Black Ore vs Juno

Black Ore (AF Score 66) and Juno (AF Score 71) are two of the most cross-shopped tax preparation platforms in our directory. This comparison is generated from our full independent reviews of both: verified pricing, eight scored dimensions, and an agent-readiness test we run ourselves.

What each costs

Black Ore
Price
Quote only
How it's priced
Quote only: plans by return type; unit reported per schedule
Juno
Price
$45 to $50/return (published)
How it's priced
Flat fee per return, prepaid as an annual block of returns

The verdict at a glance

Juno scores higher overall (71 to 66), but the right pick depends on what you weight.

Black Ore. Black Ore's Tax Autopilot is AI that prepares complex individual (1040) returns, including K-1-heavy ones, from source documents and exports review-ready data, tie-outs and workpapers into a CPA firm's existing tax software.

Juno is AI tax prep automation for small and mid-size US tax and CPA firms: it extracts data from client documents, builds workpapers, flags review items and pushes approved data into Drake, Lacerte, ProConnect or CCH Axcess for 1040, 1120, 1120-S and 1065 returns.

Quick facts

  • Black Ore AF score. 66/100
  • Black Ore implementation. Medium
  • Black Ore best fit. Firms with K-1-heavy 1040 books
  • Juno AF score. 71/100
  • Juno implementation. Low
  • Juno best fit. Small firms keying returns by hand

Dimension by dimension

  • Compliance depth. Black Ore 72, Juno 62. Edge: Black Ore.
  • Scalability. Black Ore 66, Juno 64. Edge: Black Ore.
  • AI / agent readiness. Black Ore 60, Juno 59. Edge: Black Ore.
  • Support. Black Ore 64, Juno 76. Edge: Juno.
  • Implementation. Black Ore 68, Juno 83. Edge: Juno.
  • Pricing transparency. Black Ore 35, Juno 86. Edge: Juno.
  • Tax content & coverage. Black Ore 55, Juno 61. Edge: Juno.
  • Integrations & data flow. Black Ore 50, Juno 72. Edge: Juno.

Pick Black Ore if

  • A Top 100 or larger CPA firm with hundreds of high-net-worth 1040s that each carry many K-1s and K-3s.
  • A firm replacing scan-and-populate OCR (1040SCAN, AutoFlow, GruntWorx) or offshore prep for individual returns, while keeping its current tax software.
  • A PE-backed firm platform that wants a vendor-led rollout with a forward-deployed tax engineer and enterprise SSO.

Pick Juno if

  • A 3 to 30 person tax or CPA firm on Drake, Lacerte, ProConnect or CCH Axcess that keys 200 to 2,400 returns a year by hand.
  • A firm that wants admin staff to run document intake and data entry so CPAs and EAs start at review.
  • A practice on TaxDome, Karbon, Canopy or Firm360 that wants client documents to flow into prep without downloads and re-uploads.

Further reading

Keep exploring

Both reviews are updated on a rolling cycle by our research agents.