Finance AI Index
September 2026 Edition · The permanent record of this edition. The unqualified address always carries the latest edition.
Index › Tax and compliance › September 2026 Edition

Sales tax automation

Asked as “sales tax compliance software”, and as “sales tax calculation and filing tool”, on behalf of a mid-market B2B company. 42 first choices recorded across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, twelve models each.
Standing
Avalara AvaTax
Clear leader
40% of first choices, clear leader.
ShowinginAll 41 categories in the September 2026 Edition →

By buyer segment

The same question asked on behalf of a different buyer. Each standing is computed within its segment; they sit side by side and are never added together.
Small businessTaxJar29%ContestedStanding →Mid-marketAvalara AvaTax40%Clear leaderThis pageEnterpriseAvalara AvaTax44%Clear leaderStanding →

01The standing

Share is the count of first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, over all twelve models, for a mid-market B2B company. Ordered by share.
ProductFirst-choice shareNegative rateLabelsQuadrant
01Avalara AvaTax40%14%50endorsed leader
02TaxCloud29%3%31accepted challenger
03Taxwire19%0%16accepted challenger
04Anrok7%0%25accepted challenger
05Numeral2%20%10accepted challenger
Show the seven products at 0%, ordered by negative rate
07TaxJar0%27%48criticized challenger
09Stripe Tax0%13%23accepted challenger
10Sovos0%11%18accepted challenger
06Vertex0%9%35accepted challenger
08Zamp0%0%17accepted challenger
12Kintsugi0%0%10accepted challenger
11Quaderno0%0%10accepted challenger
Bars are the share of first choices, 0 to 100Every product with at least 10 labels here. Every product name links to its vendor page.
Head to head
Avalara AvaTax vs TaxCloudAvalara AvaTax vs TaxwireTaxCloud vs Taxwire

Recommended versus criticized

Every product with at least 10 labels here, on both axes. The 30% line names a quadrant, not the verdict above: that one needs more than 40%.

Criticized challengerCriticized default
Negative label rate →
01
02
03
04
05
06
07
08
09
10
11
12
Accepted challengerEndorsed leader
0%First-choice share → · lines at 30% share and 25% negative60%
Key
01Avalara AvaTax40%
02TaxCloud29%
03Taxwire19%
04Anrok7%
05Numeral2%
06Vertex0%
07TaxJar0%
08Zamp0%
09Stripe Tax0%
10Sovos0%
11Quaderno0%
12Kintsugi0%

02What they warned about

Six of twelve models held their first choice under the paraphrase. Claude Haiku 4.5, Perplexity Sonar, Mistral Small, Llama 4 Maverick, Kimi K2 and MiniMax M2.5 changed. A high negative share on a product with few labels is a warning. A low share on a product with many labels is salience, not sentiment.
TaxJar
27%
13 of 48 labels negative · 7 of 12 models · 2 hard negative
“**Avoid TaxJar (as of now):** ... their recent 2026 price hikes ... make them a poor choice for companies with *strictly* limited budgets” Qwen 3.7 Flash, budget prompt
Avalara AvaTax
14%
7 of 50 labels negative · 6 of 12 models · 1 hard negative
“Avoid if you need responsive help or simple e-commerce; better for large setups with in-house experts.” Grok 4.1 Fast, negative prompt
Vertex
9%
3 of 35 labels negative · 3 of 12 models
“Enterprise-leaning; overkill/pricey for most mid-sized unless high-volume.” Grok 4.1 Fast, paraphrase prompt
Numeral
20%
2 of 10 labels negative · 2 of 12 models · 2 hard negative
“Reddit "horror stories" of misfilings. Steer clear for multi-state ops” Grok 4.1 Fast, negative prompt

03What they cite

Citations exist only for the models that return a source list: twelve of the twelve in this edition, and all six flagship models on the expanded tier.

Sites the answers cite

65 of 72 answers in this category came back with a source list, from 12 of 12 models: citations where the model returns them, or the search results it consulted. 5 of those lists are Google grounding redirects that name no site and are left out of the counts. 771 links across 112 sites, every framing counted. Ranked by the number of answers carrying the site or page.

taxcloud.com
vendor site · TaxCloud40 answers · 81 citations · 10 models
learn.g2.com
38 answers · 39 citations · 10 models
zamp.com
vendor site · Zamp29 answers · 48 citations · 10 models
taxwire.com
vendor site · Taxwire29 answers · 35 citations · 10 models
galvix.com
vendor site · Galvix26 answers · 30 citations · 8 models
avalara.com
vendor site · Avalara25 answers · 44 citations · 7 models
guideflow.com
vendor site · Guideflow23 answers · 38 citations · 10 models
taxjar.com
vendor site · TaxJar23 answers · 30 citations · 10 models
techrepublic.com
21 answers · 21 citations · 7 models
quaderno.io
vendor site · Quaderno18 answers · 20 citations · 10 models
g2.com
16 answers · 32 citations · 8 models
softwareadvice.com
14 answers · 14 citations · 8 models

Pages the answers cite

The ten pages named in the most answers, by full address. A page here is one the models returned with a recommendation, not one the index endorses.

learn.g2.com/best-sales-tax-compliance-software
38 answers · 10 models
taxcloud.com/blog/sales-tax-compliance-software
30 answers · 9 models
taxwire.com/blog/best-sales-tax-compliance-software
25 answers · 10 models
galvix.com/article/best-sales-tax-software
23 answers · 8 models
techrepublic.com/article/best-sales-tax-software
21 answers · 7 models
quaderno.io/blog/us-sales-tax/top-sales-tax-software
18 answers · 10 models
zamp.com/blog/sales-tax-compliance-software
18 answers · 10 models
taxjar.com/blog/2026-sales-tax-software-comparison
17 answers · 9 models
guideflow.com/blog/sales-tax-automation-software
14 answers · 8 models
guideflow.com/blog/tax-compliance-software
14 answers · 7 models

04How they answered

Six framings of the same buying question, each sent to every model in a fresh session with search on. One row per model, so a row shows whether it held its answer under rewording, what it named when cost was the constraint, and what it argued against. Computed from the raw judge labels.
ModelDirect“What is the best sales tax compliance software for a mid-market B2B company?”Paraphrase“Which sales tax calculation and filing tool would you recommend to a mid-sized B2B company?”Comparative“What are the top sales tax tools and how do they differ?”Budget-constrained“What is the best sales tax compliance software for a company with a limited budget?”Scale-constrained“We are a 500 person company evaluating a sales tax compliance software. What should we look at?”Negative“Which sales tax tools should I avoid or be cautious about?”
Claude Haiku 4.5Taxwire
Two alternativesAnrok, Avalara AvaTax
no first choiceChangedno first choiceTaxCloud
Two alternativesKintsugi, Taxwire
against: TaxJarno first choicenothing named
GPT-5.4 miniAvalara AvaTax
Three alternativesSovos, Thomson Reuters ONESOURCE, Vertex
Avalara AvaTaxHeld
Three alternativesSovos, TaxJar, Vertex
Avalara AvaTax
Four alternativesSovos, Stripe Tax, TaxJar, Vertex
TaxCloud
One alternativeTaxJar
against: Avalara AvaTaxno first choicenothing named
Gemini 3.5 FlashAnrok
Three alternativesAvalara AvaTax, Taxwire, Vertex
AnrokHeld
Three alternativesAvalara AvaTax, Taxwire, Zamp
against: TaxJarno first choice
Six alternativesAnrok, Avalara AvaTax, Paddle, TaxCloud, TaxJar, Vertex
TaxCloud
Three alternativesNumeral, Quaderno, Stripe Tax
against: TaxJarAvalara AvaTax
One alternativeAnrok
against: Sovos, Stripe Tax, TaxJar, Vertexagainst: Avalara AvaTax, Lemon Squeezy, Paddle, Shopify Tax, Stripe Tax, TaxJar
Perplexity SonarAvalara AvaTax, Taxwire
Three alternativesAnrok, TaxCloud, TaxJar
TaxwireChanged
Two alternativesAvalara AvaTax, Zamp
no first choice
Seven alternativesAnrok, Avalara AvaTax, Quaderno, Stripe Tax, TaxCloud, TaxJar, Vertex
TaxCloud
Two alternativesTaxJar, Zoho Books
no first choicenothing named
Grok 4.1 FastAvalara AvaTax
Four alternativesTaxCloud, TaxJar, Vertex, Zamp/Taxwire
Avalara AvaTaxHeld
Two alternativesTaxJar, Taxwire
against: Vertexno first choiceagainst: Stripe TaxTaxCloud
Three alternativesShopify Tax, Stripe Tax, Zoho Books
against: TaxJarAvalara AvaTax
Four alternativesAnrok, TaxJar/Stripe Tax, Taxwire, Vertex
against: Avalara AvaTax, Numeral
Mistral SmallAvalara AvaTax
Two alternativesTaxJar, Vertex
Avalara AvaTax, TaxwireChanged
Two alternativesKintsugi, Vertex
no first choiceNumeral, TaxCloud
One alternativeQuaderno
against: Avalara AvaTaxno first choicenothing named
DeepSeek V4 FlashAvalara AvaTax
Three alternativesSovos, Vertex, Zamp
against: TaxJarAvalara AvaTaxHeld
Three alternativesAnrok, TaxJar, Vertex
against: Thomson Reuters ONESOURCEAvalara AvaTax
Eight alternativesAnrok, Stripe Tax, TaxCloud, TaxJar, Thomson Reuters ONESOURCE, Vertex, Zamp, Zoho Books
TaxCloud
Five alternativesQuaderno, QuickBooks Sales Tax, Stripe Tax, TaxJar, Xero Tax
against: Avalara AvaTaxAvalara AvaTax
Five alternativesAnrok, CereTax, Galvix, Taxwire, Vertex
against: TaxJaragainst: Avalara AvaTax, DAVO, Numeral, TaxJar
Llama 4 MaverickTaxwireAvalara AvaTaxChanged
Three alternativesCCH SureTax, Taxwire, Zamp
no first choiceTaxCloud
Four alternativesKintsugi, Quaderno, TaxJar, Zoho Books
no first choicenothing named
Qwen 3.7 FlashAvalara AvaTax
Four alternativesMetaTax, Sovos, Vertex, Waystar
Avalara AvaTaxHeld
Two alternativesTaxJar, Zamp
Anrok, Avalara AvaTax, Galvix, TaxJar
Two alternativesSovos, Stripe Tax
TaxCloud, Taxeroagainst: TaxJarno first choicenothing named
Kimi K2Avalara AvaTax
Two alternativesAnrok, TaxJar
against: VertexAnrokChanged
Two alternativesAvalara AvaTax, TaxJar
no first choice
Five alternativesAnrok, Avalara AvaTax, TaxCloud, TaxJar, Vertex
TaxCloud
Two alternativesStripe Tax, Zoho Books
against: TaxJarno first choiceagainst: Avalara AvaTax, Sovos, TaxCloud, TaxJar
GLM 4.7 FlashXTaxwire
Five alternativesAnrok, Avalara AvaTax, Stripe Tax, Vertex, Zamp
against: QuadientTaxwireHeld
Four alternativesAvalara AvaTax, CCH SureTax, TaxJar, Zamp
Avalara AvaTax
Nine alternativesAnrok, Fonoa, Kintsugi, Lovat, Numeral, Sovos, TaxCloud, TaxJar, Vertex
TaxCloud
Three alternativesQuaderno, Stripe Tax, TaxJar
no first choiceagainst: BigCommerce, Shopify Tax
MiniMax M2.5Taxwire
Three alternativesAvalara AvaTax, TaxJar, Zamp
Avalara AvaTaxChanged
One alternativeSovos
against: TaxJarAvalara AvaTax
Seven alternativesAnrok, Quaderno, Sovos, Stripe Tax, TaxCloud, TaxJar, Vertex
TaxCloud
Four alternativesKintsugi, Shopify Tax, Stripe Tax, TaxJar
no first choicenothing named
Bold is the first choiceAlternatives are counted; the count opens them.What the answer argued against

05The record

One row per call: the version string exactly as returned, whether the model searched, sources cited, and latency. Full answer text is in the free responses file. Download the record
Seventy-two rows: every prompt, every model, every answer.
PromptModelVersion stringTime (UTC)SearchedSourcesLatency
Direct recommendationClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 19:54yes97 s
Direct recommendationGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 19:51yes26 s
Direct recommendationGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 21:15yes19148 s
Direct recommendationPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 18:14yes206 s
Direct recommendationGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 21:08yes3718 s
Direct recommendationMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 18:07yes1210 s
Direct recommendationDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 19:49yes1821 s
Direct recommendationLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 20:24yes52 s
Direct recommendationQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 18:41no028 s
Direct recommendationKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 19:41yes919 s
Direct recommendationGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 19:13yes1283 s
Direct recommendationMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 19:01yes514 s
ParaphraseClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 19:28no04 s
ParaphraseGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 21:02yes46 s
ParaphraseGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 21:54yes749 s
ParaphrasePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 18:53yes195 s
ParaphraseGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 18:02yes3516 s
ParaphraseMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 19:24yes54 s
ParaphraseDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 19:24yes1316 s
ParaphraseLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 18:27yes52 s
ParaphraseQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 20:16yes523 s
ParaphraseKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 17:57yes1924 s
ParaphraseGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 18:40yes11149 s
ParaphraseMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 19:15yes1018 s
ComparativeClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 18:57yes98 s
ComparativeGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 20:10yes68 s
ComparativeGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 19:02yes2527 s
ComparativePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 19:11yes179 s
ComparativeGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 20:43yes2616 s
ComparativeMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 20:32yes55 s
ComparativeDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 20:40yes1015 s
ComparativeLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 19:54yes52 s
ComparativeQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 19:27yes528 s
ComparativeKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 19:48yes1018 s
ComparativeGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 19:29yes9107 s
ComparativeMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 17:57yes518 s
Budget constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 20:08yes97 s
Budget constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 17:56yes34 s
Budget constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 18:18yes1023 s
Budget constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 18:17yes206 s
Budget constrainedGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 21:00yes3717 s
Budget constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 20:43yes55 s
Budget constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 20:30yes913 s
Budget constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 20:07yes53 s
Budget constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 20:38yes1027 s
Budget constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 20:30yes1424 s
Budget constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 21:09yes2269 s
Budget constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 19:01yes1037 s
Scale constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 20:31yes1611 s
Scale constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 18:33no09 s
Scale constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 18:27no017 s
Scale constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 19:53yes209 s
Scale constrainedGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 18:06yes1212 s
Scale constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 20:48no08 s
Scale constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 20:26yes1520 s
Scale constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 17:56yes53 s
Scale constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 18:45no029 s
Scale constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 17:54yes926 s
Scale constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 18:57yes1342 s
Scale constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 20:27no09 s
Negative framingClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 17:57yes188 s
Negative framingGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 21:06yes55 s
Negative framingGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 18:41yes2226 s
Negative framingPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 19:22yes207 s
Negative framingGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 19:58yes3415 s
Negative framingMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 19:52yes56 s
Negative framingDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 18:26yes2427 s
Negative framingLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 19:04yes53 s
Negative framingQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 17:57yes1772 s
Negative framingKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 20:52yes2936 s
Negative framingGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 20:37yes1324 s
Negative framingMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 19:12yes518 s

Normalization in this category

Every judgment call made between the raw labels and the numbers above, listed so it is visible and reversible.

Category-scoped readings
Avalara read as Avalara AvaTax
Avalara (AvaTax) read as Avalara AvaTax
Avalara (with CertCapture) read as Avalara AvaTax
ONESOURCE (Thomson Reuters) read as Thomson Reuters ONESOURCE
QuickBooks read as QuickBooks Sales Tax
Shopify read as Shopify Tax
Thomson Reuters read as Thomson Reuters ONESOURCE
Unresolved, counted raw
BigCommerce
CereTax
MetaTax
Sales Tax DataLINK
TaxCloud/Zinancal
Taxero
Waystar
WooCommerce's tax options
Discontinued, still offered
No shut-down product was recommended here.

Also in tax and compliance

The other categories of this function, with the leader in each.
← Internal controlsCap table management →