There are dozens of sales tax automation solutions out there. Many of them are built for a particular market segment — they cater to a niche or a handful of related niches. And when it comes to sales tax solutions for the software as a service (SaaS) space, Anrok has emerged as a top choice. Anrok offers its customers many helpful features, including real-time tax rate calculations, nexus tracking, international compliance support, and automated filing and remittance.
But Anrok isn’t a perfect fit for every SaaS company. Some don’t like Anrok’s pricing structure (Anrok charges a percentage of transactions on top of a base monthly subscription cost). Others find that Anrok lacks the integrations that their business needs.
Numeral: A smart alternative for SaaS companies
Numeral is one of the leading sales tax automation platforms for SaaS companies. It’s designed with the end user in mind, and it integrates with some of the most popular SaaS financial and billing tools, like Stripe and QuickBooks. This allows business leaders to spend less time worrying about sales tax and more time running their business.
Core features
Numeral has a suite of sales tax tools that are designed to make the lives of business owners easier, such as:
- Monitor and register: Identify where you have tax liability and automatically register when you exceed a threshold or establish nexus.
- File and remit: Returns are prepared and payments are made.
- API: Integrate tax calculation with your billing platform or custom checkout.
- Global support: An in-house platform for global VAT compliance.
- Numeral guarantee: Guarantees that your sales tax is filed on time, or they will pay for your penalties and interest charges.
- Virtual mailboxes: Can automatically scan, read, and respond to all of your sales tax mail from state and local governments.
- Best-in-class customer support: 24/7 live chat support.
- Free tax analysis: Offers a free tax analysis that can help a business understand its unique needs before it commits to using Numeral.
Pricing
Unlike most of its competitors, Numeral has a straightforward pricing model, with a flat rate structure. Numeral charges $150 to register your business with a state, so you can begin collecting sales tax there. Then, once you’re registered with a state, Numeral charges $75 per filing, regardless of whether your company is doing $10,000 in revenue or $10,000,000 in revenue. API pricing varies depending on usage.
Customer reviews
Customers love Numeral; its G2 rating is a whopping 4.9 out of 5 stars. Most of the reviewers rave about how much they love Numeral’s customer service team and how easy the app is to use.
Who is Numeral best for?
Numeral is great for people who are looking for sales tax automation software that’s easy to use and that has straightforward and easy-to-predict costs. When you’re working with Numeral, you have access to a team of experts to support you.
If you’re interested in getting started with Numeral, you can book a demo or get started.
Avalara: The most popular sales tax tool
Avalara is a giant in the sales tax automation solution industry. Its client list includes some of the largest companies in the world. This means that Avalara has countless integrations with industry-leading accounting, e-commerce, and ERP systems, including QuickBooks, NetSuite, Salesforce, and Microsoft Dynamics.
Core features
Avalara is a preferred provider for large enterprise clients, because it has a wide variety of features to assist businesses operating at the highest level, such as:
- A comprehensive tax engine: Calculates accurate sales tax, VAT, and GST rates globally.
- Extensive filing and remittance options: Automates filing and payments in virtually any state or country, saving significant time for large-scale operations.
- Enterprise scalability: Handles large workloads and order volumes for large businesses.
Pricing
Unfortunately, all of the bells and whistles that come with Avalara have a hefty price tag. Its pricing scheme isn’t publicly disclosed; however, Avalara users have posted online that Avalara costs high four-digit to low six-digit sums of money per year. This price puts it out of reach for many small and medium-sized businesses.
Customer reviews
Avalara’s reviews are something of a mixed bag. It has 3.9 out of 5 stars on G2, out of nearly 600 reviews, with many reviewers complaining about its customer support and even issues with sales tax.
Who is Avalara best for?
Avalara was designed with the large enterprise in mind, so it probably won’t be a great fit for small or medium-sized businesses. However, companies with incredibly large transaction volumes might find Avalara worth its price.
If you want to work with Avalara, you can book a demo to learn more. For a side-by-side comparison, check out our in-depth Avalara vs. Anrok comparison.
TaxJar: A budget-friendly alternative
TaxJar is a very popular sales tax automation solution among small and midsize businesses. Its easy-to-understand subscription-based model is very cost-effective for businesses that have lower transaction volumes. TaxJar also integrates with a wide range of e-commerce, accounting, and ERP software, including BigCommerce, NetSuite, PayPal, and QuickBooks.
Core features
TaxJar is designed with the business owner in mind, offering a bunch of features that help streamline the sales tax process, including:
- Automated sales tax calculations: Ensures compliance with tax laws by calculating sales tax based on customer location.
- AutoFile: Saves business owners time by automatically filing sales tax returns where they have a tax obligation.
- Nexus tracking: Determines overall sales tax obligations by tracking where you have established nexus.
Pricing
TaxJar has an easy-to-understand, tiered pricing structure that works for businesses with smaller order volumes. Their Starter plan starts at $19 per month, and their Professional plan starts at $99 per month. Both of these rates cover just 200 orders per month. If you receive more than 200 orders per month, then additional charges will apply.
Customer reviews
Customers seem to love TaxJar; it has 4.7 out of 5 stars on G2, with nearly 250 reviews. Their customers seem to love how easy it is to use, claiming that TaxJar allows them to put their sales tax obligations on “autopilot.”
Who is TaxJar best for?
TaxJar is a great option for smaller businesses, or businesses with smaller order volumes, that are looking for a straightforward solution to their sales tax woes. If you’re interested in signing up for TaxJar, you can do so right on their website — no demo required.
For a side-by-side comparison, check out our in-depth TaxJar vs. Anrok comparison.
Stripe Tax: A seamless option for Stripe users
As you might guess, Stripe Tax is owned and operated by Stripe — one of the largest online payment processors in the world. This means that Stripe Tax integrates seamlessly with Stripe. In addition, Stripe Tax integrates with all of the platforms that Stripe integrates with. So, if you’re already a Stripe user, you might love Stripe Tax.
Core features
Stripe Tax has quite a few helpful tools and features to help make the lives of their users much easier, such as:
- Automated tax calculations: Automatically determines the correct sales tax, VAT, and GST based on customer location.
- Tax collection and reporting: Manages tax collection and generates reports to simplify compliance.
- Effortless implementation: Can be enabled with just a few clicks, so it’s easy to set up.
- Reduces manual effort: Automates tax management, minimizing the need for manual calculations.
Pricing
Since Stripe Tax is part of the Stripe ecosystem, Stripe charges just an additional 0.5% fee on top of its processing fee. Although this is very straightforward, and there are no monthly fees to worry about, it can become costly for firms with large amounts of sales.
Customer reviews
Unfortunately, there aren’t many reviews for Stripe Tax on its G2 page. However, the few reviews that are there are very positive, giving them a 4.3 out of 5 star rating.
Who is Stripe Tax best for?
Stripe Tax is perfect for small and midsize businesses that already use Stripe as their payment processor. However, Stripe Tax might not be the most cost-effective option for large businesses, given its pricing structure.
If you’re interested in signing up for Stripe Tax, all you have to do is activate it in your Stripe dashboard.
Paddle: A full-service billing and tax compliance solution
Unlike the other solutions on this list, Paddle is more than just a tax tool. It’s an all-in-one, full-service billing platform designed with SaaS businesses in mind. In addition, Paddle operates as a merchant of record (MoR). This means that you don’t have to worry about registering to collect sales tax in different jurisdictions — Paddle collects taxes, files returns, and remits amounts owed on your behalf.
Paddle also offers its customers subscription billing, revenue recovery, and customer relationship management features, making it a one-stop-shop for SaaS businesses. Unfortunately, though, this means that there aren’t any integrations with Paddle outside of traditional accounting software.
Core features
Like many of its counterparts, Paddle has quite a few helpful tools to improve the lives of business owners, such as:
- Comprehensive billing platform: More than just a tax compliance tool, Puddle was designed specifically for SaaS businesses.
- Merchant of record (MoR) model: Takes full responsibility for tax compliance, including sales tax, VAT, and GST.
- Eliminates tax registration burden: SaaS businesses don’t need to register for tax collection in multiple jurisdictions.
- Handles end-to-end tax compliance: Collects taxes, files returns, and remits amounts on behalf of users.
Pricing
Paddle is fundamentally different from the other services on this list, so it’s hard to compare its pricing to that of the others. For their all-in-one platform, Paddle charges users 5% of each transaction plus $0.50.
Customer reviews
People seem to love Paddle: its G2 page has 4.5 out of 5 stars with over 150 reviews. Customers really like the fact that it’s easy to use, and that it’s a one-stop shop for everything a SaaS business needs.
Who is Paddle best for?
Paddle is best for businesses looking for an all-in-one solution for payment processing, or those who would prefer to work with a merchant of record, instead of managing pesky sales taxes themselves.
If you’re interested in signing up for Paddle, you can do so via their website.
Quaderno: A simple and scalable tax compliance solution
Quaderno is another powerful sales tax compliance solution that’s designed for SaaS and e-commerce businesses. It’s designed to handle complex tax scenarios, making it a great option for merchants with lots of international sales. Quaderno integrates with a wide variety of platforms, including PayPal, Braintree, Shopify, and Stripe.
Core features
The team at Quaderno knows that time is money, so they’ve designed Quaderno to have a suite of helpful features, such as:
- Automated tax calculations: Calculates sales tax, VAT, and GST based on customer location.
- Real-time tax reports: Provides insights into tax obligations across multiple jurisdictions.
- Economic nexus tracking: Monitors tax thresholds and alerts users when compliance action is needed.
- Automated invoicing: Generates tax-compliant invoices for every sale, ensuring international compliance.
Pricing
Quaderno offers four tiers of pricing, with the Startup plan starting at $49 per month, the Business plan starting at $99 per month, and the Growth plan starting at $149/month. Additionally, Quaderno offers custom plans for large enterprise clients.
Customer reviews
Quaderno is well liked by its customers, with the app receiving 4.7 out of 5 stars across more than 20 reviews on its G2 page. Customers seem to like how simple Quaderno makes the sales tax collection process.
Who is Quaderno best for?
Quaderno is great for companies with a lot of international business, as it’s designed to handle the complexities that come with collecting GST and VAT, in addition to the traditional sales taxes collected in the United States.
If you’re interested in signing up for Quaderno, you can do so on their website.
Wrapping things up
Unfortunately, there isn’t a one-size-fits-all sales tax compliance solution, because no two companies have the exact same needs. Ultimately, the best sales tax automation software for you is going to depend on what features you’re looking for and which company or interface you’re most comfortable working with.
However, it’s worth noting that Numeral’s easy-to-understand pricing and intuitive dashboard make it a great option for businesses that are looking for a simple sales tax automation solution.
