Selecting the right tax compliance platform is critical so you don't overpay, face unnecessary complications managing sales tax, or end up with compliance gaps that leave you vulnerable to audits.
Avalara is perhaps the best-known tax compliance solution, but that doesn't make it the best solution for everyone. Avalara was built for large companies with multinational operations, large budgets, and dedicated tax teams that can easily manage complexity.
Numeral is a popular Avalara alternative offering the same full-service support with a simpler interface, affordable pricing, and no long-term contract. Onboarding is easy, and Numeral's AI-native solution works for companies of all sizes, from startup SaaS businesses to enterprise organizations.
So which is right for you?
- Avalara is best for large companies that can pay a premium for global tax compliance and have a dedicated tax team to use it effectively.
- Numeral is best for companies of all sizes, including ecommerce, SaaS, and enterprise businesses that need a simple, affordable solution to fully manage sales tax, VAT, and GST compliance in over 13,000 jurisdictions.
This article explains the key differences between Numeral and Avalara in pricing, tax calculation engines, nexus monitoring solutions, and processes for onboarding, registration, and filing. It will also provide insight into the type of businesses that each platform is a fit for.
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Numeral vs. Avalara overview
The table below shows key differences between Numeral and Avalara:
Numeral vs. Avalara pricing
When comparing Numeral vs. Avalara, pricing is one of the biggest differentiators. Avalara pricing can be a substantial barrier to entry for many companies due to the very high cost of the enterprise solution.
Here are the key pricing differences between Numeral and Avalara:
Numeral pricing
While Numeral's services are comparable to Avalara's, its pricing is both more transparent and more affordable.
Numeral offers free nexus monitoring with no long-term commitments. Numeral will monitor sales across all platforms at no cost and alert you when you're close to establishing nexus and when you have crossed nexus thresholds.
Other services offered by Numeral are pay-per-use, with costs clearly listed online. You don't need to sign up for a sales call to find out Numeral pricing. Instead, you just pay a simple flat fee of $75 per filing and $150 per registration.
For a merchant filing monthly in five states, Numeral's total monthly cost is $375, including filing, remittance, and expert review before each submission. There are no contracts or cancellation fees, and you don't have multiple separate products to navigate.
Avalara pricing
Avalara does not publish pricing online, but based on our Avalara pricing research on self-reported user prices, companies typically pay between $4,000 and $75,000, while mid-market merchants commonly report annual costs in the $8,000 to $20,000+ range.
Avalara pricing is complicated by the fact that there are multiple separate products required to achieve full compliance, including:
- AvaTax for tax calculation and nexus monitoring
- Avalara Returns
- Avalara Registration
If you have your sales call with Avalara, you can discuss the cost of each service you need, as well as whether you want a bundled package. Be aware that you typically must sign a long-term contract that includes early cancellation fees.
The total costs may also not be as reported, as this TrustRadius reviewer experienced.
Avalara vs. Numeral tax calculation
Both Avalara and Numeral offer a tax calculation engine that works with shopping platforms and with your own storefronts or websites to calculate tax in real-time. This enables you to charge your customers the correct rate instantly on every transaction.
Avalara does this through a product called AvaTax, while Numeral Tax offers integrations and an API to allow tax calculation on any platform or custom checkout. Numeral's integrations with popular sales platforms like Shopify and Amazon make setup of this service effortless.
Avalara is widely regarded for having over 900 content updates per day, ensuring the most up-to-date information on complex product taxability rules and exemptions. Of course, this contributes to AvaTax's high costs.
Numeral's calculations are on par with AvaTax in terms of accuracy, with Numeral calculating rates based on customer location with state, county, city, and district-level details. No manual configuration is required. For most merchants, the practical difference between the two services is negligible.
Both Numeral and Avalara also offer global tax calculations in real-time, with Avalara operating in 190+ countries and Numeral offering support in 70+ countries.
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Numeral vs. Avalara nexus monitoring
Nexus monitoring is the first critical step in sales tax compliance.
Companies can establish physical nexus through a local presence, or economic nexus by doing a certain volume of sales or number of transactions within a state.
Establishing nexus triggers sales tax compliance obligations, including registering with the state, and collecting and remitting taxes.
Avalara offers a free Sales Tax Risk Assessment to help you identify where you’ve triggered nexus, but this assessment requires your input and does not include ongoing monitoring. Numeral offers free ongoing nexus monitoring, with no commitments required.
Both Avalara and Numeral integrate with sales platforms and custom checkouts, aggregating transaction data across multiple channels to provide a complete nexus picture for multi-channel sellers. However, there are important differences between the two services.
Numeral's free nexus monitoring includes multi-channel monitoring, alerting you when you are approaching registration thresholds and when those thresholds have been reached. Avalara offers the same type of monitoring, but with more configuration required, and only on paid plans.
Numeral vs. Avalara state registration
Establishing nexus triggers a registration obligation, which, unfortunately, many company owners aren't aware of. Once you are required to collect sales tax in a particular state or country, you must register with the local taxing authorities in order to do so.
Both Numeral and Avalara take care of registration for you, but Avalara often requires more hands-on involvement from you and charges higher fees. Numeral's registration services are affordable, and Numeral offers the option to auto-reregister when nexus is first established.
Avalara offers an entirely separate service, Avalara State Sales Tax Registration, that you must sign up for or add to your bundled services if you want registration handled for you, and the site warns that you sometimes must handle filing certain forms yourself.
Numeral charges $150 per state for registrations, with no requirement that you sign up for other services. You can decide what registrations Numeral handles with no long-term obligations required.
Avalara charges $403 per registration, which is more than double what Numeral charges.
Avalara vs. Numeral filing and remittance
Once you have established nexus, registered in a state, and begun collecting taxes, filing and remittance come next. Filing is typically done monthly, quarterly, biannually or annually, and tax payments are typically remitted when you file.
Both Avalara and Numeral can file returns and remit payments for you if you opt into these services. However, you must sign up for a separate Avalara service, Avalara Returns, or include it in a bundled package if you want Avalara to handle filing and remittance on your behalf.
Numeral charges per filing instead of requiring a package or long-term commitment. You can choose a fully hands-off approach and have Numeral auto-file for you. If Numeral takes care of submitting returns, your filing history is easily accessible in your dashboard.
Numeral charges just $75 per filing, again with no long-term commitment required. This is almost always more cost-effective than using Avalara, especially for companies with nexus in 20 states or fewer. A dedicated U.S.-based tax expert also reviews all returns before submission.
Companies that choose Numeral will also get the peace of mind that comes from the Numeral Guarantee. With the Guarantee, if we are late in filing your returns or make any errors in your filings that lead to an audit, we'll cover the filing fees and resulting penalties.
Avalara offers no public guarantee and past reviewers have commented that getting help was challenging when filing errors occurred:
Avalara vs. Numeral onboarding and ease of use
Onboarding and ease of use are also major differentiators between Avalara and Numeral. Avalara's process is complicated and involved, while Numeral's is simple and effortless.
While Avalara does offer customized enterprise configuration, it can take weeks or months to get up and running and you'll need help from a dedicated in-house team and sometimes outside consultants.
Many past reviews have criticized the complexity, and lack of support during the process.
Numeral's onboarding experience is simple and built for lean teams. Prebuilt connections with Shopify, Amazon, and Stripe ensure most businesses are live within days without much effort on their part. As Terminal 49 explained, “we gave Numeral our Stripe API key and their team handled the rest.”
Numeral also assigns a dedicated sales tax expert to every account so you have a contact to reach out to. There are no tickets, queues, or questions about how to get support.
Who should choose Numeral
Any company looking for a modern, AI-native sales tax compliance solution should choose Numeral. Some of the different types of businesses that will find Numeral the ideal solution include:
- Ecommerce brands: Companies like Kitsch that sell on Shopify, Amazon, Walmart, and across multiple platforms can benefit from free cross-platform nexus tracking, instant integrations, real-time tax calculation, and auto-filing and remittance services.
- Businesses that have filing and registration obligations in multiple states or countries: Numeral handles sales tax, VAT, and GST/HST registration and filing obligations throughout the United States, as well as across the globe. 4FRNT and many other international companies have benefitted from Numeral's cross-border compliance solutions.
- Companies that need support with exemption-certificate management. Businesses like Fishwife that sell to resellers must manage exemption certificates. Companies that sell to governments and nonprofits must do the same. Numeral handles exemption certificate verification and storage so you're always audit-ready.
- SaaS companies: Companies selling Software as a Service face unique challenges because of the wide variance in laws related to taxation of digital goods, strict EU-rules on digital goods taxation, and evolving laws as states and countries respond to new digital offerings. Numeral helps SaaS businesses like Character.AI to ensure they are always following the most up-to-date directives.
- Businesses that want software embedded with the tools they're already using. When businesses look for tools that work seamlessly with their current workflows, Numeral is a good fit. As companies like Brex experienced, Numeral integrates with ecommerce platforms, major ERPs, billing systems, and accounting software.
- Companies that want compliance fully handled: Many companies, including IMMI, find working with other tax compliance providers still requires hours of time invested. Numeral takes care of every aspect of compliance, even setting up virtual mailboxes and handling correspondence from state tax authorities. If you want to devote five minutes or less per month to sales tax, Numeral is the right choice.
- Teams that value transparent, predictable pricing: Numeral's transparent pricing makes it a better fit for companies that don't want to get on the phone with a sales rep just to get a quote, or who aren't interested in making a long-term commitment to a bundled package that requires subscribing to multiple services.
- Merchants who want a guarantee: Any business that wants a company to stand behind its filings will find Numeral is an ideal choice as Avalara offers no public accuracy guarantees.
- Businesses currently using Avalara who find the service isn't meeting their needs: Many businesses, like Terminal49, work with Avalara but get frustrated with mistakes, poor communication, and a clunky platform. Because Numeral's onboarding process is effortless and can be completed in days, switching has never been easier.
- Companies that want real support from real people. As reviewers say, if you want real support, from real experts, Numeral is the company for you.
Who should choose Avalara
Companies that may be a good fit for Avalara include:
- Very large multi-national companies that require VAT and GST coverage across 190+ countries.
- Organizations with dedicated internal tax teams that can configure and manage an enterprise compliance platform.
Numeral vs. Avalara FAQs
Still need to know more? Here are the answers to some frequently asked questions about Numeral vs. Avalara.
Is Numeral cheaper than Avalara?
Numeral is less expensive than Avalara for most companies, and it's easier to understand costs as Numeral's prices are transparent and posted online. Numeral offers free nexus monitoring, and charges $75 per return and $150 per registration (compared to Avalara's $403/registration).
Avalara doesn't publish most pricing online, but mid-market merchants commonly report annual costs in the $8,000–$20,000+ range. Avalara also requires a long-term commitment and has multiple separate products to subscribe to.
Does Numeral or Avalara offer a free plan?
Avalara does not offer a free plan. It only provides a free exposure evaluation. Numeral offers a free nexus monitoring plan that tracks your economic nexus exposure across all sales channels including Shopify, Amazon, Walmart, and more. Numeral only charges per filing and registration, with no long-term commitment required.
Can I switch from Avalara to Numeral?
It is simple to switch from Avalara to Numeral. Clients who made the switch have reported that Numeral's onboarding process was effortless and they were able to transition from Avalara to Numeral in days or weeks. Numeral assigns a dedicated account manager and handles the setup and transfer process so the process requires limited involvement from you.
Do Numeral and Avalara both handle international sales tax?
Both Numeral and Avalara handle international sales tax. Numeral offers tax compliance support in more than 70 countries, including registering, filing, and remitting taxes for you. Avalara is also well-known for its global support.
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Still not sure what's best for you? Check out some of our other comparisons:
