Avalara Reviews & Product Details

My favorite part of using Avatax is that they are comprehensive. We no longer have to collect the data and upload it into a program or try to figure it out on our own. They figure the tax on each order, create reports at the end of every month and then file with each state and locality which we are registered with. I also like that we can easily add new items and they will be taxed correctly because of the detailed definitions on each tax code Avalara uses. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I haven't really found anything that I dislike. Sometimes sorting out issues can be a challenge, but that is true of any program. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I'm so thankful for the service Avalara provides. It has saved our accounting staff an incredible amount of time. I love that Avalara keeps us updated when we're nearing nexus in another state. It was easy to integrate into our Quickbooks software and quick to get started. One of our smartest decisions! Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I do wish the callout to retrieve tax rates was a bit quicker but I understand they are working on that upgrade already. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I love that Avalara has experts to know all the state laws when it comes to sales tax. With the addition of economic nexus, our state collection requirements more than doubled and Avalara helped us to get compliant in all the states we needed to. They had a nice tracker and dashboard to make it easy and clear where and when we needed to get registered.

Don't forget about the ever changing tax rules like the retail delivery fees some states have added (with more along the way) and all the juristictional tax rate updates...they are on it and have the rules implemented for clean collection and filing. They have just saved us so much headache and hours of trying to keep up with all of it. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Customer support could use some work. I understand there are thousands, if not more, of clients probably constantly reaching out for help so do understand the delays that can be had, but some of the responses we get are just the canned, "out of the handbook", responses that do not really offer any help. Yes, I can go to the Help Center and get the same response, but I went to support for a more personal touch, if you will. I do still get my answers, for the most part, but sometimes it takes a little while to get there. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

There is nothing positive about Avalara. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I cannot recommend Avalara to anyone. If you are considering using their services, please read this review carefully to avoid the nightmare my small business has endured.

Avalara provides sales tax compliance software—an essential, time-sensitive service for any business. In 2021, we upgraded to Shopify Plus specifically to use Avalara’s Avatax at the recommendation of our CPA. This program promised unlimited transactions for $250/month. Now, Avalara claims this is false, asserting they can charge us per API call. They are changing their billing model midstream, despite having sold us something entirely different. Recently, they emailed us about discontinuing this program in April 2025, but they’ve already been finding ways to shirk their obligations for over a year.

In 2021, Avalara also sold us a Netsuite license, claiming it was necessary to capture wholesale transactions on sales tax reports. We explicitly explained that Shopify orders were imported into Netsuite, but no tax transactions were needed for these orders—only our wholesale orders in Netsuite required reporting. Avalara assured us this was fine. We even paid for custom programming to ensure this integration only triggered actions for our 6–12 monthly wholesale orders. However, it turns out Avalara requires access to all Netsuite records if their software is installed, resulting in charges every time we edit, update, or change a record. This makes the setup they sold us impossible and has led to massive overbilling.

Now, Avalara is trying to charge us over $8,000/year for tax compliance in just four states—16 to 53 times more than the tax liability we owe. This staggering overbilling stems from hidden fees, deceptive billing practices, and a shift to charging for every API call without properly disclosing this upfront. Despite notifying them multiple times, they continue to auto-bill our credit card without permission.

Customer service is abysmal. We’ve spent over a year emailing Avalara to resolve billing issues caused by their software and have been ignored for months on end. When they do respond, their replies fail to address the substance of our concerns. Recently, they outsourced customer support to a team in India, further worsening communication. This team has admitted they lack the knowledge to resolve detailed technical issues, yet they act as though they are experts.

In July 2023, we disabled the Netsuite license following Avalara’s instructions. Despite this, API transactions are still being generated, leading to additional charges. We’ve repeatedly requested to cancel the Netsuite license entirely but cannot get a response. This month alone, Avalara has billed us $1,477.69 in fraudulent charges.

We’ve documented our issues extensively, sent detailed timelines of Avalara’s lack of responses, and asked for help over and over. Instead of addressing their failures, Avalara continues to ignore us, delay, or issue vague acknowledgments without solutions.

This company has caused me nothing but pain, frustration, and financial harm. They market themselves as a solution for small businesses but have acted in bad faith at every step. Their pricing is extortionate—far exceeding the value they provide—and they’ve demonstrated no accountability for their errors. At this point, I believe their practices verge on fraudulent.

To add insult to injury, Avalara recently suggested I hire an attorney to escalate my issues further. No small business owner should have to endure this level of mistreatment.

Avoid Avalara at all costs. Their billing practices are opaque and predatory, and their customer service is nonexistent. This company is a disaster that deserves to go out of business. If you value transparency, accountability, or fair pricing, do not trust Avalara with your tax compliance needs. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I love that all of our sales run through Avalara first. They take care of everything. They know if our sales are taxable and how much tax we need to collect...and then they even file it all for us at the end of the month! Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Nothing really. I mean it is a little pricey but you get what you pay for I suppose. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Avalara's smooth tax and duty allocation during checkout has been instrumental in streamlining our overseas customer journey, leading to increased customer satisfaction whilst mitigating risk. It great how low impact it is on time, the software does all the work for you. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Sometimes due to the size and the complexity of the world, changes in the way Avalara completes tasks or stops supporting a particular tax code is not communicated and relies on us checking to ensure everything is working as it should. We usually find out after an impact is noticed by us. A proactive comms would make this better. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The idea of a complete sales tax and nexus manangement service. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Customer service does not exist at Avalara. I have to distinguish between the sales team and the "support" team. If you are a new customer with money to spend, the sales team is right there for you 100%....After that, it's unfortunatly a different story.

If you require some sort of support as an existing customer, good luck! If you call and do get a hold of someone, all they can do is write down your concern in a "Ticket" that apparenly goes nowhere.

In my particular case I was trying to simply get in touch with the billing department.

To make this long story short:

I received an email notice about our renewal on October 2nd, after about 20 emails, almost 10 phone calls, and at least 8 support tickets it is now November 26th and I just got off a zoom call that resulted in me cancelling our subscription.

Biggest concern is:

Talking to someone for a simple billing issue took two months. What happens when (not if) it comes to a tax issue/problem... two months worth of potential penalties and interest could add up quite quickly! Who pays for that?...I think anyone who owns a business knows that answer....

Stay away from Aavalara in my opinion. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

We do not have the sales tax expertise in house. Avalara offered a solution to mitigate our deficiency in this area. They also provide VDA services (Voluntary Disclosure Agreements) as well as SST services once up and running in a state.

Integration was fairly easy. We did use a consultant and I highly recommend going this route. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Be careful to understand what the services you select are actually doing. For example, we purchased 24 hour response time to our inquiries (basic support) only to learn that 24 hour service is three business days!! Not exactly the most responsive. We swithed to one hour response time. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Once set up it does all the hard work of figuring out the correct amount of tax and when to charge tax. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Figuring out what tax codes to use is hard as there is so many options. Getting the intergation correct requires outside help. Customer support is diffucult to get ahold of when there is issues with your account or billing issues. It took months to get our card charged when our auto pay would not work and the system would not allow us to submit a payment. However, we contuined to get past due notices. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Some of the things i like best about Avalara is the ease of returns. I also think for the most part Avalara is intutive. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

in Avatax, the economic thresholds should provide a bit more information. Example: we come up as surpassing the sales threshold of ND. However, it does not state on there if it is taxable sales or all sales. For my company our customers are primarily exempt,while we may have surpassed 100K we have not passed 100K taxable orders.

The ECM platform I think is lacking a little bit. It does not show the same information that there use to be shown in Cert Capture. For example, when you click into the customer certificate tabs – it no longer shows the actual tax ID, you have to click into it. When you click into the customer certificate you cannot back out to the previous screen. I think there is some issues with uploading MTCs, if we upload a customers MTC - we now have to turn off the setting for OCR to be able just to upload a certificate.

I also think the customer support can be a little frustating - one repsone per day. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.