales. Those topics can require more knowledge than the site offers.
(Credit: Jackson Hewitt/PCMag)The Final Review: Problem-Free
Jackson Hewitt is very good at error-checking throughout the interview process. It won't even let you advance if you leave a required field blank. It also tries to prevent mistakes by putting a green border around fields that might override information you entered elsewhere. It stopped me at one point, for example, when I tried to enter property taxes because I had already included them on the mortgage page.
But it goes further. Before you file your taxes, Jackson Hewitt’s final review tool finds topics you started but didn’t complete, prompting you to finish them. This final check worked flawlessly and better than that for just about every other DIY tax service I tested. For example, one of its tools helps you find specific forms and schedules and displays links to all of them. You can also search for specific ones. That's a good thing because I had somehow missed residential energy credits. This tool is very handy, although I wish it were available much sooner in the process.
(Credit: Jackson Hewitt/PCMag)The final check also lists all the forms and schedules you completed, with links to their pages, and allows you to add forms. You can view all your data on actual official IRS forms and schedules, too. This page now also includes a drawing tool, should you want to scribble on your return.
Security: Is Jackson Hewitt Safe to Use?
Jackson Hewitt employs a layered defense strategy like its competitors. Multi-factor authentication is an option, but not a requirement. The service encrypts all the data you transmit from your computer or phone. Additionally, the site notifies you of any account activity, such as a password reset or an e-file submission.
Mobile Access: Mirrors the Desktop Site Well
The company doesn't offer dedicated mobile apps, but you can log onto the Jackson Hewitt website via your phone’s browser with no issue. I didn't have any trouble accessing the mobile version—in fact, I preferred working on my phone because the site was more compact and attractive. The user interface and navigation tools closely resemble those on the desktop.
(Credit: Jackson Hewitt/PCMag)The mobile site's content is comprehensive, and the help resources are the same as on the main site. You can fully prepare and file a complex return here—so long as you don't need help beyond what Jackson Hewitt offers.
Final Thoughts
(Credit: Jackson Hewitt)
Jackson Hewitt Online 2026 (Tax Year 2025)
Jackson Hewitt Online has attractive pricing and covers all major tax filing topics, but its user experience and help system fall short of the competition.