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Customer reviews: Avalara AvaTax

Develop by Elite

Reviews (28)

Overall rating
1.7

What Merchants Think

Merchants generally express dissatisfaction with Avalara AvaTax, highlighting issues with customer support, billing practices, and technical reliability. Many users reported unexpected price increases and challenges in contacting support, which significantly impacted their overall experience with the app. Although there is some praise for the app when it functions correctly, the negative aspects seem to overshadow positive experiences.

Key Strengths

  • Effective for tracking and filing tax returns across multiple states when functioning properly
  • Good plugin integration, making the app essential for large-scale tax collection
  • Occasional positive feedback on the technical support responsiveness

Common Concerns

  • Frequent complaints about misleading pricing and unexpected costs after the first year
  • Poor customer support, with reports of unresponsiveness and unhelpfulness
  • Bugs and technical issues leading to incorrect tax calculations and system errors
  • Problems with the setup process characterized as complex and confusing for users
  • Account management issues, including difficulties in canceling services and unexpected account changes

Final Thoughts

Avalara AvaTax appears to be a powerful tool when operating as intended, especially for businesses needing to manage complex tax requirements. However, widespread reports of inadequate customer support, pricing issues, and technical challenges suggest that the app requires significant improvements to meet merchant expectations consistently. Potential users should weigh these concerns heavily when considering this solution.

ach...com

Feb 22, 2025  on Bigcommerce

give a zero if I could - cannot login, no response from support, have had customers been checking out without sales tax being implied and us not knowing about it unless we see the invoice (varies by state). e-commerce is becoming a real PIA

sup...com

Feb 16, 2025  on Bigcommerce

Misleading pricing - go elsewhere - While the service functions as it should, their pricing is incredibly misleading. After one year of service, we got a new bill saying we owed over 10x the agreed upon rate. When I repeatedly tried to get clarification, one rep told me that they had discontinued the lower tier service and everyone was upgraded to the higher plan, but if I didn't want it just don't sign the contract. I followed that advice but continued to get bills saying we owed thousands of dollars that I never agreed to. I finally got a meeting with a rep only to be pitched a new service add on for thousands of more dollars without addressing the original issue. No thanks. I see other reviews about their bait & switch pricing so I know we are not alone.

ada...com

Jan 14, 2025  on Bigcommerce

Horrible Service - Bait and Switch Pricing - I've been in eCommerce for 17yrs and had learned about Avalara products at trade shows over the years. When we started getting non function and no response from TaxJar support, I chose Avalara as their replacement. I knew the cost would be significant, but assumed with that would come the best product and excellent service. I could not have been more wrong. I found myself in a bait and switch operations with rude, condesending, and/or totaly inept account managers (5 in < 1yr). Their API billing system is rediculous. They have you estimate "order" volume but then bill on API calls, which in our experience was about 30% higher. Your account rep is there not to help you but to try to charge you more whenever possible. And then to cap it off constant failures of the software itself. I've been trying to get a copy of my paid invoices for two weeks now. Learn from my mistake and look elsewhere. What a dissapointing and terrible experience working with Avalara has been!

bo....com

Sep 30, 2024  on Bigcommerce

Absolutely horrible - I've used Avalara from the start of my website going from a few hundred orders to thousands. Avalara automatically upgraded my package to include more documents but surcharged me 1000% for the documents, what originally cost $.22 a document became $1.22. They do not have any numbers to call to speak with someone and customer service will only call back randomly, mostly when I am closed. Do not use this company they are a scam.

nat...com

Aug 21, 2024  on Bigcommerce

Terrible App - I've used Avalara for a couple years now and have had so many issues in incorrect setup and calculations after they helped get it set up in the first place. Apart from incorrect reports and collecting happening, the third element of a recurring billing software (Rebillia), made the issue even worse. Avalara refused to "flip the switch" to allow Rebillia to connect and when I talked to Rebillia was told that it's very easy and they are likely just wanting more money. After being promised they wouldn't bill me more, I get double invoiced one month and then charged additional connector fees. I collect almost as much in tax as I have to pay for Avalara, the price is just absurd and their service has been terrible. It took months of working with them to get my account functioning at 90% and I still have issues I have to work around. Very unhappy with them and it's impossible to get in touch with someone that is either competent or that can fix the problem. Again, apart from technical issues, they increased their billing and began charging for connections they never used to charge for (Rebillia) and (BigCommerce)

dee....au

Jul 19, 2024  on Bigcommerce

Absolute Con Artists - Never having written a negative review ever, I have to say what a negative experience it has been to deal with Avalara. Take it or leave it was the response when the fee increased by a factor of 10+. The continual bullying emails that have followed since are another reason for the review. The fact that they make shutting the account down such a long winded process is proof, if proof were needed, about the intentions of this company.Update: Our solicitors are working on this as the agreement is not valid. emails to the Avalara service team are bouncing. 'The recipient's mailbox is full and can't accept messages now. Please try resending your message later, or contact the recipient directly.' Really Avalara!!

bry...com

May 23, 2024  on Bigcommerce

Why is my bill going from $170 to $1,634? - Literally the largest increase in a service bill I've seen in my entire career. Wrote in to confirm it wasn't a mistake. Response was take it or leave it. Avalara was acquired by a private equity company. They are doing the standard age-old playbook of raising prices, reducing the quality of the product and making customer support non-existent. Run away from this company. There are a few alternatives that you can find on the BC marketplace.

hel...com

Apr 30, 2024  on Bigcommerce

Would give 0 star if I could! - DO NOT USE THIS APP! Terrible customer service. It's very complex and confusing to set up. You don't have a dedicated account manage to help you get all set. We ended up giving up. Unbeknownst to us, they still kept billing us for API calls, whatever the heck that even means. We ended up getting charged for over $5,000!!! We never even set the app up fully, we couldn't even log into it because the reset password link is broken (and has been broken for MONTHS). Customer service has been a NIGHTMARE trying to get these charges explained to us and refunded. They only care about duping their customers and charging ridiculous amounts of money. It's also extremely hard to cancel your account. The cancellation form does not work, I tried multiple times and always got error messages. Finally I got them to cancel my account via emails so I wouldn't be billed again. Still fighting these bogus ridiculous charges with my credit card company. Stay away from this horrible scam of a company. Use TaxJar instead! They are awesome and so affordable!

and...com

Apr 26, 2024  on Bigcommerce

Good Product - Terrible Support - Impossible to talk to a live person. They won't return phone calls or emails.

ewr...net

Mar 19, 2024  on Bigcommerce

Poor service, high price - Have used this app for our Bigcommerce tax calculations for 9 years. They have changed for the worse. When you set up an account for this type of integration, you don't get an account manager, which means you don't get support. We used to have one, now it's impossible to get an answer in under three weeks. Pricing is also insane now. They got rid of their small business, API-only pricing tier which Bigcommerce integration made use of. Now, you're billed as a full customer. Almost 5K for a small business.

vwd...com

Dec 06, 2023  on Bigcommerce

Once they have your money your on your own - There website documentation is very poor, its bundled in an attractive professional way but is irrelevant to what you need to do. There support is worthless not even sure they train them as they were unable to answer simple setup questions. Definitely not worth anywhere close to what they charge. With the fact that it has non-existent support and the online manuals are generic and pointless should almost be freeware.

ric....uk

Oct 23, 2023  on Bigcommerce

SCAM COMAPNY - We signed the agreement to go ahead with their services, they cancelled the IOSS, and we thought it was the whole thing cancelled, did not hear anything for a whole year.They now want us to pay over £3K for a service we never had from them.OK we did sign the agreement, and we should have taken more notice, however they had no problem in NOT contacting us to set up their service!

lak...com

Aug 24, 2023  on Bigcommerce

Waste of time - Bad communication, like really, really bad

cus...com

Jun 03, 2023  on Bigcommerce

Horrible, horrible, horrible - Wow, where do I even begin? The software is buggy and takes a lot of trial and error to get to work. The support, though, takes the cake. It's absolutely atrocious. Do NOT use Avalara!

you...com

Apr 25, 2023  on Bigcommerce

DON'T Get This App!!! - WORST service ever!!! I've been filing support tickets for over a month! No reply, and now they are trying to bill me and they can't even service my account. Worthless!

inf...com

Apr 17, 2023  on Bigcommerce

Support - They said, they checked the settings and everything is ok. But the did NOT check. My accountant saw the big settings error. And they are NOT refunding my money after i applied to cancel. RUN away from this APP. Never think a second and waste your time. They don't even deserve 1 star.

sar...com

Apr 13, 2023  on Bigcommerce

Worthless App - Installed this app. Authorized a charge of $100, they charged more. App is absolutely useless. Setup everything and confirmed it was setup. Doesn't charge tax anywhere. Contacted them four times with no response. Do not use this app!

bas...com

Jan 13, 2023  on Bigcommerce

Cancelled Account Without Notice and No Support - We have been Avalara for a year and a half and then out of the blue the account was cancelled. We spoke with customer support on 3 occasions in a 3 week period. Each time we were told if was being escalated and that we would get a call back. At no point have we received a call back.

sal...com

Apr 01, 2022  on Bigcommerce

Terrible support - We've used avatax for a few years, without issue. However on March 14th the integration stopped working. Customers are no longer charged sales tax and the server log is full of Avatax errors. Today is April 1, no joke. I have called and emailed 4 or more times each week. I'm told a fix is being applied but nothing is fixing it. I have prepaid for Avatax to all my states returns so moving to another tax service is going to be costly.

pau...com

Mar 23, 2022  on Bigcommerce

Support - Their support is 100% diabolical. I have been trying to get my IOSS working since February. I have been passed around the world and back and no one knows what I am talking about. I am just extremely furious which is an understatement. The system is totally useless. It has reduced the pricing of all of my products in my store!!

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