Full Pilot bookkeeping review: pros and cons, pricing, and alternatives

Pilot is a viable low-cost bookkeeping solution for startups, especially those with straightforward financial reporting needs. 

Its basic subscription is relatively affordable and includes monthly financial reporting and communication with your bookkeeper through the Pilot dashboard.

You can upgrade your subscription to receive expedited financial statements, industry-standard financial ratios, and monthly phone calls, or pay for a custom plan to get support for more complex needs, like multiple entities, AR and AP, and inventory.

Pilot also offers tax preparation and fractional CFO services, which you may want to purchase to keep your financial management processes under one roof.

That said, Pilot isn’t without its drawbacks. Here’s an overview of its pros and cons:

How Pilot works

Pilot aims to be a comprehensive finance and accounting service for startup founders and small business owners, providing integrated bookkeeping, tax preparation, and fractional CFO services under one roof.

Bookkeeping is Pilot’s foundational offering, and signing up for a subscription is a prerequisite for purchasing any of its tax services. To do so, you must meet the following three requirements:

• Use bookkeeping software
• Provide electronic transaction access
• Keep personal and business expenses separate

Upon signing up, Pilot matches you with a dedicated bookkeeper who migrates your financial information to QuickBooks Online (QBO)—their software of choice—if you’re not already using it.

From then on, Pilot takes over the maintenance of your books, providing monthly financial statements you can use to facilitate financial planning and tax preparation or fulfill lender and investor requests.

Pilot features

In addition to basic bookkeeping services, Pilot’s subscription includes several supporting features. You can access them through the same portal where you download your monthly balance sheet, P&L, and cash flow statement.

Here’s how they work:

• Tasks: This feature is designed to streamline communication with your bookkeeper and eliminate the need to email back and forth. It includes tools for asking and answering general questions, requesting clarification on individual transactions, and recategorizing new vendors.
• Reports: You can use this feature to generate various financial reports that provide insight into your business. In addition to the three main financial statements, that includes burn rate calculations, accounts payable (AP) and accounts receivable (AR) agings, and revenue waterfall charts.
• Insights: Pilot also provides Recurring Expenses and Flux Insights reports. These summarize the prepaid and recurring costs Pilot has detected, the most notable fluctuations in your spending compared to the previous months, and the transactions that had the most significant impact.

Pilot's features are sufficient for basic bookkeeping, but they lack the depth and flexibility a business owner with more complex financial needs may require. 

If you run a venture-backed startup, you might find them somewhat limited, despite being Pilot’s target market.

Pilot pricing

Pilot bases its bookkeeping prices on your monthly expenses, which include all of your outgoing payments, even distributions. Here’s how it works:

1. Sign-up fee: When you start your subscription, Pilot charges an onboarding fee equal to one month’s payment.
2. Prepay: In addition to the sign-up fee, Pilot requires you to pay for the entire year of bookkeeping services upfront. 
3. Recalculation: Every month, Pilot calculates your average expense volume from the past three months. If your activities exceed the amount you’ve prepaid for, it bills you for the difference that month.
4. Renewal: At the end of the year, Pilot automatically charges you for the next billing cycle. If you don’t want to continue their services, you must let them know in advance that you don’t want to renew.

Here’s how Pilot’s pricing works for each bookkeeping subscription at the various ranges of expense volumes:

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If you have $200,000 or more in monthly expenses, you’re ineligible for the lower-tier plans and must contact Pilot for a customized Plus subscription with tailored pricing. 

Here’s what each subscription tier includes:

Pilot pros and cons

Here are the most significant pros and cons of Pilot’s bookkeeping services:

Pros

• Low monthly rates: Pilot’s subscriptions start at just $349, which is relatively inexpensive for full-service bookkeeping.
• Integrated services: You can get tax preparation and fractional CFO services from Pilot without having to coordinate with another service provider.
• Industry experience: Pilot specializes in bookkeeping for startups. It also has additional experience working with small businesses, professional service providers, Ecommerce companies, consultancies, and law firms.

Cons

• Long onboarding: Pilot’s customers have reported onboarding to take as long as 3 months.
• Rigid billing: Pilot’s monthly prices are comparatively low, but you must prepay them annually. However, that doesn’t lock in your rate, which can increase if your activities do. Also, you must cancel in advance to avoid auto-renewal.
• Limited features: Pilot doesn’t offer some of the bookkeeping features more complex businesses may be interested in, such as daily financial reporting or payroll management.
• Limited support and expertise: Communication with your bookkeeper takes place primarily via their portal. Phone-based support isn't available to Starter subscribers, and Core subscribers only get monthly phone reviews. Pilot has also scaled significantly, and its experts may be spread thinner than competitors. Pilot customers only get 30 minutes per month for consultations. 
• QBO-only support: Pilot requires you to transition to QuickBooks Online during the onboarding process and won’t support any other accounting software.

What Pilot customer reviews say

Pilot receives generally positive online reviews from customers, though their volume is relatively low. Here are its average ratings on several popular crowdsourced websites:

• G2: 4.7 out of 5 stars (104 reviews)
• Trustpilot: 3.8 out of 5 stars (13 reviews)
• Yelp: 4.3 out of 5 stars (7 reviews)

Customers routinely praise the quality of communication and support through Pilot’s online portal. They appreciate the intuitive user interface, Pilot’s prompt responses, and the level of care shown by the CEO.

Customers also applaud Pilot’s consistency and efficiency in delivering on their basic promise of accurate monthly financial statements. However, those same customers note that it can take too long for Pilot to close the books, especially at the Starter tier.

Similarly, the monthly bookkeeping schedule can be problematic for certain customers. Due to the lack of real-time updates, you’re potentially left without insight into your activities for weeks after each month closes.

Otherwise, there aren’t many recurring complaints. Instead, negative reviews tend to indicate that Pilot lets the occasional client slip through the cracks, perhaps due to their bookkeepers being spread too thin.

Pilot alternatives

Pilot’s online bookkeeping service isn't right for everyone, and fortunately, there are plenty of other options available, whether you’re looking for more flexible pricing, more advanced tools, or phone-based support.

Here are some Pilot alternatives to consider:

• Zeni: Zeni is a truly comprehensive financial platform for startups with features enhanced by the power of AI. In addition to bookkeeping, its offerings include tax prep, CFO services, payroll management, bill pay, employee reimbursements, checking accounts, and business credit cards. It also allows for monthly billing.
• Digits: Digits offers AI-driven bookkeeping for startups, providing automated financial insights alongside human CPA oversight through its partnership with Hiline. It does not include reimbursements, checking accounts, or business credit cards. Its services start at $250 per month.
• Kruze Consulting: Kruze exclusively services seed- and venture-funded startups. As a result, it’s well-suited to handle their more complex needs, including advanced revenue recognition and cryptocurrency accounting. However, its prices are higher, starting at $600 per month.

Keep in mind that there is no perfect bookkeeping service, and each alternative has its own advantages. Ultimately, which one makes the most sense for you will depend on your specific needs.

Zeni vs. Pilot

Zeni and Pilot both specialize in online bookkeeping services for startups. Each one supports cash or accrual basis bookkeeping and creates financial statements you can use to facilitate strategic planning and investor fundraising.

While Pilot offers real-time insights, they do not leverage AI automation as extensively as Zeni. Zeni's AI agents work continuously to automate bookkeeping tasks, from categorizing transactions to reconciling accounts, providing unparalleled speed and accuracy.

This deep integration of AI ensures daily updates to a personalized KPI dashboard, empowering you to track metrics like burn rate, runway, and revenue management with real-time precision—something traditional approaches simply can’t match.

In addition to Zeni offering tax and fractional CFO services, they also have:

• Payroll services: Outsource your payroll management to experts who can handle everything from onboarding to termination, including ongoing compliance across all states.
• Business checking account: Keep your capital reserves in a business checking account that offers $3M in FDIC insurance coverage and earns up to 3.73% APY on your balances.
• Business credit card: Unlock a business credit card that automatically syncs to your Zeni dashboard and earns 1.75% cash back rewards on eligible purchases with no annual or hidden fees.
• Bill pay and employee reimbursements: Streamline your accounts payable and employee reimbursement processes with automated workflows.

To learn more about how these two solutions compare, read our full-length guide on Zeni vs. Pilot.