Is the cheapest sales tax software the cheapest for everyone?

No. Across the 7 buyer profiles modeled on this page, 3 different platforms come out cheapest depending on the profile: TaxCloud, Zamp, Anrok. The variables that move the answer are how many of your filing states you have physical presence in, whether your tax data sits in an ERP rather than a storefront, your filing cadence, and whether you need VAT or GST coverage. On profiles with a hard requirement, platforms that cannot meet it are removed from the ranking instead of being allowed to win on price.

Is there free sales tax software?

Several platforms have genuinely free tiers, but none of them file returns for you. Kintsugi, Numeral, Zamp publish free tiers covering nexus monitoring and rate calculation. Filing, which is the part that takes the time, is paid at every vendor in this set. Filing directly through each state's own portal is free and remains a reasonable option at one or two states.

Does cheapest mean lowest total cost?

Not reliably, for two reasons. First, the rows are not all the same kind of number: some are prices you can transact at, one is a floor from a published per-state list rate sold only through a sales process, and one is an observed range from public buyer reports because the vendor publishes nothing at all. Second, every vendor in this set discounts in a sales-assisted deal, the publisher of this site included, so no row is the floor of what that vendor would accept. The ranking here is "cheapest by published pricing on a stated profile", which is the only claim the available data supports.

What makes one sales tax platform cheaper than another?

Three things. The pricing model does the most work: per-filing, per-state and per-order pricing produce very different bills for identical work, which is why the ranking reorders when the profile changes. Certified Service Provider status under the Streamlined Sales Tax program is the second, because member states pay certified providers directly for filing on behalf of qualifying sellers, so that line comes off a qualifying seller's bill in those states. It removes a line rather than the bill, it is decided state by state, and it is not enough on its own: one of the two certified platforms in this set is mid-table on cost. Third is scope, since a cheaper platform often does less.

Where is the cheapest option not the right option?

VAT or GST outside the US: TaxCloud and TaxJar cannot serve it at all; it is gated to a higher or quote-only tier at Avalara, Kintsugi, Numeral, Zamp; it is on the cheapest paid plan at Anrok, Sphere. Exemption certificate management: it is gated to a higher or quote-only tier at Numeral, TaxJar; it is on the cheapest paid plan at Anrok, Avalara, Kintsugi, Sphere, TaxCloud, Zamp. A published price on an ERP stack: it is gated to a higher or quote-only tier at Avalara. A platform that cannot do the job is not a cheap option, whatever it costs.

Ranked comparison

What is the cheapest sales tax software?

Last updated August 18, 2026

TL;DR

Measured on published pricing, the cheapest sales tax compliance platform is TaxCloud at $4,298 per year for 50K orders · 120 filings · 10 states · 5 SST · Shopify, and TaxCloud at $6,998 per year for 250K orders · 200 filings · 20 states · 10 SST · Shopify. That answer is profile-dependent: across the 7 buyer profiles modeled on this page, 3 different platforms come out cheapest depending on the profile (TaxCloud, Zamp, Anrok). On profiles with a hard requirement, platforms that cannot meet it are removed from the ranking rather than allowed to win on price. Cheapest by list price is also not the same as cheapest available. Every vendor here discounts in a sales-assisted deal, including the one that publishes this site, so every figure is what you would pay without negotiating rather than the floor of what is achievable.

Ranked on the two profiles this site publishes

#	Platform	SMB ecommerce50K orders · 120 filings · 10 states · 5 SST · Shopify	Mid-market ecommerce250K orders · 200 filings · 20 states · 10 SST · Shopify
1	TaxCloudSite publisher	$4,298/yr	$6,998/yr
2	Zamp	$4,730–$10,194/yr	$8,633–$14,878/yr
3	Anrok	$6,000/yr	$12,000/yr
4	Avalara	From $7,490/yr	From $14,980/yr
5	Numeral	$9,000/yr	$15,000/yr
6	Kintsugi	$9,000/yr	$15,000/yr
7	Sphere	From $12,000/yr	From $24,000/yr
8	TaxJar	$22,379/yr	$35,779/yr

Ordered by the mid-market column, and by the floor of each estimate, so a vendor shown as a range is ranked on the bottom of that range. That flatters the vendor that publishes least rather than the other way round. The site-wide table on the category page orders the same eight rows by the midpoint of a range instead, which moves the two range-priced vendors down. Neither ordering is more correct, because a range is not a price.

Where the answer changes

A single winner across a single profile does not answer “which is cheapest”. It answers “which is cheapest for one specific business”. These are the shapes where the ranking moves, and the winner of each is whatever the calculator produces.

Buyer profile	Cheapest	Runner-up
SMB ecommerce50K orders · 120 filings · 10 states · 5 SST · Shopify	TaxCloud$4,298/yr	Zamp$4,730–$10,194/yr · +$432 on the floor of each estimate
Mid-market ecommerce250K orders · 200 filings · 20 states · 10 SST · Shopify	TaxCloud$6,998/yr	Zamp$8,633–$14,878/yr · +$1,635 on the floor of each estimate
Mid-market, physical presence everywhere250K orders · 200 filings · 20 states · 0 SST-eligible · Shopify	Zamp$8,633–$14,878/yrQuote-only, ranked on an estimated floor	TaxCloud$9,998/yr · +$1,365 on the floor of each estimate
Mid-market on NetSuite250K orders · 200 filings · 20 states · 10 SST · NetSuite	Zamp$8,633–$14,878/yrQuote-only, ranked on an estimated floor	Numeral$15,000/yr · +$6,367 on the floor of each estimate
Wide footprint, 45 states250K orders · 540 filings · 45 states · 22 SST · Shopify	TaxCloud$11,898/yr	Zamp$13,316–$18,000/yr · +$1,418 on the floor of each estimate
Quarterly filer250K orders · 80 filings · 20 states · 10 SST · Shopify	TaxCloud$5,298/yr	Numeral$6,000/yr · +$702 on the floor of each estimate
Mid-market selling internationally250K orders · 200 filings · 20 states · 10 SST · Shopify · needs VAT/GST	Anrok$12,000/yrTaxCloud and TaxJar are excluded from this row: US sales tax only, with no VAT or GST coverage at any tier	AvalaraFrom $14,980/yr · +$2,980 on the floor of each estimate

Mid-market, physical presence everywhere. Warehouses, offices or remote employees in every filing state. Nobody qualifies for state-funded CSP filing here, which takes the largest single line off the two certified providers' advantage and is the fastest way to see how much of their position depends on it. Cheapest here is Zamp at $8,633–$14,878.

Mid-market on NetSuite. An ERP rather than a storefront. Integration changes which plan a buyer lands on, and for one vendor it moves a published price to a quote. Cheapest here is Zamp at $8,633–$14,878.

Wide footprint, 45 states. Filing almost everywhere. Per-filing pricing and per-state pricing scale very differently at this width, so this is where the pricing models separate hardest. Cheapest here is TaxCloud at $11,898.

Quarterly filer. Same state footprint, a quarter of the returns. Providers that bill per return benefit; providers that bill per state do not. Cheapest here is TaxCloud at $5,298.

Mid-market selling internationally. US sales tax plus VAT or GST. This is a capability question before it is a price question: a platform with no international coverage cannot serve it at any price, so it is removed from the ranking rather than left in to win on cost. TaxCloud and TaxJar are excluded here, whatever they cost: US sales tax only, with no VAT or GST coverage at any tier. Cheapest of what remains is Anrok at $12,000.

Where price is the wrong question

Some requirements are not a price difference but a hard yes or no. Check these before reading any ranking, including the ones above.

VAT or GST outside the US: Do you sell outside the United States?; Cannot serve it
TaxCloud, TaxJar
Gated to a higher or quote-only tier
Avalara: AvaTax (core tax calculation engine) only; Kintsugi: Free or Premium only; Numeral: Enterprise only, 70+ countries; Zamp: U.S. + Canada only, 70+ countries
On the cheapest paid plan
Anrok: Starter (eCommerce), 80+ countries; Sphere: Starter, 100+ countries; This is a capability, not a price. 2 of the 8 tracked platforms are US-only by design, which means their position in a cost ranking is irrelevant to a business that needs VAT or GST coverage. Of the rest, most attach it to a higher or quote-only tier rather than the entry plan, so the relevant question is not whether the vendor offers it but what plan it puts you on. Coverage here means the vendor offers it at all; depth by country is not something this site measures.
Exemption certificate management: Do you sell wholesale, or to resellers and exempt institutions?; Gated to a higher or quote-only tier
Numeral: Enterprise only; TaxJar: Professional only
On the cheapest paid plan
Anrok: Starter (eCommerce); Avalara: Core Compliance + SST Services; Kintsugi: Starter; Sphere: Starter; TaxCloud: Starter; Zamp: U.S.; Recorded here as whether the plan lists the feature, which is not the same as depth. Full certificate lifecycle management, meaning solicitation, validation, expiry tracking and audit-ready storage at volume, is a different product from a place to upload a PDF, and no provider in this set publishes enough detail to rank that. If certificates are central to your business, treat this row as a shortlist filter and not an answer. The plan feature matrix is also not the whole story where a vendor prices certificates separately. Numeral: First 50 certificates free; custom plans for 50+. Specific pricing not published.
A published price on an ERP stack: Does your tax data live in an ERP (NetSuite, SAP, Oracle, Dynamics) rather than a storefront or billing system?; Gated to a higher or quote-only tier
Avalara: published per-state plans cover a fixed list of non-ERP integrations, so every ERP routes to a quote; Several platforms here serve ERP stacks, so this is not a question of who can do the work. It is a question of who will still show you a price once you tell them what you run. The ERP row in the profile table above shows the effect: compare it to the mid-market row.

What each price actually buys

A cheaper number sometimes means a narrower product. This is what is inside each platform's cheapest paid tier, so you can tell whether two rows in the ranking above are comparable.

Anrok: filings in the rate · registrations not separately priced · international VAT/GST on this plan
Avalara: filings billed separately · registrations $403 each · audit support on this plan · phone support · SST Certified Service Provider · international VAT/GST only on a higher tier
Kintsugi: filings billed separately · registrations $75 each · international VAT/GST only on a higher tier
Numeral: filings billed separately · registrations $150 each · international VAT/GST only on a higher tier
Sphere: filings in the rate · registrations not separately priced · international VAT/GST on this plan
TaxCloud: filings billed separately · registrations $249 each · SST Certified Service Provider
TaxJar: filings billed separately · registrations $299 each
Zamp: cheapest paid plan (U.S.) is quote-only · filings in the rate · registrations not separately priced · audit support on this plan · named CSM · phone support · international VAT/GST only on a higher tier

Get the answer for your own numbers

7 profiles are more honest than one and still less useful than yours. The calculator takes order volume, filing count, state count and physical-presence count and ranks all 8 platforms against them.

Rank them for your business

Frequently asked questions

What is the cheapest sales tax software?: Measured on published pricing, the cheapest sales tax compliance platform is TaxCloud at $4,298 per year for 50K orders · 120 filings · 10 states · 5 SST · Shopify, and TaxCloud at $6,998 per year for 250K orders · 200 filings · 20 states · 10 SST · Shopify. That answer is profile-dependent: across the 7 buyer profiles modeled on this page, 3 different platforms come out cheapest depending on the profile (TaxCloud, Zamp, Anrok). On profiles with a hard requirement, platforms that cannot meet it are removed from the ranking rather than allowed to win on price. Cheapest by list price is also not the same as cheapest available. Every vendor here discounts in a sales-assisted deal, including the one that publishes this site, so every figure is what you would pay without negotiating rather than the floor of what is achievable.
Is the cheapest sales tax software the cheapest for everyone?: No. Across the 7 buyer profiles modeled on this page, 3 different platforms come out cheapest depending on the profile: TaxCloud, Zamp, Anrok. The variables that move the answer are how many of your filing states you have physical presence in, whether your tax data sits in an ERP rather than a storefront, your filing cadence, and whether you need VAT or GST coverage. On profiles with a hard requirement, platforms that cannot meet it are removed from the ranking instead of being allowed to win on price.
Is there free sales tax software?: Several platforms have genuinely free tiers, but none of them file returns for you. Kintsugi, Numeral, Zamp publish free tiers covering nexus monitoring and rate calculation. Filing, which is the part that takes the time, is paid at every vendor in this set. Filing directly through each state's own portal is free and remains a reasonable option at one or two states.
Does cheapest mean lowest total cost?: Not reliably, for two reasons. First, the rows are not all the same kind of number: some are prices you can transact at, one is a floor from a published per-state list rate sold only through a sales process, and one is an observed range from public buyer reports because the vendor publishes nothing at all. Second, every vendor in this set discounts in a sales-assisted deal, the publisher of this site included, so no row is the floor of what that vendor would accept. The ranking here is "cheapest by published pricing on a stated profile", which is the only claim the available data supports.
What makes one sales tax platform cheaper than another?: Three things. The pricing model does the most work: per-filing, per-state and per-order pricing produce very different bills for identical work, which is why the ranking reorders when the profile changes. Certified Service Provider status under the Streamlined Sales Tax program is the second, because member states pay certified providers directly for filing on behalf of qualifying sellers, so that line comes off a qualifying seller's bill in those states. It removes a line rather than the bill, it is decided state by state, and it is not enough on its own: one of the two certified platforms in this set is mid-table on cost. Third is scope, since a cheaper platform often does less.
Where is the cheapest option not the right option?: VAT or GST outside the US: TaxCloud and TaxJar cannot serve it at all; it is gated to a higher or quote-only tier at Avalara, Kintsugi, Numeral, Zamp; it is on the cheapest paid plan at Anrok, Sphere. Exemption certificate management: it is gated to a higher or quote-only tier at Numeral, TaxJar; it is on the cheapest paid plan at Anrok, Avalara, Kintsugi, Sphere, TaxCloud, Zamp. A published price on an ERP stack: it is gated to a higher or quote-only tier at Avalara. A platform that cannot do the job is not a cheap option, whatever it costs.