Avalara vs Anrok: An In-Depth Head-to-Head Analysis

Navigating the complex realm of sales tax can be a daunting task for businesses, especially in a landscape that demands adherence to ever-evolving regulations. Enter Avalara and Anrok the comprehensive tax compliance solutions designed to simplify sales tax automation, making it easier for companies to manage tax rates, returns, exemptions, and jurisdictional rules with precision and efficiency.

Although both are popular sales tax automation solutions and offer the same services, they have significant differences. This guide will highlight the features of each to help you decide which of the two is better.

What Is Avalara?

Avalara is a cloud-based platform that specializes in automating various aspects of tax compliance. This software is particularly beneficial for businesses operating across multiple state lines or countries, each with its own specific tax jurisdictions and regulations. Avalara integrates seamlessly with multiple business systems, ensuring accuracy and timeliness in tax calculations, which is crucial for maintaining compliance and avoiding penalties.

Avalara's pricing depends on the size of your business. They have recommended products ideal for new, small, midsize, and enterprise businesses.

Key Features

1. Tax Calculation: Avalara offers real-time sales tax calculation. By integrating with your existing systems, such as e-commerce platforms, ERP, or accounting software, it ensures that every transaction reflects the correct tax rate.
2. Returns and Remittance: Avalara simplifies the filing and remittance of tax returns. The software can automatically generate and file sales tax returns with the appropriate tax authorities, saving businesses time and reducing errors.
3. Exemption Certificate Management: Handling tax exemptions can be complex, but Avalara’s robust system manages exemption certificates efficiently, ensuring that businesses remain compliant with tax regulations.
4. Jurisdictional Analysis: With Avalara, businesses can analyze sales across different jurisdictions, providing clarity on where sales tax is owed. This feature helps businesses remain compliant as the economic nexus laws change.
5. Pre-built Integrations: Avalara supports most e-commerce, accounting software, and ERP systems. It has over a thousands of pre-built integrations for numerous products, including Shopify, Stripe, WooCommerce, Sage, Salesforce, eBay, Amazon, Etsy, Microsoft, Oracle Netsuite, BigCommerce, Wordpress and more. 

Avalara Ratings

Avalara generally has positive reviews on G2 with 4.0 out of five stars. However, it has poor reviews from Yelp, with only 1.2 stars out of five from 158 reviews. Most complaints against Avalara were due to poor customer support. Many customers felt that the customer service was non-existent because they were not responsive.

What Is Anrok?

Anrok is a platform for sales tax automation designed for contemporary SaaS and subscription-based companies. It seeks to simplify tax compliance, lessen manual labor, and guarantee that businesses appropriately fulfill their responsibilities across several countries by concentrating on cloud-based services and cutting-edge billing models. Businesses can easily see their tax liabilities by integrating their current billing systems with Anrok.

Anrok's pricing is tailored to all types of business from startups to enterprises. It offers three plans -- Starter, Core, and Growth.

Key Features

1. Automated Tax Calculations: Real-time determination of tax rates and charges for each transaction, eliminating manual work and guesswork.
2. Multi-Jurisdiction Compliance: Support for U.S. states and international regions, ensuring accurate tax handling as your company scales globally.
3. Integrations with Billing Platforms: Direct connections to popular billing and payment processors like Stripe or Chargebee for seamless tax management.
4. Dynamic Threshold Monitoring: Automated tracking of sales volume and nexus thresholds, alerting businesses when they need to register and file in new regions.
5. Comprehensive Reporting and Analytics: Detailed insights into tax liabilities, filings, and rates, enabling informed decision-making and strategic planning.

Anrok Ratings

Anrok has 4.5 stars out of 5 on G2 from 163 reviews. Although it has a higher score than Avalara, the latter has more users and receives more reviews. Anrok users were generally satisfied with the software. However, some encountered issues with integration with Xero, and others had problems loading exemption certificates.

Kintsugi: An Automated Alternative

While Avalara provides robust solutions and Anrok's software is easier to learn, Kintsugi offers both and more.

Kintsugi takes sales tax automation to the next level by leveraging its advanced technology, Kintsugi Intelligence. Kintsugi offers streamlined automation of sales tax compliance, and its integrated approach simplifies complex tax operations, freeing businesses up to focus on growth.

Kintsugi's transparent pricing ensures that you only pay for the service you need. There are no hidden charges or surprise upgrades. Its Starter plan even offers several features for free. 

Kintusi also offers seamless no-code integration to Shopify, Stripe, Deel, BigCommerce, Chargebee and more. So, you can easily plug your existing ERP, HR, and e-commerce into the Kintsugi platform to automate your sales tax compliance.

Most importantly, Kintsugi ensures that all of its customers are well-supported from onboarding to integration because its customer support are responsive and knowledgeable. This is evident in the customer ratings.

Kintsugi Ratings

Kintsugi customers are very satisfied with the platform. Kintsugi receives 5 stars from all of the Shopify merchants. It also has 4.8 stars out of five in G2 and the only user who rated it 4 said Kintsugi was "much better than Avalara."

Why Choose Kintsugi’s Platform?

Aside from streamlined tax processes, Kintsugi offers additional benefits:

• Product Integrations: Kintsugi offers seamless no-code integration that ensures that its platform fits seamlessly with your business operations.
• Flexible Pricing: Kintsugi’s competitive pricing model charges just $100 per month with no annual commitments. This pricing structure is designed to accommodate businesses of all sizes, offering them flexibility and predictable costs.
• Scalable Product Platform: The Kintsugi product platform is engineered for scalability, adapting to the needs of growing businesses.

Table: Feature Comparison

Feature	Avalara	Anrok	Kintsugi
Sales Tax Automation	Yes	Yes	Yes
Real-Time Tax Calculation	Yes	Yes	Yes
Returns and Remittance Handling	Yes	Yes	Yes
Exemption Certificate Management	Yes	Yes	Yes
Pricing	Variable (plus extras)	Has flat rate, usage fee and sales tax.	$100/mo, no commitment
Product Integrations	Multiple	Multiple	Multiple
Platform Scalability	High	High	High

Final Thoughts

Tax compliance remains a critical component of business operations, and finding the right solution can significantly impact your efficiency and accuracy. While Avalara and Anrok are competent tools for this, Kintsugi stands out with its flexible pricing, robust integrations, awesome customer service and scalable platform. By automating complex tax processes, Kintsugi empowers businesses to focus on what truly matters: their growth.

Visit Kintsugi today to revolutionize your approach to sales tax automation. You can book a demo now or sign up for free.