Sales Tax Pricing IndexA sourced comparison

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Corrections

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Why this page exists

This site publishes pricing for eight sales tax platforms and is operated by one of them. Every page says so. But a disclosure line only tells you that bias is possible. This page tells you what happened when it was real.

Two rules keep the log worth reading. It records only things that were actually published, so errors caught in review before a page went live are not here, because padding the list would make the published record look worse than it was. And every entry says who the error favoured, because a plain list of corrections reads as diligence, and the direction is the part that can embarrass us.

Routine data refreshes are not corrections and live in the pricing changelog instead. Sourcing rules and confidence ratings are on the methodology page.

Corrections by direction

  • 3

    Favoured this site’s operator

  • 2

    Worked against this site’s operator

  • 5

    Misstated another vendor

  • 1

    Cut both ways

  • 5

    No directional advantage

“This site's operator” means TaxCloud, Inc. A correction is counted once, against the direction its effect ran in. Where an error cut both ways it is counted as such rather than assigned to whichever column reads better.

The log

Newest first. Every entry describes something that was live on this site and is not any more. Each has a permanent link.

  1. Favoured this site’s operatorLink

    We understated TaxCloud’s own price by about 35%

    What the site said
    Filings in Streamlined Sales Tax member states were priced and then credited back at the pay-as-you-go rate for a single return, most recently $45. Correcting that rate upward in August 2026 made the error larger rather than smaller, which is how it was eventually noticed. That credit was subtracted from a tiered annual filing subscription whose effective rate is $20 to $33 per return, so the credit was worth more than the cost it was reducing and grew faster than it.
    What it says now
    Returns in SST member states are not charged at all and do not consume the filing subscription, so they leave the filing count before the subscription is priced. There is no credit line, because there is no discount: the returns are simply not billed. Confirmed with TaxCloud directly.
    What moved
    Mid-market profile: TaxCloud $4,598 → $6,998 per year. SMB profile: $3,298 → $4,298. The spread across all eight platforms narrowed from 7.8× to 5.1×. The value of qualifying for CSP status fell from $5,400 to $3,000 per year.
    Where it appeared
    The homepage price table, the TaxCloud pricing page, all 28 comparison pages, the calculator, and the structured data those pages publish for AI answer engines.
  2. Favoured this site’s operatorLink

    Quarterly filers were credited three times the returns they actually file

    What the site said
    The free-filing calculation assumed twelve returns per year in every SST state regardless of the filing cadence entered, so a business filing quarterly in ten member states was credited 120 free returns.
    What it says now
    Free returns are derived from the filing count actually entered. A quarterly filer in ten member states is credited forty.
    What moved
    At a 20-state, 80-return profile the effect was severe enough to zero out TaxCloud’s entire filing subscription. It now prices at $5,298 per year.
    Where it appeared
    The calculator, for anyone who selected quarterly or annual filing.
  3. Worked against this site’s operatorLink

    We charged for state registrations that TaxCloud does not charge for

    What the site said
    Every new state registration was priced at $249, including registrations in SST member states, which are covered under CSP enrollment at no charge.
    What it says now
    Member-state registrations are excluded, matching the treatment already applied to the other certified provider in the set.
    What moved
    No published figure moved, because both of the buyer profiles this site publishes assume no new registrations. It affected anyone who entered a registration backlog in the calculator.
    Where it appeared
    The calculator only.
  4. No directional advantageLink

    We were still calling a Zamp plan by a name Zamp had retired

    What the site said
    Three descriptive fields referred to Zamp’s "Global plan".
    What it says now
    Zamp renamed that tier "U.S. + Canada" in April 2026. The site had recorded the rename in its changelog but three surrounding fields kept the old name.
    Where it appeared
    The Zamp pricing page and the calculator’s notes on Zamp.
  5. Cut both waysLink

    Our own listing was wrong in both directions at once

    What the site said
    The site advertised a TaxCloud Free plan that no longer existed, an order-volume tier that does not exist at all, five incorrect values in the Starter price ladder and six in Premium, and a pay-as-you-go filing fee of $39.
    What it says now
    Every plan, tier and fee was re-verified against TaxCloud’s published pricing page. The Free plan is gone, both ladders are corrected, and the pay-as-you-go filing fee is $45.
    What moved
    A free plan that does not exist flattered us. The phantom higher tiers made us look more expensive than we are. On the mid-market profile the net correction moved TaxCloud from about $8,118 to $4,598.
    Where it appeared
    The TaxCloud pricing page, the homepage, every comparison page, and the calculator.
  6. Favoured this site’s operatorLink

    Buyers past the top published tier were quietly quoted the ceiling price

    What the site said
    A business with more orders than the largest published tier covers was shown that tier’s price with no indication that its real cost would be higher.
    What it says now
    The estimate carries a caveat naming the ceiling it hit and saying plainly that volume above it is billed extra.
    What moved
    It understated cost for any buyer past the ladder. The mid-market profile on this site is one of them.
    Where it appeared
    The calculator and the TaxCloud pricing page.
  7. Misstated another vendorLink

    We overstated Avalara by roughly three times

    What the site said
    Avalara was modeled as quote-only at every revenue level, with a mid-market range of $44,640 to $75,385 per year drawn from buyer-reported contract data.
    What it says now
    Avalara published per-state list pricing on 30 July 2026. Buyers under $50M in revenue on a supported non-ERP integration are now priced from that published rate. Enterprise and ERP buyers, who remain quote-only, still get the range.
    What moved
    Mid-market Avalara: $44,640–$75,385 → from $14,980 per year. Avalara moved from second-most-expensive to fourth, and the gap between TaxCloud and Avalara closed from roughly five times to about three.
    Where it appeared
    The Avalara pricing page, the homepage, all seven Avalara comparison pages, and the calculator.
  8. Misstated another vendorLink

    We published a Sphere price we had invented ourselves

    What the site said
    A $1,200 annual figure for Sphere, carrying this site’s highest confidence rating. It was not a Sphere price. It was our own arithmetic, multiplying a published monthly rate by twelve, presented as though a vendor had published it.
    What it says now
    Removed. Sphere’s published rate is stated as a rate, and where Sphere does not publish a price the site says so. This is the specific failure this site exists to avoid, and it happened here.
    Where it appeared
    The Sphere pricing page and every Sphere comparison page.
  9. Misstated another vendorLink

    We rated Sphere fully transparent after it stopped being

    What the site said
    Sphere was rated "transparent", the site’s top pricing-disclosure rating.
    What it says now
    Sphere had added a quote-only Growth tier and capped its published Starter rate below ten regions. Downgraded to "partial", with the reasoning stated on its page.
    Where it appeared
    The Sphere pricing page and its comparison pages.
  10. Misstated another vendorLink

    We overstated TaxJar at high filing volumes

    What the site said
    Filings were priced at TaxJar’s per-return rate multiplied by volume, ignoring the discounted filing bundles TaxJar publishes in its help centre.
    What it says now
    The calculator takes whichever is cheaper for the buyer, pay-as-you-go or the best-fitting bundle.
    What moved
    The correction lowered TaxJar’s modeled cost at high filing counts.
    Where it appeared
    The TaxJar pricing page, its comparison pages, and the calculator.
  11. Misstated another vendorLink

    We put words in Kintsugi’s mouth

    What the site said
    A quotation attributed to Kintsugi’s pricing page about having no fees, in wording that was no longer on the page.
    What it says now
    The current wording, quoted verbatim with the date it was read. The substance of Kintsugi’s claim had not changed, but we were presenting our paraphrase as their quotation.
    Where it appeared
    The Kintsugi pricing page and its comparison pages.
  12. Worked against this site’s operatorLink

    We said TaxCloud’s SST coverage was narrower than it is

    What the site said
    That SST free filing required TaxCloud’s Premium plan, and hedged coverage as "up to 24" member states.
    What it says now
    SST is available on every TaxCloud plan and covers all 24 member states including Tennessee. An intermediate draft of the correction got this wrong in the same direction by treating a TaxCloud help-centre article as authoritative; that article is itself incorrect and is flagged for fixing.
    Where it appeared
    The TaxCloud pricing page, the calculator’s structured data, and every comparison page mentioning SST.
  13. No directional advantageLink

    We miscounted the certified providers

    What the site said
    That TaxCloud was one of six providers offering free services under the SST programme.
    What it says now
    Five: Avalara, TaxCloud, Sovos, AccurateTax and Avior. Exactor is certified but the Governing Board records it as not currently offering free services, which is where the sixth came from.
    Where it appeared
    Every page describing SST certification.
  14. No directional advantageLink

    The calculator told search engines the cheapest provider was free

    What the site said
    With no inputs entered, the calculator ranked providers that charge no fixed platform fee at $0 per year and put them first. That empty state was server-rendered, so crawlers and AI answer engines read "the cheapest option costs $0" directly above a static table saying otherwise.
    What it says now
    No ranking is shown until real inputs are entered. The static table above it, which is correct, is the only ranking a crawler sees.
    Where it appeared
    The calculator, in what search engines and AI crawlers indexed rather than what a person saw.
  15. No directional advantageLink

    The most-quoted numbers on the site appeared without their qualifications

    What the site said
    Caveats were rendered only on the calculator’s own result cards. Provider and comparison pages showed the headline figure alone, stripped of the assumptions and limits that make it defensible.
    What it says now
    Every estimate carries its caveats on every page that shows it.
    Where it appeared
    All eight provider pages and 25 comparison pages.
  16. No directional advantageLink

    Generated answers repeated their own questions and stopped mid-sentence

    What the site said
    Across 36 generated pages: answers that began by restating the question they were answering, five pages whose answers were cut off mid-sentence with an ellipsis, a summary sentence printed twice in a row, and stray double full stops.
    What it says now
    All fixed, and the generators no longer truncate text at all. An answer is included whole or not included.
    Where it appeared
    All eight provider pages and all 28 comparison pages, in both the visible text and the structured data.

How to report one

If a figure on this site is wrong, including a figure about your own product, say so and it will be checked against the source and corrected here with the date. Vendors are welcome to dispute their own listings. A correction request does not need to come with anything more than a link to what the price actually is.

The standard applied is the same one on the methodology page: every figure traces to a public, dated source, and where a vendor publishes nothing this site says so rather than estimating.