Top Sales Tax Apps for Shopify [2021]
Tax! Not a word that many Shopify merchants like to hear. It’s enough to trigger cold sweats.
However, as responsible store owners, we can’t avoid it.
Charging the right tax (and paying it) is an important part of any ecommerce operation and it needn’t be a huge headache if you have the right tax apps for Shopify.
The native Shopify themes all include an in-built tax engine that automates some of the work. However, without tax apps, you’re still going to be spending hours or days pulling information, generating reports, and getting the right information to the right places.
There are many tax apps out there to help with calculating taxes, assisting with returns, providing tax exemption where appropriate, and more. They automate the heavy lifting and take much of the pain away from tax and invoicing issues.
Following are six of the top tax apps for Shopify currently. Some just handle tax and others do a little more.
You choose what you need…
TaxJar Sales Tax Automation
TaxJar is a sales tax automation app with the potential to save you hours on calculating tax and filing reports.
It will help you with the red tape of running your business, make sales tax collection and reporting easier, and ensure you never again miss a due date. Over 20,000 ecommerce businesses trust it every month.
Price: From $19/month up to $199/month
Free Trial? Yes – 30 days
Average Shopify Rating (out of 5 stars):3.7 (95 reviews)
Main pros:
- Pulls your sales data into easy-to-read, exportable, return-ready state reports
- One-click autofile feature automatically submits returns to the states where you’re registered
- Automated sales tax reports by state AND local tax jurisdiction (counties, cities, special jurisdictions, etc.)
- Sorts data by any date range you need to make filing returns easier
- Exports collected sales tax based on Shopify’s built-in tax engine
- Connects to top marketplaces like Amazon, eBay, Walmart, and Etsy
- Generates comparisons of sales tax collected versus what you should have collected
- Simple dashboard that shows you all the key sales tax info – no surprises
- Provides one centralized place for all sales tax data for all platforms
- Generous 30-day free trial
- Reasonable pricing
Any cons?
- Only supports US ecommerce businesses
- The starter plan ($19) only supports up to 200 orders/month
- Occasional support issues
Zonos Duty & Tax
Zonos Duty & Tax is an app designed by a team of specialists in international ecommerce. It helps you put tax and duty issues to bed with international customers in the UK, Europe, and beyond.
That means no surprises for customers when they receive their products – no unexpected tax, duty or other hidden fees to pay. This should mean fewer headaches with refused packages and expensive returns.
Price: $20/month plus 1.9% transaction fee for international orders. Custom implementation services start at $150.
Free Trial? No
Average Shopify Rating (out of 5 stars):4.3 (43 reviews)
Main pros:
- Be more transparent with international customers
- Automates calculations and shows landed cost of products – including duty, tax, VAT, etc.
- Also include brokerage, disbursement, bond, ancillary fees, etc. (all part of the total landed cost)
- Takes the surprise element out of taxes and duty payable for international purchases
- No more headaches with manual quotes or refused packages
- Allows customers to prepay duty and tax for faster customs clearance
- Multi-lingual welcomes for international shoppers
- UK VAT ready – with collection and reporting
- Customizable shipping rate calculations included – works with UPS, FedEx, DHL, and more
- Provides complete control over shipping rates – can upload your own custom rates
- You can improve accuracy by including weights/dimensions of products
- Custom implementation services available (for a fee)
Any cons?
- Requires the Shopify CarrierService API (Carrier Calculated Shipping) to be enabled for landed cost quotes (this is included with Advanced Shopify or higher)
- No free trial advertised
Quaderno – Taxes Automation
Quaderno is a tax app designed for Shopify store owners struggling to meet tax deadlines and maintain compliance internationally – and who want to make life a little easier.
It helps store owners who want to maintain compliance around the globe while enjoying the peace of mind that the main tax, invoicing, and bookkeeping concerns in their businesses are looked after.
Price: From$49/month (maximum 250 transactions) up to $149/month (2,500 transactions)
Free Trial? Yes – 7-day free trial
Average Shopify Rating (out of 5 stars):5.0 (4 reviews)
Main pros:
- Creates full US tax reports in one click
- Files accurate and tax compliant reports in minutes
- All US sales tax, VAT, and GST info displayed in a clearly readable way
- Sends custom tax receipts and credit notes for Shopify refunds around the world
- Customizable to reflect your style and relationships with customers
- Allows customers to self-access billing information at any time
- Helps you become tax compliant in multiple countries, languages and currencies
- A focus on the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, and the EU
- Connects with other payment sources (PayPal, Amazon, Stripe, etc.)
- Real-time revenue tracking (easy-to-read charts and reports)
- A single easy-to-use dashboard for managing invoices and revenue sources
Any cons?
- Short free trial (only 7 days)
- Lack of Shopify reviews – though the ones it does have are all five-star reviews
Tax Exempt Manager
Tax Exempt Manager is designed by LatoriApps and aimed at store owners looking to comply with the rather complicated European Union tax laws.
Compliance with VAT regulations for B2B sales is not easy in Europe. It is made much easier with this app, which collects and automatically checks each customer’s VAT ID.
Price: $9.99/month
Free Trial? Yes – 14-day free trial
Average Shopify Rating (out of 5 stars):3.9 (15 reviews)
Main pros:
- Helps you comply with EU VAT exemption laws for B2B customers
- Collects and automatically checks your customer’s VAT ID
- Uses the official EU database VIES for tax numbers in the European Commission
- Helps B2B customers buy automatically without VAT
- Helps increase your sales by removing tax issues for European B2B customers
- Provides an overview of all orders created after positive VAT ID checks
- Easy to install and use the app
Any cons?
- Some problems reported with code remaining after deleting the app
- A few historical problems with support
Invoice Falcon
If you need help with invoicing as well as tax, Invoice Falcon by NexaSky might be your app.
This well-reviewed app is used by thousands of stores worldwide, helping you set up and send professional, branded invoices to customers, remain compliant, and even chase overdue payments.
Price: Free to install and use (up to 50 invoices/month). $9.99/month for unlimited invoices beyond the free limit or $15/month for the business plan
Free Trial? Yes – 7-day free trial
Average Shopify Rating (out of 5 stars):4.9 (235 reviews)
Main pros:
- Document creator feature for creating invoices, pro formas, quotes & credit notes (without creating orders in Shopify)
- Allows you to customize invoices with payment terms, due date, PO number, taxes, discounts, etc.
- Fully tax-compliant invoices – add legal/tax info to the invoice from the customizer feature
- Customize colors, add a logo, and set a “thank you” text for invoices
- Automated PDF invoices sent to customer’s email address once processed
- Collect payments for any order by connecting to Stripe
- Send automatic payment reminders every few for unpaid invoices
- Print or send invoices in bulk
- Multiple language support
- Works with Shopify point of sale
- Helpful 24/7 customer support
- Free plan available (up to 50 invoices/month) – and reasonably priced paid plan
Any cons?
- Short free trial – only 7 days
- No support for multiple VAT numbers currently (this may be added in the future)
Tax Receipts
We thought this one deserved a quick mention though it may not apply to many readers.
Tax Receipts is a free app from Kevin’s Apps. It is specifically designed to help sell charitable products or accept donations online using Shopify and to send tax receipts to customers.
It is for a very specific audience in a specific sector but what it does, it does well.
Price: Free
Free Trial? Not applicable
Average Shopify Rating (out of 5 stars):4.9 (10 reviews)
Main pros:
- Monitors the products that you’ve set up to send tax receipts for on your store
- Automates the process of sending receipts
- Sends customizable PDF tax receipts to customers by separate email after receipt of products
- Choose which products receive tax receipts
- Manually re-send or void a receipt
- Automatically voids refunded orders and sends updated receipts to customers
- Donations are saved and can be exported to CSV for import into other systems
- Set a percentage for partial donations
- Can include images
- Very simple to use
Any cons?
- No way to create a list of tax receipts that have been sent to donors
Ready to make Shopify sales tax less taxing with an app?
Nobody starts a store because they love accounting and tax – but they are things we must all deal with.
Use the apps above to automate the processes as much as possible – they are one of the necessary evils of running a Shopify store.
If tax is keeping you awake at night, these apps can solve the headaches and help you get a few more winks.
Sleep well!
