8 of the Best Sales Tax Apps for Shopify 2024

After all, as a business grows larger and larger, owners often hit a turning point where they can’t handle the many sales tax responsibilities of their growing ecommerce business, like registering, filing, auditing, nexus tracking, and making sales tax payments. This, of course, makes them seek out a more robust solution for handling their sales tax responsibilities from a third party.

If you’ve found yourself in this predicament, there’s no need to worry. There are countless sales tax solutions that integrate with Shopify, that can make handling your sales tax responsibilities a breeze. However, each solution has its own unique benefits and drawbacks. In this article, we’ll delve into eight of the top sales tax apps for Shopify and outline exactly who they’re best for.

Why Use a Sales Tax App for Your Shopify Business?

Although Shopify offers a great suite of tools, including their native sales tax tool, this tool lacks the depth needed for larger, more complex e-commerce businesses. Some limitations that you’re probably facing if you’re using the native Shopify tax tool are:

• Limited Features: Shopify doesn’t support sales tax registration, nexus tracking, or audits. You also cannot make sales tax payments through their tool.
• Limited Scalability: Since their native sales tax tool has limited features, this also means the scalability of your business is limited if you’re only using their sales tax tool.  This is especially true for those who are selling throughout the entire US (or the world).

Whereas using a third-party sales tax app provides quite a few benefits for business owners, such as:

• Enhanced Compliance: Choosing the right third-party app will help ensure that your business is compliant, as many third-party apps provide support in the key areas where Shopify doesn’t.
• Improved Accuracy: Sales tax can be fairly complex, especially when dealing with different states or countries. Sales tax apps are designed with compliance in mind, meaning there’s a considerably lower chance of error, especially when compared to manual handling.
• Automation: Third-party apps can save tons of time by automating time consuming tasks, like calculating sales tax rates, filing returns, and conducting audits.

Best Sales Tax Apps for Shopify Sellers

Now that we’ve gone through some of the reasons why you might consider upgrading from the native Shopify sales tax tool to a third-party sales tax app, we’ll go through some of the best Shopify-compatible sales tax apps out there. 

Below are eight of the best sales tax apps on the market right now for Shopify sellers. We’ve done the digging and outlined exactly what you can expect from each app and what it’s best for:

Numeral

Numeral is the most comprehensive sales tax solution for Shopify sellers of all shapes and sizes. The Numeral app can handle everything, from tax rate calculations to nexus tracking, filings, registrations, and payments. This makes Numeral a great choice for Shopify sellers who are looking for an end-to-end solution for all of their sales tax needs. Some additional features that Numeral offers its customers are:

• Top-notch integrations: Numeral is compatible with a wide variety of platforms, including Shopify, Etsy, eBay, Stripe, Amazon, and Walmart. This means you can be sure that your sales tax obligations are covered, no matter where you sell!
• Virtual Mailboxes: Numeral can automatically scan, read, and respond to all of your sales tax mail from state and local governments.
• Wonderful Customer Support: 24/7 live chat support
• Numeral Guarantee: Numeral guarantees your sales tax is filed on time, or they will pay for your penalties and interest charges.
• Free Tax Analysis: Numeral offers a free tax analysis to help understand a merchant’s unique needs before they commit to using Numeral.

On top of all that, Numeral offers a simple pricing structure without any hidden fees. For Numeral to register your business with a state, so you can begin collecting sales tax, there is a flat fee of $150 per state. Once you’re registered with a particular state, Numeral charges a flat fee of $75 per filing, regardless of your company’s revenue. If you’d like to get started with Numeral, you can download the Shopify App, or book a demo directly on the Numeral website.

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TaxJar

TaxJar is another popular, well-established sales tax solution owned by the payments giant, Stripe. Since it’s owned by Stripe, TaxJar supports a wide range of seller platforms, including Amazon, Bigcommerce, Etsy, Magento 2, eBay, Shopify, Square, Squarespace, WooCommerce, and Walmart. Designed with simplicity in mind, TaxJar offers users a great suite of tools for calculating, collecting, and filing sales tax across multiple states. Some of their most notable features are:

• AutoFile: AutoFile allows TaxJar customers to automatically file their sales tax returns in every state where they have a tax obligation, saving sellers tons of time in the process!
• Automated Sales Tax Calculations: TaxJar helps sellers save time by automating sales tax calculations based on a customer’s location, ensuring that sellers are compliant with tax law.
• Nexus Tracking: TaxJar tracks where you have sales tax nexus, which is important in determining your overall sales tax obligations.

Although TaxJar is a very popular end-to-end sales tax solution, their Shopify App has mixed reviews, with a ⅗ star rating across more than 100 reviews. If you’re not sure about TaxJar and want to give their product a try, they do offer customers a 30 day free trial. Once the trial expires, their “Starter” plan starts at $19/month, and their “Professional” plan starts at $99/month. Each of these plans includes 200 orders per month. If you go over this 200-order threshold, additional charges apply.  

TaxCloud 

TaxCloud is another popular end-to-end sales tax solution that’s known for its simplicity and compliance focus. It supports a wide range of seller platforms, including Shopify, odoo, WooCommerce, Amazon, Oracle Netsuite, Stripe, Square, BigCommerce, Etsy, Walmart, Amazon, Wix, eBay, and more. TaxCloud boasts several features that help Shopify merchants streamline the sales tax filing process, including:

• Native Integrations: TaxCloud offers a wide range of integrations with existing ERPs, payment processors, and other key tools that your business uses.
• Developer APIs: If an “out-of-the-box” integration solution doesn't exist, your developer team can always work with theirs to create a bespoke integration.
• Tax Filing and Remittance: TaxCloud’s easy-to-read dashboard helps you track and automatically file your sales taxes automatically.

TaxCloud is also rather unique in the fact that they have a free version of its service with limited capability. Additionally, they have a “Starter” plan that starts at $19/month and a “Premium” plan that starts at $79/month. Each of these plans includes 100 orders per month and charges an additional $39/month for return filing and remittance and $99/month for audit support. If you’re interested in trying out TaxCloud, you can install their Shopify App.

Quaderno

Quaderno is another versatile end-to-end sales tax app that supports a wide variety of seller platforms, including PayPal, Stripe, GoCardless, Braintree, Amazon, Shopify, WooCommerce, and more. Quaderno is designed to handle complex tax scenarios, making it a great choice for merchants that have international sales and, therefore, international sales tax obligations.  Some of Quaderno’s most prominent features are:

• Automated global tax calculations: Quaderno is able to calculate sales tax, VAT, and GST for merchants that make sales in various regions, ensuring that they’re in compliance, no matter where they’re selling!
• Automatic Invoicing: With Quaderno, merchants can send compliant receipts and invoices customized to their brand to their customers automatically.
• Proactive Registration Alerts: When you need to register in a new place, Quaderno will alert you and work through the registration process with you!

Given all of the complexity that comes with Quaderno, their pricing structure is a bit higher than competitors, with their “Startup” plan starting at $49/month, their “Business” Plan starting at $99/month, and their “Growth” plan starting at $149/month. Quaderno also offers custom enterprise plans and a seven-day free trial.  For those who want to try Quaderno, you can sign up through their website, or install their Shopify App.

Taxmatic

Taxmatic is a specialized end-to-end sales tax solution that is built specifically with UK and European Shopify merchants in mind. This means that their features are focused mainly on VAT compliance. Taxmatic currently supports Shopify Woo Commerce, Amazon and Shopline merchants.  Some of its most important features include:

• VAT Support: Taxmatic automatically calculates VAT rates, which makes it a great choice for merchants that mainly sell in the UK and Europe.
• End-to-end VAT Compliance: Not only does Taxmatic calculate VAT, but it can also handle VAT reporting and filing, which can save merchants tons of time in the long run.
• Ease of Use: Taxmatic prides itself on how easy its application is to use, boasting that most customers usually take around 5 minutes to set up their documentation for registration of VAT compliance.

Taxmatic offers a wide variety of pricing plans for businesses of all shapes and sizes. Their “New Entry” plan costs €19/month, plus €1.50 per transaction. Their other plans have a slightly different pricing structure, though. The “Essential Plus” plan starts at €99/month, the “Growth” plan starts at €199/month, and the “Premium” plan starts at €349/month. These are just their most popular plans - there are several more plans available on their website that might fit your unique needs better. If you’re interested in trying Taxmatic, you can sign up through their website, or their Shopify App.

Kintsugi

Kintsugi is a newcomer to the sales tax industry, with its doors being opened in 2023.  However, despite being a young company, they have created quite a few partnerships, integrating their services with Stripe, Oracle Netsuite, Etsy, Walmart, Shopify, Amazon, BigCommerce, and more.  Some of their most interesting features include:

• TaxGPT: They bill this feature as your “24/7 sales tax assistant” that’s able to answer questions and empower your business with the knowledge and confidence to handle sales tax compliance proactively.  
• AI-Assisted Product Classification: Kintsugi has designed a tool that automatically classifies products and lets merchants approve/deny their classifications in just one click.
• Comprehensive Compliance Tools: Their app helps merchants with compliance across state and local tax jurisdictions, allowing users to track their nexus and automate filings.

Although Kintsugi is the “new kid on the block”, they’ve drummed up quite a bit of support, with a 5-star rating built on the back of nearly 100 reviews on their Shopify App.  Additionally, their pricing structure is relatively simple.  Their “Starter” plan is free, and their “Growth” plan costs $100/filing.  They also offer enterprise pricing for clients with custom needs.  If you’d like to get started with Kintsugi, you can visit their website or install their Shopify App.

Avalara

Avalara is one of the largest end-to-end sales tax solution companies in the space, with a heavy focus on enterprise customers. They offer a wide variety of compliance tools and are designed with large corporations in mind. They boast over 1,200 integrations, meaning they can integrate with practically any e-commerce platform you can think of, including Stripe, Shopify, WooCommerce, Oracle Netsuite, Amazon, Big Commerce, Salesforce, eBay, Etsy, and many more.  Some of their key features include:

• Enterprise Scalability: Avalara is built with large businesses in mind, meaning they can easily support large workloads and order volumes.  
• Extensive Filing and Remittance Options: Avalara can automate filing and payments in virtually any state and any country, saving vast amounts of time for large-scale operations.
• Comprehensive Tax Engine: Avalara can calculate the proper sales tax, VAT, and GST rates, practically anywhere in the world.

Given their focus on large-scale customers, Avalara’s pricing tends to be a bit higher than others. While they don’t offer any specific pricing details on their websites, users of internet forums have reported paying Avalara high four-digit to low five-digit sums of money per year for their services.  Unfortunately, they don’t have a Shopify app, and they aren’t known for having the best customer service. If you are interested in signing up with Avalara, you can do so through their website.

Vertex

Vertex is another end-to-end sales tax solution that caters more toward large-scale, enterprise clients with complex sales tax needs. Although they don’t offer a Shopify app, they integrate with Shopify and practically any other e-commerce platform you can think of, much like Avalara.  Some of the more notable features of Vertex are:

• Enterprise-grade tax management: Vertex offers high-level tax management tools, ideal for businesses with extensive compliance needs across multiple tax jurisdictions.
• Accurate sales tax calculations: Vertex’s tax engine provides precise sales tax calculations based on a customer’s location, ensuring compliance with complex tax laws.
• Customizable compliance solutions: Vertex can adapt to specific business needs, providing custom solutions for enterprises with unique tax obligations.

Much like Avalara, Vertex does not publish its pricing online. However, if you run a large-scale e-commerce business and are interested in using Vertex, you can book a demo with their team to learn more about the features they have to offer and their specific pricing model.  

Which is the Best Sales Tax App for My Shopify Business?

Managing sales tax and compliance is a critical part of running an ecommerce business in today’s day and age. Unfortunately, sales tax is one of the few things that doesn’t get easier as you scale though. As with most things in life, there isn’t a simple answer to which sales tax app you should use for your Shopify business. The answer is going to depend on the unique needs of your business.  

If your business is a large-scale, enterprise-grade business, then Vertex is probably going to be the best choice for you since they’re set up to deal with some of the largest retailers in the world. 

If you’re a UK or EU merchant, then Taxmatic is probably going to be the best for you, as they’re designed with the UK and EU specifically in mind. 

However, if you’re looking for a sales-tax solution that will be great for you, no matter how big your business is, then Numeral is the best option. Our simple pricing structure and comprehensive software are designed to make your life easier, and your business run smoother! And if you are looking to compare even more options for a growing ecommerce brand, take a look at our guide on the best ecommerce sales tax compliance platforms.