AI Indexes
Finance AI Index
September 2026 Edition, published September 17, 2026 · The permanent record of that edition, superseded since. The current standing is on the category page →
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. 53 first choices recorded across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, twelve models each.
Standing · first-choice share
32%
Contested · TaxCloud 19%
32Avalara AvaTax19TaxCloud13Taxwire36others

32% of first choices, contested.

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.

The 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 AvaTax32%30%64criticized default
02TaxCloud19%8%37accepted challenger
03Taxwire13%0%20accepted challenger
04TaxJar11%24%62accepted challenger
05Anrok6%0%21accepted challenger
06Vertex4%18%45accepted challenger
Show the three products at 0%, ordered by negative rate
07Stripe Tax0%14%28accepted challenger
08Sovos0%6%18accepted challenger
09Quaderno0%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 product page.
All ten head-to-head pages: the top five products, each against each

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
Accepted challengerEndorsed leader
0%First-choice share → · lines at 30% share and 25% negative50%
Key
01Avalara AvaTax32%
02TaxCloud19%
03Taxwire13%
04TaxJar11%
05Anrok6%
06Vertex4%
07Stripe Tax0%
08Sovos0%
09Quaderno0%

What they warned about

Four of twelve models held their first choice under the paraphrase. Gemini 3.5 Flash, Perplexity Sonar, DeepSeek V4 Flash, Llama 4 Maverick, Qwen 3.7 Flash, Kimi K2, GLM 4.7 FlashX 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.
Avalara AvaTax
30%
19 of 64 labels negative · 12 of 12 models · 5 hard negative
“**Avalara** - Numerous customer complaints cite: Expensive pricing with unexpected cost increases, Poor customer support” MiniMax M2.5, negative prompt
TaxJar
24%
15 of 62 labels negative · 9 of 12 models · 2 hard negative
“Multiple sources indicate significant degradation since the acquisition... current user feedback suggests TaxJar may frustrate you.” Kimi K2, negative prompt
Vertex
18%
8 of 45 labels negative · 5 of 12 models · 2 hard negative
“Avoid heavy enterprise systems like ... **Vertex**. Their base subscriptions generally cost thousands of dollars annually” Gemini 3.5 Flash, budget prompt
Stripe Tax
14%
4 of 28 labels negative · 4 of 12 models
“good for lower complexity, Stripe-native or self-service filing workflows; less suited to heavy exemption management” Muse Glimmer 30B, paraphrase prompt

What they cite

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

Sites the answers cite

78 of 84 answers in this category came back with a source list, from 14 of 12 models: citations where the model returns them, or the search results it consulted. 1035 links across 136 sites, every framing counted. Ranked by the number of answers carrying the site or page.

vendor site · TaxCloud59 answers · 115 citations · 13 models
vendor site · Taxwire43 answers · 70 citations · 12 models
vendor site · TaxJar39 answers · 46 citations · 14 models
vendor site · Guideflow37 answers · 53 citations · 12 models
vendor site · Avalara36 answers · 49 citations · 12 models
vendor site · Zamp34 answers · 58 citations · 11 models
vendor site · G234 answers · 35 citations · 12 models
vendor site · G233 answers · 52 citations · 12 models
vendor site · Commenda31 answers · 62 citations · 11 models
vendor site · Wolters Kluwer20 answers · 20 citations · 8 models
vendor site · Galvix19 answers · 22 citations · 9 models
16 answers · 19 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.

Search against answers

Each company's standing in the answers beside its site's footprint in Google search, one row a site: the products the models named on it with their shares, and the share they add up to; monthly searches on Google, and DataForSEO's estimate of AI search demand (modeled from search signals, directional, not a count of queries to any assistant), for the most-searched of the company's and its products' names (the name is in each row's hover text); estimated monthly organic visits to the site; and its best position in Google's top ten for “best sales tax compliance software”, “sales tax compliance software”, “sales tax tools”. US estimates from DataForSEO and Google's Ads Transparency Center. A small company's site, or a mid-sized company's site for its flagship, is marked company; a product on a large parent's site (Google, Microsoft) has no site figures. A column with no figures for this category is left out, and an empty cell means none were seen, not none exist. Two measurements side by side: neither is read as the cause of the other.
Company and productsShareOwn site citedName searches, GoogleAI search demand, est.Organic visitsPaid search a month, est.Google ads, last 30 daysBest Google position
Avalara avalara.com
Avalara AvaTax 32%
32%19327,1007032,604,517 company$21,4701081
TaxCloud taxcloud.com19%1031,00024229,957448
Taxwire taxwire.com13%28480332,5450
TaxJar taxjar.com11%1746,60063181,783$119552
Anrok anrok.com6%663,6004312,295$1,852855
Vertex vertexinc.com4%226110,00013,80732,080$3,975696
Commenda commenda.io4%1103905569,684$5,2240
Zamp zamp.com2%322,90026224,260$5888
Numeral numeral.com2%2814,80038,00666,125$26120
Kintsugi trykintsugi.com2%2490,5003,21938,197$1,35963

Google's top ten for the three searches hold 15 sites; 5 of them are among the sites the models cited here (avalara.com, galvix.com, taxcloud.com, taxjar.com, wolterskluwer.com). The first result for “best sales tax compliance software” is avalara.com.

How 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.
ShowHide
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
Three alternativesAnrok, Avalara AvaTax, Vertex Tax Technology
TaxwireHeld
Two alternativesAvalara AvaTax, Zamp
no first choiceKintsugi, TaxCloud
Three alternativesQuickBooks Sales Tax, TaxJar, Taxwire
no first choiceagainst: Avalara AvaTax, TaxCloud, TaxJar
GPT-5.4 miniAvalara AvaTax
Three alternativesAnrok, Sovos, Vertex
against: TaxJar
Avalara AvaTaxHeld
One alternativeTaxJar
Avalara AvaTax
Three alternativesQuaderno, Stripe Tax, TaxJar
TaxJar
One alternativeAvalara AvaTax
no first choiceagainst: Avalara AvaTax, TaxJar
Gemini 3.5 FlashAvalara AvaTax
Four alternativesAnrok, Taxwire, Vertex, Zamp
Anrok, NumeralChanged
Two alternativesGalvix, Taxwire
against: Avalara AvaTax, Vertex
no first choice
Eight alternativesAnrok, Avalara AvaTax, Paddle, Quaderno, Stripe Tax, TaxCloud, TaxJar, Vertex
Lemon Squeezy, Paddle
Five alternativesDAVO, Shopify Tax, Stripe Tax, TaxCloud, TaxJar
against: Avalara AvaTax, Vertex
Anrok
Five alternativesGalvix, Stripe Tax, TaxJar, Taxwire, Vertex
against: Avalara AvaTax
against: Avalara AvaTax, Sovos, Stripe Tax, TaxJar, Vertex
Perplexity SonarAvalara AvaTax, TaxCloud
Two alternativesAnrok, TaxJar
against: Commenda
Avalara AvaTaxChanged
Two alternativesAnrok, TaxCloud
Avalara AvaTax
Eight alternativesAnrok, CCH SureTax, Paddle, Sovos, Stripe Tax, TaxCloud, TaxJar, Vertex
TaxJar
Two alternativesTaxCloud, Zoho Books
against: Avalara AvaTax, CCH
no first choicenothing named
Grok 4.1 FastAvalara AvaTax
Two alternativesSovos, Vertex
against: TaxJar
Avalara AvaTaxHeld
Two alternativesSovos, TaxJar
against: Vertex
no first choiceTaxJar
Two alternativesTaxCloud, Zoho Books
against: Avalara AvaTax
Avalara AvaTax
Four alternativesSovos, TaxCloud, TaxJar, Vertex
against: TaxCloud, TaxJar, TurboTax Business
Mistral SmallAvalara AvaTax
Three alternativesCommenda, TaxJar, Vertex
Avalara AvaTaxHeld
Two alternativesStripe Tax, TaxJar
no first choiceagainst: Zoho BooksTaxJar
Two alternativesKintsugi, TaxCloud
no first choicenothing named
DeepSeek V4 FlashTaxwire
Three alternativesAvalara AvaTax, TaxCloud, Vertex
against: TaxJar
ZampChanged
One alternativeAvalara AvaTax
against: TaxJar, Vertex
no first choiceTaxCloud
Four alternativesKintsugi, Numeral, Stripe Tax, TaxJar
no first choiceagainst: Stripe Tax, TaxJar, Vertexagainst: Avalara AvaTax, TaxCloud, TaxJar
Llama 4 MaverickVertex
One alternativeStripe Tax
TaxwireChangedno first choiceTaxCloud
Two alternativesKintsugi, TaxJar
no first choicenothing named
Qwen 3.7 FlashVertex
Two alternativesAnrok, Taxwire
against: Avalara AvaTax
Avalara AvaTax, TaxJarChanged
Two alternativesNumeral, Sovos Compliance
no first choiceTaxCloud
Two alternativesStripe Tax, TaxJar
Avalara AvaTax
Two alternativesThomson Reuters ONESOURCE, Vertex
against: Intuit
nothing named
Kimi K2Anrok
Two alternativesAvalara AvaTax, TaxJar
against: Vertex
TaxwireChanged
Three alternativesAnrok, TaxJar, Vertex
against: Avalara AvaTax
no first choiceTaxCloud
Four alternativesNumeral, Stripe Tax, TaxJar, Zoho Books
against: Avalara AvaTax
no first choiceagainst: Avalara AvaTax, TaxJar
GLM 4.7 FlashXCommenda, Taxwire
One alternativeTaxCloud
against: Avalara AvaTax, Vertex
TaxwireChanged
One alternativeAvalara AvaTax
Avalara AvaTax, TaxJar
Four alternativesAnrok, Fonoa, Stripe Tax, Vertex
TaxCloud
Four alternativesQuaderno, QuickBooks Sales Tax, TaxJar, Xero Tax
no first choiceagainst: ChatGPT, TaxGPT
MiniMax M2.5Avalara AvaTax, Commenda
Two alternativesSovos, Vertex
against: TaxJar
TaxJarChanged
Three alternativesAvalara AvaTax, TaxCloud, Vertex
no first choice
Six alternativesAvalara AvaTax, Stripe Tax, TaxCloud, TaxJar, Vertex, Zamp
TaxCloud
Two alternativesQuaderno, TaxJar
no first choiceagainst: Avalara AvaTax, QuickBooks Sales Tax, Shopify Tax
Bold is the first choiceAlternatives are counted; the count opens them.What the answer argued against

The 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-4-5-202510012026-10-01 10:44yes108 s
Direct recommendationGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-10-01 07:38yes34 s
Direct recommendationGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-10-01 10:39yes1324 s
Direct recommendationPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-10-01 09:49yes204 s
Direct recommendationGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-10-01 09:33yes229 s
Direct recommendationMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-10-01 07:50yes139 s
Direct recommendationDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-10-01 10:23yes2430 s
Direct recommendationLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-10-01 11:10yes53 s
Direct recommendationQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-10-01 10:40yes1433 s
Direct recommendationKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-10-01 09:30yes1520 s
Direct recommendationGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-10-01 09:33yes19114 s
Direct recommendationMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-10-01 08:17yes825 s
ParaphraseClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-10-01 08:16yes99 s
ParaphraseGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-10-01 11:21yes24 s
ParaphraseGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-10-01 10:51yes2427 s
ParaphrasePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-10-01 10:12yes183 s
ParaphraseGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-10-01 11:16yes217 s
ParaphraseMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-10-01 08:44yes147 s
ParaphraseDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-10-01 10:16yes2123 s
ParaphraseLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-10-01 08:59yes52 s
ParaphraseQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-10-01 09:53yes1067 s
ParaphraseKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-10-01 08:53yes1830 s
ParaphraseGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-10-01 11:24yes2345 s
ParaphraseMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-10-01 09:10yes1423 s
ComparativeClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-10-01 08:25yes109 s
ComparativeGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-10-01 09:17yes57 s
ComparativeGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-10-01 10:16yes1627 s
ComparativePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-10-01 09:20yes185 s
ComparativeGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-10-01 07:30yes208 s
ComparativeMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-10-01 11:16yes86 s
ComparativeDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-10-01 10:46yes2462 s
ComparativeLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-10-01 08:48yes51 s
ComparativeQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-10-01 09:52no032 s
ComparativeKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-10-01 09:36yes1730 s
ComparativeGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-10-01 09:18yes19104 s
ComparativeMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-10-01 10:30yes856 s
Budget constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-10-01 08:11yes96 s
Budget constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-10-01 08:45yes34 s
Budget constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-10-01 08:16yes2524 s
Budget constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-10-01 09:08yes204 s
Budget constrainedGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-10-01 11:00yes2312 s
Budget constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-10-01 07:52yes54 s
Budget constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-10-01 08:39yes1616 s
Budget constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-10-01 11:02yes51 s
Budget constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-10-01 09:35no032 s
Budget constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-10-01 09:54yes1019 s
Budget constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-10-01 09:07yes1517 s
Budget constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-10-01 10:11yes515 s
Scale constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-10-01 10:25no07 s
Scale constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-10-01 10:12no06 s
Scale constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-10-01 10:55yes925 s
Scale constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-10-01 10:01yes249 s
Scale constrainedGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-10-01 09:00yes148 s
Scale constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-10-01 10:26no06 s
Scale constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-10-01 10:49yes1941 s
Scale constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-10-01 08:04yes52 s
Scale constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-10-01 07:49no031 s
Scale constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-10-01 07:45yes1228 s
Scale constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-10-01 11:09yes1316 s
Scale constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-10-01 07:53yes816 s
Negative framingClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-10-01 11:24yes1910 s
Negative framingGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-10-01 09:29yes35 s
Negative framingGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-10-01 10:45yes1922 s
Negative framingPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-10-01 09:29yes163 s
Negative framingGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-10-01 09:31yes228 s
Negative framingMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-10-01 07:31yes55 s
Negative framingDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-10-01 09:19yes2345 s
Negative framingLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-10-01 08:15yes51 s
Negative framingQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-10-01 10:56yes1018 s
Negative framingKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-10-01 11:15yes2530 s
Negative framingGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-10-01 07:46yes2117 s
Negative framingMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-10-01 10:03yes1429 s

Noise floor in this category

Flips between the edition run and its calibration repeat. Six prompts per model is a small sample; the index-wide floor is the number to trust.

ShowHide
Claude Haiku 4.5
2 of 3 flipped
GPT-5.4 mini
0 of 4 flipped
Gemini 3.5 Flash
3 of 4 flipped
Perplexity Sonar
4 of 4 flipped
Grok 4.1 Fast
2 of 5 flipped
Mistral Small
4 of 4 flipped
DeepSeek V4 Flash
3 of 4 flipped
Llama 4 Maverick
2 of 3 flipped
Qwen 3.7 Flash
3 of 5 flipped
Kimi K2
3 of 4 flipped
GLM 4.7 FlashX
3 of 4 flipped
MiniMax M2.5
3 of 4 flipped

Normalization in this category

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

ShowHide
Category-scoped readings
Avalara read as Avalara AvaTax
Avalara (AvaTax) read as Avalara AvaTax
Avalara (Avalara AvaTax) read as Avalara AvaTax
ONESOURCE read as Thomson Reuters ONESOURCE
QuickBooks read as QuickBooks Sales Tax
Shopify read as Shopify Tax
Unresolved, counted raw
Intuit
Sales Tax Bot (SBT)
Sovos Compliance
Sovos, formerly Taxify
Thomson Reuters SalesTax
Vertex Tax Technology
Discontinued, still offered
No shut-down product was recommended here.
← Internal controlsTransfer pricing →