The worst!! Avoid!! They continue to bill me and won't let me cancel. On my 3rd request. It's a nightmare.

HORRIBLE - Look elsewhere or do it yourself!! I spent nine months begging for assistance getting setup and could go on and on about the issues, problems and challenges, it was beyond frustrating! Then after the first returns were to be filed, we learned they didn't do them, despite already withdrawing the funds and told me they could back file at an additional charge. I filed them myself. Then they attempted to pull another $10k out of our account, even though our liability was no where near that amount. They are not equipped to support what they claim to do and hold no responsibility, you'll wind up paying them to put you in hot water!!! read more

If I could give a ZERO star review, I would. Avalara's customer service is the absolute worst I have experienced in my 35 year career. Having a dedicated account rep is a joke as they can do nothing to resolve an issue, only push the request on to someone else via opening an online support ticket. We have their tax calculation subscription and had the tax filing subscription, but cancelled their filing service without refund less than 6 months into it because of the lack of transparency and the consistent filing errors they made. They never did correct the filing errors or modify their process to avoid repeating the same errors each month. In the last 2-3 months they have charged our credit card for renewal of the filing service that was cancelled 6 months prior to the one year term expiration, and have double charged our credit card for the same service period on the tax calculation subscription. Getting a response or resolution to any issue with tax calculation, filing, or billing takes weeks or months, and sometimes never gets resolved. After having so many problems, I googled for Avalara reviews and found tons of similar complaints. Future customers should be warned. read more

They charge you but do not provide the service and do not respond to messages. Worst experience.

Can I give zero stars? Using Ava tax has been a colossal waste of time and money. I paid for the service to make my life easier by handing off something that I was bad at, and loathed doing, to experts. Rather than saving me time it took more time. Time to set up the returns, time to file multiple tickets every time something wasn't working, time to search for a customer service number, time to call to resolve unclear instructions about how to set things up. They message me along the way, telling me what I need to do to get them to the next step in the process, when they could very easily just cut me out of the equation and just make the changes themselves. Literally the only thing they do is pull data and file the tax form. Anything outside of those 2 actions you have to do yourself. If you are looking to actually have work taken off of your plate then hire an actual person to do your taxes for you. It isn't even more expensive. read more

A nightmare that never ends! It looks very slick and well set up, but that was of no value since, after over 6 months, I never got a return filed and still can't get results from their support to get off board. I have been struggling with Avalara for over six months with no results to show for it except that I learned how to do my taxes manually, which I will now do since that it easier than going through all the hassle with this company! I never got a return filed although support repeatedly assured me it was set up right and would be filed. Now I want to get off board and do NOT want the next return to be filed, but I can't get them to cancel it. I go through their steps, and nothing happens. It's still scheduled. And I can't get them to remove my credit card on file. read more

The customer service is terrible, they just try to upsell you on everything and then wont support you when you need it. They charged us $6372 for a renewal that we did not want and now wont credit it back. Do not use them!! there are better options out there!! read more

I have a very different opinion and experience than a lot of the comments on here. We have used Avalara in conjunction with our ERP (Netsuite) for years now and the process is very smooth. As an out-of-state seller into many jurisdictions the process was becoming unmanageable when we were tracking and reporting sales tax manually. Avalara's service cleaned everything up an it is a relief not to have to worry about the liability and possible mistakes of manual sales tax. We recently got audited by California and when the auditor saw that we were using Avatax, she said this makes the process so much easier, and in fact the audit was finished quickly. read more

I've dealt with Avalara for almost seven years now at a prior company and now my current one. They started out being really awesome and had good customer support, but for whatever reason they have completely gone downhill in customer support. I think I really started to take note of this after they IPO'd. My current company probably spends over 150K a year on this product, and it takes days to get things resolved. I even have to threaten them to give me answers on issues now in order to get a response after a ticket has been created. They turn functionality on and off at a whim and have actually cost us over 20K on a tax code they flipped taxability off of and didn't mention it to us until we got a complaint. We had to pay out of our own pocket since we failed to collect on it for a month before the problem was discovered. No apology, no rhyme or reason, they just acted like this was our problem, not theirs. No transparency, no consideration, and pretty rude to top it off. If you're thinking about this product, stay away. I don't know of better alternatives, but you'll get screwed over with support this bad. Real shame, Avalara used to be the best. read more

Horrible customer service. The sales team will picture this amazing product and an amazing customer journey. The end results is not what promised. Long reponse time on tickets Horrible customer service centre in India that argue with you As soon as you sign contract the service level drops The API still have issues Changing account managers all the time Did not overhold their implementation time frame Avoid paying extra for professional team service. They still lead you to normal support Only positive thing is Yair from Sales giving excellent service read more

UPDATE: Please AVOID this firm. We even found our cancellation confirmation email as we looked through our records from October 2020 and still haven't received our refund. We are now contacting the BBB. Their REPS Joe Honma and George Trantas are fraudsters. They delay responses and when I sent them the cancellation confirmation, they stopped responding. Also, their public Yelp responses are a joke. No response to our emails. WORST BUSINESS practices I have seen in my 16+ years of business experience. They were quick to charge us over $10k and then they went silent. They didn't respond to our questions and, to make things worse, they did our filings incorrectly. Our former team member asked for a refund and we thought it had been processed. Months later, we found out that the refund had not been processed. When we tried to reach out our rep Joe Honma, we were completely ignored. Finally, months later, we still haven't received our refund. In addition to that, they were trying to charge our account again and we had to do a chargeback. Do yourself a favor and avoid working with this company. There are many better alternatives. read more

DO IT YOURSELF. These guys received payment up front and then did not perform the appropriate services. I was fined over $1K from my local municipality because they did not file the appropriate licenses as they said they would. read more

Would give them zero if it were an option. The software doesn't work. They won't stop charging my credit card, and at one point, their "tech" actually suggested my issue would be helped by "restarting and turning off and on" my computer -- DO NOT GIVE THEM YOUR CREDIT CARD OR BANK ACCOUNT INFO read more

Might possibly be the worst customer service I have ever experienced. They processed my payment for the tax program promptly and that is the last thing they did promptly. After several weeks of trying to get the program up, I gave up and asked for a refund. Even the form to request a refund is not working properly. A classic example of a company over promising and grossly under delivering. And the offshore tech support is awful. I think they are even worse than Xfinity which is a long time record holder for bad support. I guess we will just chargeback the credit card and be don with them for good. read more

Avalara is the worst company I have ever worked with. There is zero support and state compliance is outsourced to other countries. Choose any other option to help you with your sales taxes. read more

In nearly 20 years of on-line business, having dealt with many companies, have to say Avalara might be the worst. Screwed up implementation terribly (opened two accounts with every state) and we had to call each state ourselves to try and rectify the situation. When the account rep called to offer us a "deal" for our second year, we told him that there was no way we were signing up for another 12 months. Later we received a bill for the following year, because according to their contract, we needed to submit our cancellation in writing. Telling our account rep very clearly wasn't enough. So now for the first time in our history, we're in collections and will probably have to pay because we don't want to ruin our credit. Wish we had never heard of them. (I have wrote hundreds of good reviews in the past on various platforms and have never wrote a bad one. So I'm not a chronic complainer) read more

I've used this company for many years to file my personal vacation rental lodging tax returns as well as my property management vacation rental lodging tax returns. They used to be a really great company and they were easy to work with and their tools were easy to use. Something happened in the last year or so though, and they have become a very disorganized lot. They seem to have people working for them that don't know what the policies are, so that one person will tell you one thing and another something else. They seem confused! They also don't carefully read important emails or important forms and then make big mistakes such as closing down an account at the wrong time! Things are so bad I will most likely be looking for another company to file my vacation rental lodging taxes even though that will be a difficult change to make. read more

I Just had the most informative zoom with Neil and Kathryn at Avalara. Before we spoke, my head was spinning, and now I have clear steps as to what I need to do in order to make sure my business is compliant and protected, Thank you both for helping me so much!! This was all free and part of my consult before I even decided to move forward with them helping me with my returns. As a new business dealing with drop-ship rules and state tax regulations, it was so good to speak to people who helped me figure out the best direction forward for me and my business. read more

I have to echo the sentiment of most users. Avalara's customer service is beyond abysmal. Getting a problem with them resolved literally takes months, because they basically just don't understand what they are doing. Their ticket system is part of the reason they are so terrible; it does not update you with activity on your support case. I was told I had to login weekly to see what happened. They frequently mark cases "resolved" despite the issue not being fixed. I have a problem with the Canada Revenue Agency. I have provided them everything they asked for and needed to handle the problem. Today, they asked for the same information yet again; I don't have the time to constantly follow-up and provide information that they already have. This could be a good company, but right now, it is not, and I highly recommend you consider other suppliers before settling on Avalara. read more

Total Joke. They do nothing but report what I report to them. So why bother? I just report my sales and tax to the city. Why do I need to use Avalara? They charged me about $300 to join and then charged me about $30 a month for over a year and never once reported anything to anyone. Every report they send me is full of 000000000. when I ask them why they say I need to tell them the numbers so they can report it! What a joke. Just do it yourself and dont pay them as they want you to do all the work and then charge you. I call and ask for a manger 3 times. Nothing. I am going to challenge their fees with my credit card company. Do not believe what they tell you during the sales talk. They say they will take care of everything. No they do nothing but send you a bill and report zero income and tax. read more

We started CertCapture in May 6, 2020. 6 months on, the project hasn't been finished yet. Is Avalara able to do the project or not???? #disappointed read more

They have charged us for things they shouldn't have charged us for. Not finished things they were supposed to do. Communicated in an "over my head" way that is frustrating and self serving. If you do hire them keep careful notes, keep on their tail so that they accomplish what they are supposed to, in other words be ready to do their job for them. read more

I am in the process of having to file LATE taxes for the past two quarters because I thought since I was paying Avalara monthly that they would continue to file my taxes in a timely manner until the expiry of my contract, which I unfortunately extended for another year, a very poor decision on my part. Not only are their services severely overpriced, their customer service and communication is abominable. Now I am having to pay delinquency charges as well due to their lack of communication, and still I am paying their outlandish monthly 'service fees' for services I am not even using since I closed my business months ago, of which they are aware. Very poor business ethic. I would recommend ANY other tax service outside of Avalara. read more

I sent an email to the address in your response and asked for a call back and did not receive a call. This company really needs to rework their support if they want to continue to grow. read more

I am the financial controller for a rapidly growing E-Commerce company. We currently use Avalara/AvaTax to calculate our sales taxes on each order as well as for our sales tax filings. From day 1 we have had issues with taxes not being calculated correctly or at all on hundreds of orders each month (we were told this is due to Avalara being down from time to time). Secondly, the so-called "pros" that they use to prepare and file the returns have made so many mistakes that we continue to receive notices from the state jurisdictions which require us to spend more $$ and time remedying. When we have issues, we are told to open a customer support case which we always do, but it takes weeks or months to receive a response and the responses are canned answers that do not help and result in weeks and weeks of back and forth...all leading to no resolution and more $$ and time wasted. When we complained to our account manager about the lack of service and responsiveness that we are experiencing, she upsold us on the "Enterprise" level customer support for $16,000, ensuring us that we would receive faster responses and better service, so we signed up immediately hoping it would solve all of our problem! It is now 4 months in and NOTHING has changed. All of the same issues exist except that our pocket book is $16K lighter. Everyone who shares my experience should take the time to 1) write your own yelp review and 2) report Avalara to the better business bureau. Choose Vertex or any of the other thousand providers and AVOID AVALARA AT ALL COSTS! You've been warned. read more

I have to say how disappointed I am with Avalara. I've been trying for months to get some answers from them. I've received penalty notices from states, I've received refunds from states. I cannot get an answer. They charge overage fees but do not review with me how they count transactions as there count does not match mine. read more

Horrible rip off. No customer service, trying to up sell and charge you extra, not helpful at all. Were trying to charge us for the registration and filing for all the states that in the SST program even after I mentioned that I know that it's free and we qualify, be careful if you don't do your homework they will rip you off thousands of dollars. No customer service, they just transferring you fromm one person to another read more

Horrible customer service, never call you back and deflect. I have involved Shopify in my complaint and they won't even get back to them. I've been paying for 6 months and they have NEVER filed a sales tax return for me. I owe late fees to the department of revenue etc. DO NOT USE! It's a SCAM! read more

We've gone on the website 4 times for a " quote" with no response. I also emailed this company directly with absolutely no response. If this is their responsiveness prior to setting up an account with them. how responsive would they be if I have a tax issue. Do yourself a favor and have a local book keeper do your taxes. Dont trust your business to an internet company with non responsive bots. read more

Their service and support is a joke to everyone in the industry. They can't answer any questions, never offer any solutions, always refer you to "your ERP" support staff, and in general just deflect, deflect, deflect. Terrible international solutions, also. read more

Horrible customer service. They do not inform the customer about all charges and do not help client make informed decision. They are only about making money. Used their tax filling service for two years and was treated very poorly when trying to cancel my membership. They then billed me for five additional months - without notifying me during cancellation and blocking my use of the services. read more

I've been using there services for about 4 years and initially they were great (or so I thought). They helped me clean up tax reporting on my short-term rental. And since they were so great in the beginning I just let it ride. Today I tried to set up an account with the state Office of Tax and Revenue and realized that they had set up an account already without giving me the actual user name and password. When I called to request it I was first told Jill was out of the office. I see it as best a single point of failure that only one person in an organization has my login information. I next was told that if I had my access to my account that I might mess up their ability to make payments. This is extremely unprofessional and unethical. I've now been on the call for an hour an half, on hold for 30 minutes despite the Avalara rep telling me just before she put me on hold that Jill was responding to her. She has not responded to my emails asking for an update. I can only start to think, they are intentionally not giving it to me due to inappropriate activity on my account. Will follow up with relevant oversight and regulatory bodies. Bottom line, please check your accounts! Response to Avalara: with all due respect, I have absolutely tried reaching out to customer care. Crickets. So suggesting that I "fix" the problem by reaching out to a generic email is really no fix at all but seems to be an attempt to "seem" responsive. In the meantime, Air B and B is shutting down my listing because I can't access my OTR account to register my short term rental. So the impact and costs are mounting. read more

They are very good at taking your money. They do file returns though many times they were late and I had to pay penalties. They also will not reply to any emails or phone calls. Never do business with Avalara, just call a local tax person. read more

The worst. Customer service is non existent. Assistance with anything (literally anything) takes weeks to months. read more

They use bait and switch to get customers to use their products. What they sell you will not be what you receive. We were told we would be getting an extension from a certain partner and a month after we signed they said that had now changed. They would not let us walk away so now we have a garbage product. The customer service is absolutely terrible. Avoid them at all costs! read more

The tax service seems OK - but the way they run their company is kind of bush league. They don't send real invoices, it takes numerous emails to straighten out simple billing questions. Their sales seems to be US-based, but their billing and service clearly seems off-shore, and they clearly haven't figured out how to make that work. I wouldn't normally Yelp about something like this, I know don't look at Yelp when selecting a service like this, but it would be pointless to voice my concern to the minions I've been dealing with that don't understand service, or even the basics of good communication. So, I'm hoping some clever reputation management person will see this and get my message through to the correct people. read more

If I could give this 0 stars I would! Still have this "service" because despite trying to cancel it and ask for a refund we are ignored and still being charged. It's more like a SCAM at this point. Nothing but problems from day one. Can't log in, terrible/slow customer support, website is basically useless and broken. The integrations were calculating things wrong. We are now using TaxJar and have gotten everything we needed done quick, easy and less expensive. Please everyone who is having trouble with them contact the BBB read more

i would give this company a zero rating if I could. I would not recommend this company! save your money. my husband and I started a LLC through Legal Zoom and Avalara is in partnership with legal zoom. we were referred to avalara for our state license and state tax registration. we paid them $399 for nothing. they sent us a form to fill out and we couldn't find some of the information they were asking for. we called them and the woman I talked to on the phone said we couldn't talk to anyone we had to email them. we then emailed them asking for clarification and they just emailed back the same instruction. I tried calling again and this time another woman would not let me speak, she kept talking over me. I asked to speck to a supervisor and she told me no and hung up. legal zoom is no help either. I asked for a refund and was told I needed to email avalara. all they want is your money and will do nothing for you! read more

Absolutely Horrendous service. They will tell you "not in the contract" and will ignore any issue you have. Stay away.

Sent to Avalara on 9/14/21 What do you mean you haven't heard from us? We have been in contact with Avalara for 5 months or more letting people there know ( in the rare cases we were actually able to talk to someone that had little or no knowledge of your service) that we were completely miss led on your service and sales men or representatives. We told you that there was no way your business could provide a service to EC Products Design. We have posted our experience on the Better Business Bureau and it would seem we are not alone. Several businesses were deceived or miss led by Avalara. Now I must call the states and explain to them what you have done and how EC Products is not required to be listed in the 36 states. Avalara is in the business of deceiving businesses that your service is needed. And now you want $17,000.00 after we told you months ago that your service is of no use to EC Products. We are requesting the return of the $3000.00 we sent you at the beginning of the year. I will do a quick list of your business plan. (1) Salesman calls repeatedly to attempt to get the business. (2) Send by mail cookies and candy of high quality get the get the attention of someone in the business. (3) Make more repeated calls to sell the software even if the business does not need it. Make as many calls as necessary and talk to as many people in the business as possible to make the sale. (4) Tell someone or any one the business we must have your service to survive in the new world of taxes. (5) No matter what get the contract and get as much money up from as possible. Tell the business whatever lies for the sign up. (6) At his point there is no more help as the sale has been made. No one to answer the phone on your end and if you need a live person book an appointment on the phone. Then get people that don't know what they are talking about. (7) File the notices with all the states that should not have been contacted as they do not apply to the business. (8) When I called Avalara to say we did not need to be registered in all those states then you say it will be $11,000.00 do de registered from the states we did not need to be registered in. (9) April, we started to realize we were sold a bill of goods. We talked to more than one person at Avalara to try and determine what the real story was and then we realized we had been taken advantage of by another software company selling us a miss represented bill of goods. (10) The words started coming like contract and monthly charges. Then a letter was sent saying we did not want your business by a certain date and now we need to pay for the next year that we also did not want. (11) I have started to contact the states and personally talked to the tax people in 4 states so far and I know that firsthand that there was no reason to have registered and in fact the states did remove us from their systems. (12) We told you early on that we did not have an IT person nor a computer programmer. How would be implement a complicated system with no help [ on our end and no help on your end. In reading the BBB comments other businesses stated that even when they had qualified in house help, they could not get help from Avalara. We have contacted the BBB in your area and have read all the negative reviews about the Avalara company. If necessary, we will contact the governing body in your state about what you are doing to us and other companies in the US. Once again if your company had been as interested in honestly finding out if we needed your service and you were in taking our money this would have never happened. We look forward to getting our $3000.00 deposit back as your service was miss represented. read more