--- title: "Avalara Reviews, Pros and Cons - 2026 Software Advice" description: "Reviews of Avalara. Learn how real users rate this software's ease-of-use, functionality, overall quality and customer support. Talk to our advisors to see if Avalara is a good fit for you!" source_url: "https://www.softwareadvice.com/sales-tax/avalara-profile/reviews/" page_type: "reviews" language: "en" --- 1 million+ businesses helped. Get advice Get Free Advice [Home](https://www.softwareadvice.com/) / [CPA Accounting Software](https://www.softwareadvice.com/accounting/cpa-software-comparison/) / [Avalara](https://www.softwareadvice.com/sales-tax/avalara-profile/) / Avalara Reviews Software Advice offers objective insights based on verified user reviews and independent product and market research. When our advisors match you to a software provider, we may earn a referral fee. [Overview](https://www.softwareadvice.com/sales-tax/avalara-profile/) Reviews [Alternatives](https://www.softwareadvice.com/sales-tax/avalara-profile/alternatives/) # Avalara User Reviews ## Reviews summary - Overall rating: 4.0/5 - Total reviews: 365 ### Secondary ratings - Ease of use: 3.8/5 - Customer support: 3.4/5 - Value for money: 3.6/5 - Functionality: 3.9/5 ### Rating distribution - 5 stars: 186 reviews (51%) - 4 stars: 93 reviews (25%) - 3 stars: 27 reviews (7%) - 2 stars: 16 reviews (4%) - 1 star: 43 reviews (12%) ### Most mentioned pros - We've relied on Avalara since October 2022 for sales tax compliance, tax return filing, and reporting at CivilGEO, Inc. Despite an initial learning curve, the platform has proven strong on security and given us excellent value for money as a small business. - The nexus tracking feature is especially useful now that economic nexus thresholds vary so much by state and can change over time. - The platform is highly reliable, continuously updated with changing tax regulations, and integrates well with various accounting and ERP systems. ### Most mentioned cons - Some configuration areas are not very intuitive, and troubleshooting tax mapping issues can take time. - The installed package contains locked-down flows, Apex classes, and process builders that have errors, but cannot be modified by admins. - I’ve escalated to both our Account Manager and Customer Success Manager, only to be sent back to the TAM team, creating a frustrating cycle with no real solutions. If you’re looking for a partner who can actually troubleshoot and resolve Salesforce integration issues, look elsewhere. ## Avalara customer reviews Showing reviews 1-25 of 365 (page 1). ### Avalara keeps delivering - Overall rating: 5/5 - Reviewer: Ananie B. - Verified reviewer: Yes - Industry: Accounting - Company size: 11-50 employees - Product usage: Used daily for less than 2 years - Reviewed: March 2026 - Review source details: This reviewer was invited by us to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you. Smooth processing of our sales tax returns for all of our clients and a solid platform that evolves constantly to match the changes in the field #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 5/5 - Value for money: 5/5 - Customer support: 5/5 - Functionality: 5/5 #### Pros they cover all of our sales tax needs regardless of complexity and address any issues in a timely manner #### Cons no issues with the platform and they also are proactive in ensuring no friction even arises throughout the service --- ### Helpful tool for managing sales tax compliance - Overall rating: 4/5 - Reviewer: Mohammad K. - Verified reviewer: Yes - Industry: Computer Software - Company size: 201-500 employees - Product usage: Used weekly for more than 2 years - Reviewed: September 2026 - Review source details: This reviewer was invited by the software vendor to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you. Overall, I’ve had a positive experience with Avalara. It has made sales tax processes more manageable, and I’m happy with the product. #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 5/5 - Value for money: 4/5 - Customer support: 5/5 - Functionality: 5/5 #### Pros Avalara helps streamline sales tax compliance and reduces the manual work involved in managing tax calculations and filings. #### Cons The initial setup and some of the more advanced features take time to learn. I’d also like certain reports and settings to be easier to navigate, but overall I’m happy with Avalara. #### Reasons for choosing Avalara Avalara met our sales tax needs and integrated well with our existing systems. #### Vendor response Mohammad, thank you for sharing your experience with Avalara. We’re glad to hear it’s reducing manual work and making tax and compliance more manageable for your business! Replied October 2026 --- ### 3.5 out of 5 - Overall rating: 3/5 - Reviewer: patrick m. - Verified reviewer: Yes - Industry: Textiles - Company size: 51-200 employees - Product usage: Used daily for more than 2 years - Reviewed: March 2026 - Review source details: This reviewer was invited by us to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you. #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 3/5 - Value for money: 1/5 - Customer support: 1/5 - Functionality: 3/5 #### Pros Works great, until it doesn't. When it doesn't, it is very hard to get help. Most of the time, Avalara is great! #### Cons You can't get help, your account executive forwards you elsewhere and you have to send multiple emails for a reply. --- ### Strong Value, Solid Security, and Reliable Tax Filing, Worth the Learning Curve - Overall rating: 5/5 - Reviewer: Prabhat K. - Verified reviewer: Yes - Industry: Computer Software - Company size: 51-200 employees - Product usage: Used daily for more than 2 years - Reviewed: August 2026 - Review source details: This reviewer was invited by the software vendor to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you. We've relied on Avalara since October 2022 for sales tax compliance, tax return filing, and reporting at CivilGEO, Inc. Despite an initial learning curve, the platform has proven strong on security and given us excellent value for money as a small business. AvaTax and ECM Pro work well together for calculations and exemption certificates, and their team supported our SST registrations as we crossed state thresholds. The one area outside its scope is payroll, which we handle with a separate tool. We're now working with Avalara on OSS registration for the EU and VAT registration for Canada, extending the same reliable compliance support internationally. #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 5/5 - Value for money: 5/5 - Customer support: 5/5 - Functionality: 5/5 #### Pros As the accounting lead at CivilGEO, Inc. since October 2022, I've been very happy with the value for money Avalara provides, for a small business like ours, it's far more cost-effective than hiring additional tax staff. AvaTax handles tax calculations accurately, and the reporting is detailed and easy to pull for audits or internal reviews. ECM Pro makes exemption certificate management simple, and tax return filing across multiple states has become much smoother, including getting SST numbers whenever we cross a nexus threshold. Security has also been strong, we've never had concerns about how our financial data is handled or stored. #### Cons The learning curve is steep at first, particularly when setting up and connecting AvaTax with ECM Pro — it took real time for our small business team to get fully comfortable with the platform. One gap is payroll: Avalara doesn't offer payroll tax support, so we still manage that separately, which means payroll and sales tax return filing live in two different systems. International expansion (we're currently working with them on OSS registration for the EU and VAT for Canada) has also taken longer than we'd like. #### Vendor response Prabhat, thank you for sharing such detailed feedback about your experience with Avalara AvaTax and ECM Pro. We are grateful for the opportunity to partner with CivilGEO. We appreciate you highlighting areas where we can improve, including payroll support, as it helps guide our future product roadmap. Our team is fully committed to supporting your global expansion into Canada and the EU, and we look forward to continuing to serve you. Replied August 2026 --- ### AVALARA - A True Friend - Overall rating: 5/5 - Reviewer: Naina P. - Verified reviewer: Yes - Industry: Furniture - Company size: 201-500 employees - Product usage: Used weekly for more than 2 years - Reviewed: September 2026 - Review source details: This reviewer was invited by the software vendor to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you. Our company has been with AVALARA for about 15 years or more. We have been using Avalara service for AvaTax, Exemption Certificate Management Pro-Customer Exemptions, Managed Returns, 1099 filing and also for W9 Management. Our account Manager is very knowledgeable, supportive and co-operative in addressing the updated and issues(if any). Avalara has a solution to the problem, so it gives us a sense of confidence to reach out to the support team. Avalara - a helpful hand for every business. #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 5/5 - Value for money: 5/5 - Customer support: 5/5 - Functionality: 5/5 #### Pros Avalara is the most reliable source of information when it comes to tax compliance. It gives us a sense of confidence so far as the tax rules are concerned as Avalara take care of the daily updates of the state rules and complete the tax filings correctly. Avalara has a support team for any questions, notices or issues, that handles the case within 24 hours. #### Cons One thing less attractive about Avalara is - It has its own template of completing the filing of the tax returns and that needs to be followed even if it is a very tedious process. A perfect example is claiming the tax credits. The process is to credit and rebill the entire invoice and not just claim the tax credits #### Vendor response Naina, thank you for sharing your experience with Avalara over the past 15 years. We appreciate your feedback and are glad to read that Avalara is giving you confidence and making filings easier for your team. We appreciate your business and look forward to continuing to support you! Replied October 2026 --- ### Responsive Service, More Guidance Needed - Overall rating: 5/5 - Reviewer: Deepali u. - Verified reviewer: Yes - Industry: Hospital & Health Care - Company size: 51-200 employees - Product usage: Used daily for more than 2 years - Reviewed: September 2026 - Review source details: This reviewer was invited by the software vendor to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you. #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 4/5 - Value for money: 4/5 - Customer support: 4/5 - Functionality: 4/5 #### Pros What I liked most about Avalara’s reply was that it was clear, detailed, and directly addressed my concerns. The response was professional, easy to understand, and provided the information needed to move forward. #### Cons I would have appreciated more detailed information and clearer guidance on how to resolve the issue. Some of the information provided was unclear, which made it difficult to determine the next steps. #### Vendor response Deepali, thank you for sharing your experience with us, we appreciate your feedback. If you have additional questions or we can assist further, please contact customercare@avalara.com so we can help. Replied October 2026 --- ### Avalara Saves Us A Lot of Time! - Overall rating: 5/5 - Reviewer: Jennifer M. - Verified reviewer: Yes - Industry: Electrical/ Electronic Manufacturing - Company size: 51-200 employees - Product usage: Used daily for more than 2 years - Reviewed: September 2026 - Review source details: This reviewer was invited by the software vendor to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you. We have been with Avalara since 2013 and it has helped us as a small business in so many ways. Less frustration on determining rates, exemptions and more. #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 5/5 - Value for money: 5/5 - Customer support: 5/5 - Functionality: 5/5 #### Pros You know you are charging the correct rates based on location and product type every time you make a sale. #### Cons Sometimes it is hard to communicate an issue, it may take a few tries through the help desk to get the issue resolved. #### Vendor response Jennifer, thank you for taking the time to share feedback with us. We are glad to read that Avalara is saving your team time and making tax and compliance easier. We look forward to continuing to support you! Replied October 2026 --- ### Makes Multi-State Sales Tax Compliance Much Easier - Overall rating: 5/5 - Reviewer: Lisa Marie S. - Industry: Electrical/ Electronic Manufacturing - Company size: 11-50 employees - Product usage: Used daily for less than 2 years - Reviewed: September 2026 - Review source details: This reviewer was invited by the software vendor to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you. Overall, my experience with Avalara has been positive. It has made managing sales tax across multiple states much more efficient and has reduced the amount of manual work involved. There is a learning curve, but once you understand the system, it is a valuable tool for managing sales tax compliance. #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 3/5 - Value for money: 5/5 - Customer support: 5/5 - Functionality: 5/5 #### Pros What I like most about Avalara is that it simplifies sales tax compliance across multiple states and jurisdictions. The automated tax calculations save a significant amount of time and help reduce the risk of errors when determining the correct tax rates. #### Cons What I like least about Avalara is that the system can sometimes be difficult to navigate when researching specific taxability or jurisdiction questions. Some situations still require additional research, and it is not always easy to understand how Avalara arrived at a particular tax determination. #### Vendor response Lisa, thank you for taking the time to share your experience with Avalara, we appreciate it. We’re happy to read that Avalara is saving you time by reducing manual work and simplifying tax compliance. We look forward to continuing to support you and your team! Replied October 2026 --- ### Accounting - Overall rating: 5/5 - Reviewer: BRENDA R. - Verified reviewer: Yes - Industry: Entertainment - Company size: 11-50 employees - Product usage: Used monthly for more than 2 years - Reviewed: September 2026 - Review source details: This reviewer was invited by the software vendor to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you. It has been positive. It has helped sale taxes management and reduce the risk of compliance mistakes. We work with this software which reduce manual transactions. #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 5/5 - Value for money: 5/5 - Customer support: 5/5 - Functionality: 5/5 #### Pros It helps to integrate the ecommerce and accounting system. It reduces manual work and helping ensure the tax rates applied accurately. The reporting tools and compliance automation valuable for our businesses. #### Cons Avalara helps to ensure tax rates and are applied accurate and automatically. It is helping to improve tax compliance processes. #### Vendor response Brenda, thank you for sharing your experience with Avalara, we're glad to hear it's reducing manual work, improving accuracy, and adding value to your business! Replied October 2026 --- ### Efficient and User-Friendly Tax Solution - Overall rating: 5/5 - Reviewer: Maria Teresa Amado M. - Verified reviewer: Yes - Industry: Business Supplies and Equipment - Company size: 51-200 employees - Product usage: Used monthly for more than 2 years - Reviewed: September 2026 - Review source details: This reviewer was invited by the software vendor to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you. My overall experience has been very positive. It streamlines tax processes, improves efficiency, and provides helpful reporting tools. #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 5/5 - Value for money: 5/5 - Customer support: 5/5 - Functionality: 5/5 #### Pros Avalara is easy to use and helps automate tax compliance, saving time and improving accuracy. that's my opinion #### Cons Some reports can be difficult to find at first, and certain features require additional training to use effectively. #### Vendor response Maria, thank you for sharing your experience with Avalara. We're happy to read that it's saving you time and improving efficiency. We look forward to continuing to support you and your team! Replied October 2026 --- ### Tax Accountant - Overall rating: 5/5 - Reviewer: Bonnie G. - Verified reviewer: Yes - Industry: Plastics - Company size: 501-1000 employees - Product usage: Used daily for more than 2 years - Reviewed: December 2022 - Review source details: This reviewer was invited by the software vendor to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you. #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 4/5 - Value for money: 4/5 - Customer support: 2/5 - Functionality: 4/5 #### Pros Avalara reporting tools such as Credit Carry forward balance and liability worksheet. The reports are very detailed and would help in an audit situation. #### Cons I don't have any issues with the software It's the customer service that is lacking. #### Reasons for choosing Avalara We were currently on Vertex L servies and it didn't meet the demands of our growing company #### Reasons for switching to Avalara Looking for a better tax calculating and reporting tool #### Vendor response Bonnie, thanks for sharing your feedback with us. We work hard to deliver a reliable product, and so we're happy to read your team has benefited from our services. Replied December 2022 --- ### Must have tool for US tax compliance operating in overseas - Overall rating: 4/5 - Reviewer: Gabby A. - Verified reviewer: Yes - Industry: Financial Services - Company size: 11-50 employees - Product usage: Used monthly for less than 2 years - Reviewed: May 2026 - Review source details: This reviewer was invited by us to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you. #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 5/5 - Value for money: 4/5 - Customer support: 4/5 - Functionality: 5/5 #### Pros Ability to calculate US tax without having to worry about it. It has seamless connection to Netsuite so easy to use #### Cons Cost can be a burden for small company and customer service can improve but I find it mainly it is related to the time difference #### Vendor response Hi Gabby, thanks for taking the time to share your review. We’re glad to support your tax compliance so you can stay focused on your work. We appreciate your feedback and are grateful to have you as a customer! Replied June 2026 --- ### Avalara Review - Overall rating: 4/5 - Reviewer: Diane S. - Verified reviewer: Yes - Industry: Retail - Company size: 51-200 employees - Product usage: Used daily for more than 2 years - Reviewed: February 2025 - Review source details: This reviewer was invited by the software vendor to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you. Ok, most of the time, but the customer service reps do not always communicate well. #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 4/5 - Value for money: 3/5 - Customer support: 3/5 - Functionality: 4/5 #### Pros The variety of products, and the ability to customize to individuals. #### Cons Connectivity Issues that created lag time. #### Vendor response Thanks for the review, Diane! We are working to improve our overall customer support and appreciate your feedback. Replied February 2025 --- ### Time Consuming, Costly, and Zero Accountability - Overall rating: 1/5 - Reviewer: Verified Reviewer - Verified reviewer: Yes - Industry: Consumer Goods - Company size: 2-10 employees - Product usage: Used monthly for less than 2 years - Reviewed: March 2025 - Review source details: This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered Avoid Avalara. Costly, painful onboarding, unnecessary state registrations, software incompatibilities, and zero accountability. Their team admitted to unresponsiveness and miscommunication, but refused any resolution. We’ve moved on, but still deal with state notices from our time with them. Working with Avalara added to my stress and workload. Their complete disregard for customer satisfaction made this one of the worst vendor experiences I’ve had in a long time. #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 1/5 - Value for money: 1/5 - Customer support: 1/5 - Functionality: 1/5 #### Pros Unfortunately, nothing met our expectations. #### Cons Terrible customer service experience, unnecessary state registrations, software incompatibilities, and the associated time and expense. #### Vendor response Thanks for taking the time to share your experience with us. We understand your frustration and regret that we did not meet your expectations. We will take your feedback into account to make necessary improvements. Replied March 2025 --- ### Avalara Cert and Tax - Overall rating: 5/5 - Reviewer: Val K. - Verified reviewer: Yes - Industry: Retail - Company size: 10000+ employees - Product usage: Used daily for more than 2 years - Reviewed: January 2025 - Review source details: This reviewer was invited by us to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you. ovaral great experience in the past 10 years #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 5/5 - Value for money: 5/5 - Customer support: 3/5 - Functionality: 5/5 #### Pros Tsx calculations and tax return preparations for US SAles tax #### Cons customer service and su[[prt for clients #### Vendor response Thanks for sharing your feedback with us, Val! We are glad to support your team. Replied January 2025 --- ### Save your money - Overall rating: 1/5 - Reviewer: Deborah M. - Verified reviewer: Yes - Industry: Information Technology and Services - Company size: 51-200 employees - Product usage: Used monthly for less than 2 years - Reviewed: February 2025 - Review source details: This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered Awful wouldn’t recommend to my worst enemy #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 2/5 - Value for money: 1/5 - Customer support: 1/5 - Functionality: 1/5 #### Pros Nothing, this was sold based on ease and integration, integration resulted in transaction coming through twice #### Cons Didn’t work properly, support useless and didn’t fix, I spent hours each month going through line by line correcting #### Vendor response Hi Deborah, thank you for taking the time to share your feedback with us. We apologize for the frustrations you experienced with integration and we'd like to learn more. Please reach out to us at customercare@avalara.com so we can address your concerns. Replied February 2025 --- ### Good product but expensive, not trustworthy & not for international stores - Overall rating: 4/5 - Reviewer: Frida A. - Verified reviewer: Yes - Industry: Retail - Company size: 2-10 employees - Product usage: Used weekly for less than 12 months - Reviewed: May 2024 - Review source details: This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered I contacted Avalara well before launching my store; we were just commencing the development. I communicated this to the sales representative and all he focused on was about how this was ideal because I had no footprint and I would be properly set up from the beginning. However, at no point did it tell me clearly what were the things I needed to have in order before implementing Avalara, nor did he say at any point there was no reason to make the purchase until after the launch of the store since I had no sales and therefore no threshold would be surpassed. For this reason I went about 8 months without using the platform until we were getting closer to the launch at which point I realized there was no support for implementation outside of a manual, that by the way, is outdated, no videos to explain to new entrepreneurs not only how to navigate the waters is compliance but how to properly use their system. Then there were compatibility issues between avalara and our system, though they say they are compatible with WooCommerce, if your platform is using any other plugins or apps it will cause issues, such as long delays in the check out process. I communicated this to the tech team and they acknowledged that they knew of some issues (so we aren’t the only ones), but they never even replied about remotely addressing this issue. In addition, I was sold on an idea that Avalara was the best system for international stores. This is disingenuous, since it won’t calculate and send you automatic warning when you’re going to cross any NEXUS outside of the US. This wasn’t clearly explained on the sales meeting and it should have since we are a Canadian Corporation and it wasn’t going to serve even our own jurisdiction. In addition, it is not set up to configure locations of warehouses, so it calculates taxes according only to the location of the corporation, sending a warning to all clients outside of that country that they may have to pay duty charges upon receiving the goods. We were extremely careful of ensuring the most easy shopping experience for our clients, therefore we are working with warehouses in other countries like Mexico, to bring down shipping costs and take care of all duty charges so our clients don’t have to. But though we already paid the duties, Avalara was still posting a warning in our system during the check out process and though we explained our situation, they did nothing to accommodate this. We had technical issues with syncing our products with Avalara, and this was already at the point when we were finally ready to launch our store. It took Avalara 2.5 months to provide a solution, which caused a delay in our launch and they were not even communicating during the process, no timeline was provided, not even an email to ask us to be patient. Nothing. It is super expensive too, and though I never ended up actually using it (we did not launch our store with it) and due to all this frustrating issues met with indifference, we decided to cancel our contract and ask for a report nbirsement for the software that was never used, ensuring I mentioned that as a business owner, I was willing to negotiate a fair market value for the time spent with their engineer in the one meeting we had with him to explain our issues and the one meeting with the implementation specialist at the beginning, who sent us the manual to read, and took us through a general walkthrough of their platform, as well as all the HS codes we had received vs the ones we actually paid for. But they were unwavering due to their 60 day policy, which I sure went well o er since I purchased the service way before we were ready for launch, and all though I explained everything I stated above. Overall the worse experience in my life and I truly try to avoid saying any negative reviews unless I’ve exhausted every opportunity to make things right and the negative reviews are truly deserved. And I try to honour the good things they do have, which is what seems like a good product for more generic local companies within the US. #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 1/5 - Value for money: 1/5 - Customer support: 1/5 - Functionality: 3/5 #### Pros Seems like a good product (bit only truly good for the US), lots of services under one roof #### Cons 1. Sales representative only concerned with making the sale and did not offer trustworthy advice in my circumstances. 2. We needed more help in the implementation process. We would have been open to paying for an hour or two, or whatever was necessary with some one that would actually takes us through the process to do it right from the get go. We are not experts, and it would have been more effective than sending us to read stuff. Even step by step videos would have been better. 3. Disingenuous information; I made specific comments about how I needed a system that was international. I also communicated that my corporation was in Canada. It wasn’t until a year later that I realized that automatic NEXUS calculations are only available for the US in Avatax, and that I would have to manually keep track of all other countries. This should have really been explained by the sales rep, and explain the significance of this, especially as a Canadian corporation. 4. System compatibility. Avalara was making our system extremely slow. We communicated this to the tech team and it was never addressed. At no point in time were we asked what elements were we using as part of our platform to see potential compatibility issues. 5. Uncompromising client care; only cares about Avalara’s interests and does not care about clients. #### Reasons for choosing Avalara The sales representative made a very appealing pitch for their products and woo commerce suggested it as a good alternative for tax calculations. #### Vendor response Hi Frida, we appreciate you taking the time to share your experience with us so we can learn and improve. We apologize for the frustration you've experienced and we've shared your feedback with our products team. Replied June 2024 --- ### CertCapture does what it is supposed to do, but doesn't make it easy - Overall rating: 4/5 - Reviewer: Verified Reviewer - Verified reviewer: Yes - Industry: Wholesale - Company size: 201-500 employees - Product usage: Used daily for more than 2 years - Reviewed: September 2019 - Review source details: This reviewer was invited by us to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you. It would be impossible to correctly charge tax and file in the various states where we now have "economic nexus" without Avalara, so Avalara has been indespensible. However, they have completely ignored my suggestions for improvements for over 4 years. We need them, but I hope they get better at the certificate capture part of the business. #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 3/5 - Value for money: 4/5 - Customer support: 2/5 - Functionality: 3/5 #### Pros Certcapture provides the ability to create a campaign to email or fax customers for whom exempt certificates are required, and it makes it easy for them to supply the certificate(s). It is also simple to followup with those that did not initially respond. For daily use, the Walk me Through help feature, and the great wealth of help articles and FAQs, make it easy to find the answer to any questions. #### Cons CertCapture allows you to select an Exempt Reason that isn't valid for the state of the certificate. Avalara knows it isn't a valid reason, but it lets you select it anyway, and doesn't give you an error. After you finish validating the certificate and saving it, you can then look at a "History" tab and there you will see an API Call Failed error which if you research you'll find out the reason. But why set the user up for failure? Another issue: how is it useful to allow only the last PO number to be used for a single-use certificate, but at the same time allow multiple PO numbers to be saved? That’s also setting people up to fail! The Avalara University videos on Certcapture do not mention that only the last PO number saved is effective. The “Walk me through” feature doesn’t either. The field says “PO Numbers” and allows multiple PO Numbers to be saved, but it doesn’t actually work. The only way someone could learn that the field that says PO Numbers really means PO Number is by having orders they expected to be exempt be taxed, then have customers complain when they are not. Avatax should validate the selected Exempt Reason, and check all the PO numbers listed for a certificate and exempt orders with PO numbers that match any of them. I've told them this, but instead of “That’s a good idea, I’m going to forward your idea to our product development team and see if we can get it implemented.” they say “the software is working as designed.” #### Reasons for choosing Avalara There are no alternatives that I am aware of for use with Epicor Eclipse. #### Vendor response Thank you for sharing about your experience using CertCapture. From what you wrote, we recognize that there are things that have gone well and areas that need improvement. We would appreciate an opportunity to learn more about your experience. If you're open to a conversation, please contact customercare@avalara.com. Replied October 2019 --- ### Horrible Software with even worse Customer Service - Overall rating: 1/5 - Reviewer: Verified Reviewer - Verified reviewer: Yes - Industry: Wholesale - Company size: 2-10 employees - Product usage: Used daily for less than 2 years - Reviewed: August 2022 - Review source details: This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered Awful, support staff has very clearly never used the software, some have never seen it. Software does not provide the basic functionality that is advertised. Our account manager is incredibly rude and ignores emails. So phenomenally frustrating. The few helpful people I have worked with that actually understands how the software is supposed to work have made it clear that the issue we are experiencing are back-end programming problems that need to be resolved by their back-end support team. Despite following up multiple times I have yet to receive any resolution. After putting in countess hours and way too much in subscription costs into getting this software setup I can honestly say it is more time and cost effective to manually calculate tax on each order than it is to use Avalara. #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 1/5 - Value for money: 1/5 - Customer support: 1/5 - Functionality: 1/5 #### Pros After over a year of use, nothing. there is nothing redeemable about this software. #### Cons On an entirely basic level, the software does not function. It is advertised as integrating with QuickBooks Desktop but I have yet to see it function properly for an entire day. It has created such a phenomenal mess of our QuickBooks file and is completely unreliable to calculate taxes correctly to the point that each transaction has to be manually checked to ensure tax filings are correct. I have been told by numerous support staff that this is not normal but after spending literal hours working to try and rectify the issues, have come to realize that the software does not function as advertised and likely never has. Absolutely atrocious that this was ever advertised to work with QuickBooks Desktop. DO NOT USE THIS SOFTWARE. #### Reasons for choosing Avalara It was recommended by QuickBooks sales. #### Vendor response Thank you for taking the time to write about your experience, though it's not the type we aim to deliver. We're sorry to read you've experienced challenges with the QuickBooks integration. We understand it's been frustrating and we'd like to help. Please contact us at customercare@avalara.com so we can work to address the issue. Replied August 2022 --- ### Avalara is a nightmare - Overall rating: 2/5 - Reviewer: Sherri D. - Verified reviewer: Yes - Industry: Sporting Goods - Company size: 2-10 employees - Product usage: Used daily for more than 2 years - Reviewed: June 2023 - Review source details: This reviewer was invited by us to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you. We have spent a great deal of money having outside people help us with issues that Avalara customer support does not know how to fix. #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 1/5 - Value for money: 2/5 - Customer support: 1/5 - Functionality: 2/5 #### Pros It was available in the hosting environment we had #### Cons Their customer service is awful. They close claim tickets without even working with you to fix the problem. When you do get a zoom meeting you never talk with the same person twice so you have to start over. They point the blame to other platforms you use as the source of your problem. Some of our issue have gotten worse by the fixes that their customer service reps have implemented to fix other issues. #### Reasons for choosing Avalara We had to choose from what our hosting environment offered #### Vendor response Sherri, thank you for taking the time to write about your experience using Avalara. We strive to offer the best service possible and the frustrations you've described are not what we want. If you're open to a conversation, we'd like to address your concerns by learning more about your specific experience and how we can improve. Please contact us at custoemrcare@avalara.com Replied June 2023 --- ### Review of Avalara AvaTax and Returns - Overall rating: 5/5 - Reviewer: Diana S. - Verified reviewer: Yes - Industry: E-Learning - Company size: 1001-5000 employees - Product usage: Used daily for more than 2 years - Reviewed: June 2024 - Review source details: This reviewer was invited by the software vendor to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you. Very good overall. We encounter very few issues with Avalara given the quantity and complexity of our transactions. #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 5/5 - Value for money: 4/5 - Customer support: 3/5 - Functionality: 5/5 #### Pros Avalara AvaTax and Returns is a must have given the quantity of our transactions and returns required. Additionally, Avalara stays on top of changes in the tax regulations so that we don't have to worry about that. #### Cons Their help desk is usually not very helpful unless it's a very basic question, like where is something located on the platform. Any questions regarding tax not being calculated correctly takes a long time to resolve with a lot of back-and-forth on tickets. #### Vendor response Diana, thanks for sharing your experience with us. We work hard to deliver a reliable product so you don't have to worry. We appreciate your feedback on our help desk and will share with our team so that we may continue to improve. Replied July 2024 --- ### Consider alternatives - Overall rating: 3/5 - Reviewer: Verified Reviewer - Verified reviewer: Yes - Industry: Wholesale - Company size: 11-50 employees - Product usage: Used daily for less than 6 months - Reviewed: August 2022 - Review source details: This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 1/5 - Value for money: 2/5 - Customer support: 1/5 - Functionality: 3/5 #### Pros CertCapture is probably the best part of their solution, which is the management of exemption certificates. #### Cons Looking back at what I paid for and what I received (and didn't) and the stress that I endured through the process, I definitely would have looked elsewhere. Implementation was confusing and difficult, and their support was non-existent most times. Employee turnover seemed to be common during my implementation, which led to frustration. Lots of different programs (Avatax, certcapture, business registrations, tax filings) that are not well connected and very confusing, and this is super important and caused me many, many hours of unnecessary time. During implementation I had 3-4 different employees that were trying to as quickly as possible on-board me. Need a meeting with someone, good luck, there's no phone number for anyone. Even my ERP implementation consultant who had an 'in' with Avalara had a difficult time receiving support. From my experience, it was difficult to find anyone in the organization that was engaged and supportive in insuring the success of my business start up from a taxation standpoint. My account manager that was supposed to be my advocate, rarely responded to messages and was the least helpful of anyone. Have a tax question, or anything that could be construed as a tax question, they won't answer it. I paid for professional plus support, which as I later determined was for after implementation support, however despite an 8hr stated response time to questions, my experienced showed that I received a response well past the stated response time. #### Vendor response Thank you for taking the time to write about your experience; it's not the type we aim to deliver. We apologize that the implementation process has been a challenge and we'd like to help. Please contact us at customercare@avalara.com so we can look into your account and help find a solution. Replied August 2022 --- ### Avalara overpromises & Under-delivers - Overall rating: 3/5 - Reviewer: Blake H. - Verified reviewer: Yes - Industry: Consumer Electronics - Company size: 11-50 employees - Product usage: Used daily for less than 12 months - Reviewed: August 2019 - Review source details: This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered TERRIBLE! There are a lot of configuration issues that we had discussed in the pre-sales cycle (like CertCapture integration, configuring marketplace facilitatort exceptions, etc.) these were all ignored and never were addressed by Avalara when we went live. Tons of issues, then their customer service doesn't respond to cases for weeks at a time. Just a really horrible customer experience. AVOID AVOID AVOID! #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 2/5 - Value for money: 2/5 - Customer support: 1/5 - Functionality: 2/5 #### Pros I liked that it integrated with all of our platforms (i.e. NetSuite, Magento and future state Shopify+) and the quoted price came in much lower than other comparative software solutions. #### Cons The setup is not intuitive. There are tons of issues where it doesn't calculate sales tax correctly or at all for some states or on returns. There are multiple different logins for different services/features (i.e. AvaTax, CertCapture, General Avalara account) which are frustrating. Also had a number of issues with our NetSuite integrations. CertCapture required us to manually upload each state certificate for each customer, then manually review and validate each one all over again. You select a state, then it doesn't select a Country and errors out, but never asks you to enter a country.... There's are just a whole lot of things not to like about Avalara. There are a lot of configuration issues that we discussed in the pre-sales cycle, then were ignored and never addressed once we went to implement. Implementation shhTheir customer service is #### Vendor response Blake, thank you for sharing about your experience using Avalara. We are sorry to read you've experienced challenges, we understand it's been frustrating, and we'd like to address your concerns. Please contact our VP of Customer Excellence Bobby Sands at customercare@avalara.com so we can learn more and work to assist. Replied August 2019 --- ### Customer support almost non existent, got screwed the very first month, nightmare transition - Overall rating: 4/5 - Reviewer: Shu S. - Verified reviewer: Yes - Industry: Retail - Company size: 11-50 employees - Product usage: Used daily for less than 6 months - Reviewed: February 2021 - Review source details: This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered Terrible. Customer support is non-existent. #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 3/5 - Value for money: 1/5 - Customer support: 1/5 - Functionality: 4/5 #### Pros Technology and software seems pretty solid so far. #### Cons I don't trust people at Avalara. We went live on 1/1/2021 and they processed returns for non-SST states for the month of January but they did NOT process returns for SST states for the month of January. Wait. What? How does it make any sense? They said my SST service starts on 2/1/2021 and not on 1/1/2021 (but somehow non-SST state service starts on 1//1/2021?!). How does it make any sense when we went live on 1/1/2021. The sales reps rushed to sign me up in December so I can start my service at the beginning of the year. They never mentioned anything about my service not starting until 2/1/2021. When I contacted them about why they haven't filed returns for SST states, they were extremely slow in their response. Customer support is terrible. I don't recommend it. They said they can still back file January returns but they would charge me $250 per state. That's $6,000 for 24 states. If you aren't willing to pay this extra fee in the first month of service, don't bother going with Avalara. I don't recommend it. #### Reasons for switching to Avalara Technological issues with the software #### Vendor response Shu, thank you for taking the time to write about your experience using Avalara. We strive to offer the best service possible and the frustrations you've described with SST are not what we want. If you're open to a conversation, we'd like to learn more about your specific experience and work to assist. You can reach us at customercare@avalara.com, and we're following up with your account manager as well. Replied March 2021 --- ### Watched this company go from great to terrible - Overall rating: 4/5 - Reviewer: Sabine D. - Verified reviewer: Yes - Industry: Sporting Goods - Company size: 51-200 employees - Product usage: Used daily for more than 2 years - Reviewed: April 2018 - Review source details: This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered Multi district/state tax calculation made easy. #### Ratings breakdown - Ease of use: 4/5 - Value for money: 1/5 - Customer support: 1/5 - Functionality: 4/5 #### Pros Platform is flexible and mapping is intuitive, even for complex tax situations. Easy integration with Magento Enterprise. #### Cons Reports are difficult to run. Its more complex than it should be to add manual transactions and the UI needs a considerable update. But my biggest complaint has been in the lack of customer service. It has regularly taken WEEKS for our customer service rep to respond to my emails. And when I showed the "Customer Experience Manager" at Avalara the chain of emails that shows it has regularly taken weeks, I get no apology and refuse to honor my request for a new customer service rep to take over my account. They are forcing me to work with a rep who has failed to perform. That is simply unacceptable. I have recommended and installed Avalara, Ava Tax, Ava Reports for several organizations over the past 10 years and initially they were amazing to work with. I feel saddened that I can no longer recommend them due to the decline in their customer service. ## More reviews [Next reviews](https://www.softwareadvice.com/sales-tax/avalara-profile/reviews/?page=2) --- Avalara Reviews, Pros and Cons - 2026 Software Advice