TaxCloud vs. Shopify Tax: Just Sales Tax Calculation — or End-to-End Compliance?
Unlike Shopify Tax, which mostly helps with sales tax calculations, TaxCloud offers end-to-end sales tax compliance support that seamlessly integrates into your Shopify store. Get nexus notifications, automated sales tax filing, sales tax remittance, audit support, and more with software you can integrate across all your digital storefronts.
Shopify Tax
TaxCloud incl. Shopify integration
Starter (or Premium)
Up to max of $5,000/year
From $199 to $799/annually
Free for first $100,000 in sales 0.25%-0.35% after
Starter up to 1,200 (or Premium up to 2,400)
Feature Comparison
Shopify Tax
TaxCloud incl. Shopify integration
Starter (or Premium)
$39/filing
$599/month
Starting $99/month
Why TaxCloud?
Nexus monitoring
TaxCloud consolidates your sales across all platforms at no extra cost to track economic nexus and notify you when you reach the nexus threshold for a state. In contrast, Shopify Tax only allows manual nexus checks and charges you for every transaction you import into their platform from other platforms at the same 0.25% to 0.35% price they charge for transactions on their platform.
Accurate sales tax calculation
Keeping up with tax laws can be daunting. TaxCloud’s Government Affairs team stays on top of all tax changes so the accurate sales tax amount is charged every time across all 13,000+ U.S. tax jurisdictions. TaxCloud also offers up-to-date and accurate tax codes (TIC) so that your products are taxed at the right amount every time.
No more manual adjustments for reporting
TaxCloud automates many aspects of sales tax, including calculation and collection, and our system will prepare and review sales tax reports for you. This means you won’t have to make any manual adjustments, such as prepayments, prior payments, retail delivery fees, or specifying an adjustment value.
What you get with TaxCloud
Automatic sales tax filing
Remaining tax compliant can be a full-time job. Unlike Shopify Tax, which only helps with sales tax calculation and collection, TaxCloud automates end-to-end tax compliance and filing. We ensure you’re informed about filing deadlines – and can even file your sales taxes for you, protecting you from costly mistakes!
Effortless state registration
Get simplified new state registration for compliance with TaxCloud. TaxCloud doesn’t just monitor sales tax nexus and alert you when you need to register in a new state, we also can complete the registration for you. Shopify Tax only tracks your sales tax nexus status and leaves the rest for you to do manually.
SST Certified Service Provider
Streamlined Sales Tax (SST) is a program that streamlines sales and use tax collection and administration in the program’s 24 member states. Because TaxCloud is a Certified Service Provider (CSP), we can help with registering, calculating, and filing taxes in these states free-of-charge.
Chat and phone support on all tiers
TaxCloud’s friendly, accessible, and expert customer support always has an answer to your sales tax questions. TaxCloud even assigns every customer a dedicated customer success rep to guide them through their TaxCloud journey – making TaxCloud the more hands-on alternative to Shopify Tax.
Simplify your sales tax management
TaxCloud provides end-to-end sales tax automation. That’s well-beyond Shopify Tax’s simple sales tax calculation. With TaxCloud, you can:
- Determine sales and use tax in real-time for 13,000 U.S. tax jurisdictions
- Get alerted when nexus is triggered
- Stay informed about tax exemptions and sales tax holidays
- Instantly survey sales tax order data
- Receive assistance with audits
Frequently asked questions
Shopify Tax is a sales tax calculation and collection solution that’s natively integrated into the Shopify platform. However, Shopify Tax has very rudimentary features, no real-time API, and can’t help with sales tax filing, remittance, or audits. It also isn’t particularly helpful to businesses that sell across multiple platforms since it can only be used on Shopify.
In contrast, TaxCloud automates the sales tax compliance process end-to-end – including providing help with filing, remittance, and audits – on all your platforms. TaxCloud also has a number of basic and premium API integrations to connect your sales tax data across your platforms, ERPs, accounting software, and payment processors.
Shopify Tax doesn’t help with either filing or remitting sales taxes to states. Their offerings are focused exclusively on sales tax calculation and collection. To file and remit your taxes when you’re using Shopify Tax, you’ll have to download your sales tax information from Shopify and either do your returns manually or hire a sales tax professional to do them.
In contrast, TaxCloud completely automates filing and remitting your returns for just $39 per state per month or $599 for nationwide filing.
TaxCloud is more reliable because it uses an API for address verification and real-time sales tax calculation. TaxCloud will also file your sales taxes for you – ensuring 100% accurate returns every time.
Shopify Tax does not provide training on its tax offering. In contrast, TaxCloud has a dedicated onboarding team, support materials, comprehensive documentation, and a customer success team able to provide training and answer questions.
Companies often switch because they outgrew Shopify Tax. Shopify Tax doesn’t provide end-to-end sales tax services, premium features, APIs, dedicated customer support, or integrations with other platforms growing small-to-medium businesses need. Shopify Tax is best for very small businesses that only sell on Shopify.