{ "data": { "a": { "slug": "avalara", "name": "Avalara AvaTax", "vendor": "Avalara, Inc.", "vendorUrl": "https://www.avalara.com", "kind": "http-api", "category": "tax", "summary": "Avalara AvaTax calculates sales tax, VAT and GST for a transaction and records it for reporting. Agents reach it through the AvaTax REST v2 API or a hosted MCP server, with separate Avalara products for returns, exemption certificates and e-invoicing.", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/avalara", "markdownUrl": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/avalara.md", "slimMarkdownUrl": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/avalara.min.md", "jsonUrl": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/avalara.json", "repo": "https://github.com/avadev/mcp", "license": "Proprietary service under the Avalara Service Terms. The SDKs on GitHub are Apache-2.0. The MCP repository holds a README only, with no licence file", "transports": [ "http", "streamable-http" ], "remoteUrl": "https://rest.avatax.com/api/v2", "packages": [ { "registry": "npm", "name": "avatax" }, { "registry": "pypi", "name": "Avalara" } ], "auth": "mixed", "authNotes": "The MCP server uses OAuth through identity.avalara.com (sandbox ai-sbx.avlr.sh) with one scope, avalara_mcp, and a person signs in and consents in a browser. The identity server advertises PKCE (S256), a public client registration endpoint, device code and client credentials grants. The REST API accepts HTTP Basic with a username and password or with an account ID and licence key, or a bearer token from the identity server. Licence keys are account-wide, can be named, and a reset revokes the old key at once. What a caller can do follows the user's security role, such as AccountAdmin or CompanyUser. Access is self-serve through the trial signup, with no app review found.", "pricing": "paid", "pricingNotes": "Free 90-day AvaTax trial, no card, limited to 5 orders and 5 invoices a minute and 1,000 transactions a day, for evaluation with test data only under the AvaTax terms. Paid plans on the public pricing page are Core Compliance at $79 a state a month ($799 a state a year) and Core Compliance with SST services at $69 ($699 a year), both for businesses under $50M in annual revenue and both including AvaTax calculation and managed returns. Above that, plans are quoted. Avalara says price varies with products, states, integrations and monthly transaction volume, and no price per transaction or per API call is published (https://www.avalara.com/us/en/products/sales-and-use-tax/pricing.html, checked 2026-10-08).", "priceSummary": "$79 / mo", "where": "hosted", "x402": { "level": "no", "evidence": "No x402, MPP or L402 in the developer docs, the AvaTax API reference or the pricing page (checked 2026-10-08).", "endpoints": [] }, "toolCount": 10, "popularity": { "githubStars": 5, "npmWeekly": 330649, "pypiWeekly": 37689, "asOf": "2026-10-08" }, "docsUrl": "https://developer.avalara.com/", "llmsTxt": "https://developer.avalara.com/llms.txt", "openapi": "https://sandbox-rest.avatax.com/swagger/v2/swagger.json", "registryName": "com.avalara/avatax", "capabilities": [ "tax.calculate", "tax.transactions", "tax.exemptions", "tax.filing", "tax.invoicing" ], "tags": [ "hosted", "paid", "free-trial", "mcp", "oauth", "openapi", "llms-txt", "typescript", "python", "java", "csharp", "sandbox", "status-page", "soc2", "iso27001" ], "lastRelease": "2026-09-16", "graded": true, "anchor": { "graded": true, "score": 68.8, "grade": "B", "agentReady": false, "rank": 162, "ranked": true, "rankOf": 629, "categoryRank": 1, "methodology": "0.4", "run": "2026-10-01", "scores": { "ergonomics": 84, "maintenance": 79, "payments": 30, "reliability": 62, "schema": 85, "security": 65, "transparency": 79 }, "pending": [ "performance", "tasks" ], "assessment": { "confidence": "medium", "date": "2026-10-08" }, "negative": 0, "verdict": "The REST API has a public Swagger file with 491 operations, a Markdown page per endpoint and a 90-day trial with no card. Production rate limits and prices per transaction are not published, the API patch notes stop at April 2023, and the tax calculation service was degraded for about 23 hours on 5 and 6 October 2026.", "bestFor": "An agent that must calculate and record US sales tax at address level, with VAT and GST in other countries, and hand the records to filing.", "strengths": [ "Public Swagger 2.0 file with 491 operations, plus llms.txt and a Markdown page with a curl example for each endpoint", "Hosted MCP server at mcp.avalara.com/avatax with ten documented tools, OAuth sign-in and an entry in the official MCP registry as com.avalara/avatax", "90-day AvaTax trial with no card, limited to 5 orders and 5 invoices a minute and 1,000 transactions a day", "Errors return a code, number, description and help link, from a published list of 429 codes", "SDKs in six languages under Apache-2.0, released monthly, latest 26.9.0 on 16 September 2026" ], "weaknesses": [ "Production rate limits are not published. The only numbers found are the trial limits and 5 calls a minute on report exports", "No price per transaction. Public plans are $79 a state a month, or $69 with SST services, and larger accounts are quoted", "The API patch notes page ends at version 23.4.1 of 26 April 2023, while production reports 26.9.2", "Tax calculation was degraded from 22:32 PT on 5 October to 21:20 PT on 6 October 2026, per status.avalara.com", "REST guides lead with HTTP Basic using a username and password or an account-wide licence key, and the MCP server has one scope, avalara_mcp" ], "agentNotes": [ "Omit `type` or send SalesOrder for an estimate. A type ending in Invoice is recorded, and `commit` set to true locks it for reporting", "Retry a timed-out invoice with CreateOrAdjustTransaction, not CreateTransaction, which errors when a committed transaction has the same code", "Use sandbox-rest.avatax.com with sandbox credentials for tests. Production is rest.avatax.com and the two accounts are separate", "Add `$include=SummaryOnly` or LinesOnly to shrink transaction responses, and page lists with `$top` (1,000 at most) and `$skip`", "Call /api/v2/utilities/ping first. It answers without credentials and shows whether the credentials sent were accepted" ], "metrics": { "kind": "remote", "measured": false }, "reviewCount": 0, "avgRating": 0, "history": [ { "basis": "public evidence", "confidence": "medium", "grade": "B", "methodology": "0.4", "pending": [ "performance", "tasks" ], "run": "2026-10-01", "runLabel": "October 2026 research run", "score": 68.8 } ], "editorialScores": { "ergonomics": 84, "maintenance": 79, "payments": 30, "reliability": 62, "schema": 85, "security": 65, "transparency": 69 }, "provenanceScore": 88 }, "connect": { "install": "npm install avatax", "http": "curl -X POST \"https://sandbox-rest.avatax.com/api/v2/transactions/create\" \\\n -H \"Authorization: Basic \u003ccredentials\u003e\" \\\n -H \"Content-Type: application/json\" \\\n -H \"Accept: application/json\" \\\n -d @transaction.json", "config": { "mcpServers": { "avalara-avatax": { "type": "http", "url": "https://mcp.avalara.com/avatax" } } } }, "letme": { "capability": "https://letme.dev/tax.calculate", "tool": "https://letme.dev/avalara" }, "area": "domain-data", "unitPrices": [ { "item": "Core Compliance (AvaTax and managed returns)", "unit": "month", "usd": 79, "note": "per state, billed monthly; $799 per state billed yearly; annual revenue under $50M" }, { "item": "Core Compliance + SST Services", "unit": "month", "usd": 69, "note": "per state, billed monthly; $699 per state billed yearly; qualifying sellers" }, { "item": "AvaTax free trial", "unit": "month", "usd": 0, "note": "90 days, 1,000 transactions a day, test data only" } ], "provenance": { "legalEntity": "Avalara, Inc.", "domain": "avalara.com", "domainRegistered": "2003-12-08", "endpointOnVendorDomain": true, "terms": "https://legal.avalara.com/", "privacy": "https://legal.avalara.com/dpa", "statusPage": "https://status.avalara.com", "changelog": "https://developer.avalara.com/patch-notes/", "securityTxt": "none", "checked": "2026-10-08", "notes": [ "The Service Terms (version 7.1, effective 1 October 2026) name Avalara, Inc., a Washington corporation at 512 S. Mangum St. #100, Durham, NC 27701, as the contracting entity under New York law, and Avalara Europe Ltd. (England and Wales, No. 8446351) for European customers.", "The MCP server answers at mcp.avalara.com. The REST API answers at rest.avatax.com and sandbox-rest.avatax.com. RDAP gives avatax.com a registration date of 2005-01-27, and Avalara's own documentation names those hosts.", "www.avalara.com/.well-known/security.txt and developer.avalara.com/.well-known/security.txt return 404. Reports go through the vulnerability disclosure programme at https://www.avalara.com/us/en/legal/responsible-disclosure.html.", "The patch notes page lists API releases up to 23.4.1 on 26 April 2023 and nothing later. Current releases are visible only as the version in /api/v2/utilities/ping and as SDK tags on GitHub.", "RDAP for avalara.com gives a registration date of 2003-12-08. Privacy notices, the DPA and the subprocessor list are published together at legal.avalara.com/dpa." ], "score": 88 }, "pageJsonUrl": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/avalara.json", "live": { "slug": "avalara", "probe": { "target": "https://rest.avatax.com/api/v2", "method": "get", "lastAt": "2026-10-08T19:08:39.846678929Z", "lastOk": true, "lastStatus": 401, "lastMs": 358, "lastNote": "asks for credentials", "authRequired": true, "uptime24h": 100, "uptime30d": 100, "p50ms24h": 327, "p95ms24h": 363, "samples24h": 42, "samples30d": 42, "days": [ { "date": "2026-10-08", "probes": 42, "ok": 42 } ] }, "vendorStatus": { "page": "https://status.avalara.com", "indicator": "none", "summary": "All Systems Operational", "checkedAt": "2026-10-08T19:06:27.282380712Z" }, "versions": [ { "registry": "npm", "name": "avatax", "version": "26.9.0", "seenAt": "2026-10-08T16:00:19.162430293Z" }, { "registry": "pypi", "name": "Avalara", "version": "26.9.0", "released": "2026-09-16", "seenAt": "2026-10-08T16:00:23.243148692Z" } ], "githubStars": 5, "npmWeekly": 330649, "pypiWeekly": 37689, "securityTxt": { "url": "https://avalara.com/.well-known/security.txt", "state": "none", "checkedAt": "2026-10-08T15:38:36.211738872Z" }, "pages": [ { "url": "https://developer.avalara.com/patch-notes/", "kind": "changelog", "status": 200, "checkedAt": "2026-10-08T18:17:04.362764489Z", "changedAt": "0001-01-01T00:00:00Z", "fingerprint": "12c3dd83a580" }, { "url": "https://www.avalara.com/us/en/products/sales-and-use-tax/pricing.html", "kind": "pricing", "status": 200, "checkedAt": "2026-10-08T18:26:21.240577756Z", "changedAt": "0001-01-01T00:00:00Z", "fingerprint": "ab348ca6c51d" }, { "url": "https://legal.avalara.com/dpa", "kind": "privacy", "status": 200, "checkedAt": "2026-10-08T18:21:25.299594822Z", "changedAt": "0001-01-01T00:00:00Z", "fingerprint": "1d325483f118" }, { "url": "https://legal.avalara.com/", "kind": "terms", "status": 200, "checkedAt": "2026-10-08T18:21:22.64286746Z", "changedAt": "0001-01-01T00:00:00Z", "fingerprint": "ac0c20791779" } ], "updatedAt": "2026-10-08T19:08:39.846678929Z" } }, "answer": "Avalara AvaTax scores 68.8 (B) on agent readiness against Vertex O Series's 54.7 (C), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories.", "b": { "slug": "vertex-tax", "name": "Vertex O Series", "vendor": "Vertex, Inc.", "vendorUrl": "https://www.vertexinc.com", "kind": "http-api", "category": "tax", "summary": "Vertex O Series is indirect tax software from Vertex, Inc. that calculates sales tax, use tax and VAT for a transaction and records it for reporting. Agents reach it through REST v2 APIs with OAuth client credentials.", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/vertex-tax", "markdownUrl": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/vertex-tax.md", "slimMarkdownUrl": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/vertex-tax.min.md", "jsonUrl": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/vertex-tax.json", "license": "Proprietary service under a customer agreement with Vertex, Inc. that isn't published", "transports": [ "http" ], "remoteUrl": "https://calcconnect.vertexsmb.com/vertex-ws/v2", "packages": [], "auth": "oauth", "authNotes": "Access is granted through a sales contract. OAuth 2.0 client credentials follow. A Cloud Partition System Administrator creates an API credential under Account Settings, Security \u0026 Credentials, choosing the API and the partition it maps to. The client id and secret are exchanged at https://auth.vertexcloud.com/oauth/token with audience `verx://migration-api` for a bearer token that lasts 3,599 seconds. The secret is shown once and a credential can't be edited. Token requests are limited to 10 per 8 hours, and a caching endpoint at tokenguard.vertexcloud.com returns unexpired tokens. On-Premise and On-Demand deployments use a service account with the API User role and their own token URL.", "pricing": "paid", "pricingNotes": "No public prices. www.vertexinc.com/pricing returns 404 and the O Series product page asks visitors to book a demo. No free tier, trial or self-serve sandbox was found, and the security guide says to work with the Vertex sales team to establish an account. O Series Online Commerce documents a sandbox host that uses the same contracted credentials (checked 2026-10-08).", "priceSummary": "Paid", "where": "hosted", "x402": { "level": "no", "evidence": "No x402, MPP or L402 in the developer docs or the OpenAPI specs (checked 2026-10-08).", "endpoints": [] }, "toolCount": null, "popularity": { "githubStars": null, "npmWeekly": null, "pypiWeekly": null, "asOf": "2026-10-08" }, "docsUrl": "https://developer.vertexinc.com/oseries/docs/quick-start", "openapi": "https://developer.vertexinc.com/oseries/openapi/vertex-tax-calculation-and-tax-gis-api.json", "capabilities": [ "tax.calculate", "tax.transactions", "tax.exemptions", "tax.invoicing" ], "tags": [ "hosted", "enterprise", "oauth", "openapi", "sales-led", "status-page", "soc2", "on-premise", "vat", "sales-tax" ], "lastRelease": "2026-09-25", "graded": true, "anchor": { "graded": true, "score": 54.7, "grade": "C", "agentReady": false, "rank": 464, "ranked": true, "rankOf": 629, "categoryRank": 5, "methodology": "0.4", "run": "2026-10-01", "scores": { "ergonomics": 51, "maintenance": 62, "payments": 0, "reliability": 65, "schema": 74, "security": 57, "transparency": 68 }, "pending": [ "performance", "tasks" ], "assessment": { "confidence": "medium", "date": "2026-10-08" }, "negative": 0, "verdict": "Public OpenAPI 3.0 specs cover calculation, transaction management, tax area lookup and tax configuration, and guides are served as Markdown. Access needs a sales contract. No price, free tier, sandbox signup, calculation rate limit, idempotency key or official SDK was found in the reviewed documentation.", "bestFor": "An agent working inside a company that already has an O Series licence, for quotes, invoice tax, tax area lookups and tax configuration across sales tax, use tax and VAT.", "strengths": [ "OpenAPI 3.0 specs download without a login. Calculation and Tax GIS is version 2.9.0 with 14 operations, Tax Configuration v2.1.0 with 29", "Every guide page is served as Markdown when .md is added to its URL", "Each Cloud API credential maps to one API and one partition, and token requests carrying credentials in the URL are rejected", "status.vertexinc.com lists 26 components, and no incident from 10 July to 8 October 2026 names O Series Cloud", "The trust centre lists SOC 1 Type II and SOC 2 Type II reports for 2025 and five sub-processors with locations" ], "weaknesses": [ "No public price, free tier or self-serve signup. The security guide sends new users to the Vertex sales team for an account", "No rate limit for the calculation API and no idempotency key were found in the reviewed documentation", "The standard token endpoint allows 10 access token requests per 8 hours for each client", "No official SDK, MCP server or llms.txt on the developer site was found", "The customer agreement, DPA and Service Level Exhibit sit behind an access request in the trust centre" ], "agentNotes": [ "Cache the access token for its 3,599-second life. The standard token endpoint allows 10 requests per 8 hours, and tokenguard.vertexcloud.com returns a cached token", "Send no `Authorization: Bearer` header to /oauth/token, and put the client id and secret in the body or a Basic header. Credentials in the URL are rejected", "Set `saleMessageType` to QUOTATION for an estimate. INVOICE is stored for reporting and remittance", "Call GET /v2/transaction-exists/{transactionid} before retrying a failed INVOICE. No idempotency key is documented", "Delete, reverse or roll back a Cloud transaction within 90 days of calculation. Later requests can cause calculation errors or duplicates" ], "metrics": { "kind": "remote", "measured": false }, "reviewCount": 0, "avgRating": 0, "history": [ { "basis": "public evidence", "confidence": "medium", "grade": "C", "methodology": "0.4", "pending": [ "performance", "tasks" ], "run": "2026-10-01", "runLabel": "October 2026 research run", "score": 54.7 } ], "editorialScores": { "ergonomics": 51, "maintenance": 62, "payments": 0, "reliability": 65, "schema": 74, "security": 57, "transparency": 52 }, "provenanceScore": 84 }, "connect": { "http": "curl --location 'https://auth.vertexcloud.com/oauth/token' \\\n --header 'Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded' \\\n --data-urlencode 'client_id=\u003cyour-client-id\u003e' \\\n --data-urlencode 'client_secret=\u003cyour-client-secret\u003e' \\\n --data-urlencode 'audience=verx://migration-api' \\\n --data-urlencode 'grant_type=client_credentials'" }, "letme": { "capability": "https://letme.dev/tax.calculate", "tool": "https://letme.dev/vertex-tax" }, "area": "domain-data", "provenance": { "legalEntity": "Vertex, Inc.", "domain": "vertexinc.com", "domainRegistered": "1998-09-01", "endpointOnVendorDomain": true, "terms": "https://www.vertexinc.com/terms-of-use", "privacy": "https://www.vertexinc.com/vertex-privacy-policy", "statusPage": "https://status.vertexinc.com", "changelog": "https://developer.vertexinc.com/oseries/docs/os-release", "securityTxt": "none", "checked": "2026-10-08", "notes": [ "The website terms of use and the privacy notice name Vertex, Inc., 2301 Renaissance Blvd., King of Prussia, PA 19406, and the terms choose Pennsylvania law. The privacy notice was last updated on 19 August 2026.", "Cloud API calls go to calcconnect.vertexsmb.com and auth.vertexcloud.com, which the vendor's developer docs name as its hosts. We didn't check the registration of those two domains. On-Demand deployments answer on \u003ccustomer\u003e.ondemand.vertexinc.com.", "www.vertexinc.com/.well-known/security.txt and /security.txt return 404.", "The terms URL is the website terms of use. The customer agreement, DPA, Security Exhibit and Service Level Exhibit are listed in the trust centre behind an access request.", "RDAP for vertexinc.com gives a registration date of 1998-09-01." ], "score": 84 }, "pageJsonUrl": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/vertex-tax.json", "live": { "slug": "vertex-tax", "probe": { "target": "https://calcconnect.vertexsmb.com/vertex-ws/v2", "method": "get", "lastAt": "2026-10-08T19:09:01.550123634Z", "lastOk": true, "lastStatus": 401, "lastMs": 328, "lastNote": "asks for credentials", "authRequired": true, "uptime24h": 100, "uptime30d": 100, "p50ms24h": 337, "p95ms24h": 389, "samples24h": 42, "samples30d": 42, "days": [ { "date": "2026-10-08", "probes": 42, "ok": 42 } ] }, "vendorStatus": { "page": "https://status.vertexinc.com", "indicator": "none", "summary": "All Systems Operational", "checkedAt": "2026-10-08T19:07:03.755128847Z" }, "securityTxt": { "url": "https://vertexinc.com/.well-known/security.txt", "state": "none", "checkedAt": "2026-10-08T15:38:42.909167355Z" }, "pages": [ { "url": "https://developer.vertexinc.com/oseries/docs/os-release", "kind": "changelog", "status": 200, "checkedAt": "2026-10-08T18:17:20.759088603Z", "changedAt": "0001-01-01T00:00:00Z", "fingerprint": "dbf33e43de24" }, { "url": "https://www.vertexinc.com/vertex-privacy-policy", "kind": "privacy", "status": 200, "checkedAt": "2026-10-08T18:31:23.444238352Z", "changedAt": "0001-01-01T00:00:00Z", "fingerprint": "a77bfa05dfc0" }, { "url": "https://www.vertexinc.com/terms-of-use", "kind": "terms", "status": 200, "checkedAt": "2026-10-08T18:31:21.326104819Z", "changedAt": "0001-01-01T00:00:00Z", "fingerprint": "8a38170a4aef" } ], "updatedAt": "2026-10-08T19:09:01.550123634Z" } }, "facts": [ { "a": "HTTP API", "b": "HTTP API", "name": "Kind" }, { "a": "Avalara, Inc.", "b": "Vertex, Inc.", "name": "Vendor" }, { "a": "https://rest.avatax.com/api/v2", "b": "https://calcconnect.vertexsmb.com/vertex-ws/v2", "name": "Hosted endpoint" }, { "a": "HTTP, Streamable HTTP", "b": "HTTP", "name": "Transports" }, { "a": "OAuth or key", "b": "OAuth", "name": "Auth" }, { "a": "Paid", "b": "Paid", "name": "Pricing" }, { "a": "no", "b": "no", "name": "x402" }, { "a": "Proprietary service under the Avalara Service Terms. The SDKs on GitHub are Apache-2.0. The MCP repository holds a README only, with no licence file", "b": "Proprietary service under a customer agreement with Vertex, Inc. that isn't published", "name": "Licence" }, { "a": "10", "b": "none", "name": "Tools exposed" }, { "a": "no", "b": "no", "name": "Read-only variant documented" }, { "a": "yes", "b": "no", "name": "llms.txt" }, { "a": "com.avalara/avatax", "b": "not listed", "name": "MCP registry" }, { "a": "2026-09-16", "b": "2026-09-25", "name": "Last release" }, { "a": "2023-05-01", "b": "no date given", "name": "Terms last updated" }, { "a": "2022-08-08", "b": "no date given", "name": "Privacy policy last updated" }, { "a": "not found in the text", "b": "not found in the text", "name": "Customer content may train models" }, { "a": "not found in the text", "b": "not found in the text", "name": "Terms restrict automated access" }, { "a": "yes", "b": "not found in the text", "name": "Terms restrict benchmarking" }, { "a": "not found in the text", "b": "not found in the text", "name": "Terms or service can change without notice" }, { "a": "not found in the text", "b": "not found in the text", "name": "Arbitration or class-action waiver" }, { "a": "5 stars, 331k npm/wk, 38k PyPI/wk", "b": "none", "name": "Popularity" } ], "faq": [ { "answer": "Avalara AvaTax scores 68.8 (B) on agent readiness against Vertex O Series's 54.7 (C), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories.", "question": "Which is better for AI agents, Avalara AvaTax or Vertex O Series?" }, { "answer": "Avalara AvaTax takes an API key or an OAuth sign-in. Vertex O Series uses an OAuth sign-in.", "question": "Do Avalara AvaTax and Vertex O Series need an API key?" }, { "answer": "Yes. Avalara AvaTax has a hosted endpoint at https://rest.avatax.com/api/v2 and Vertex O Series at https://calcconnect.vertexsmb.com/vertex-ws/v2.", "question": "Can an agent call Avalara AvaTax and Vertex O Series without installing anything?" } ], "goodFor": [ { "aheadOn": [ "Schema \u0026 documentation, 85 against 74", "Agent ergonomics, 84 against 51", "Security \u0026 auth, 65 against 57", "Payments \u0026 pricing, 30 against 0", "Maintenance \u0026 community, 79 against 62", "Transparency \u0026 trust, 79 against 68" ], "also": null, "goodFor": "An agent that must calculate and record US sales tax at address level, with VAT and GST in other countries, and hand the records to filing.", "slug": "avalara", "watchFor": "Production rate limits are not published. The only numbers found are the trial limits and 5 calls a minute on report exports" }, { "aheadOn": null, "also": null, "goodFor": "An agent working inside a company that already has an O Series licence, for quotes, invoice tax, tax area lookups and tax configuration across sales tax, use tax and VAT.", "slug": "vertex-tax", "watchFor": "No public price, free tier or self-serve signup. The security guide sends new users to the Vertex sales team for an account" } ], "job": { "capability": "tax.calculate", "name": "Tax calculate" }, "others": [ { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anrok-vs-avalara.json", "title": "Anrok vs Avalara AvaTax", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anrok-vs-avalara" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anrok-vs-vertex-tax.json", "title": "Anrok vs Vertex O Series", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anrok-vs-vertex-tax" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/avalara-vs-quaderno.json", "title": "Avalara AvaTax vs Quaderno", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/avalara-vs-quaderno" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/avalara-vs-taxjar.json", "title": "Avalara AvaTax vs TaxJar", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/avalara-vs-taxjar" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/quaderno-vs-vertex-tax.json", "title": "Quaderno vs Vertex O Series", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/quaderno-vs-vertex-tax" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/taxjar-vs-vertex-tax.json", "title": "TaxJar vs Vertex O Series", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/taxjar-vs-vertex-tax" } ], "scores": [ { "avalara": 62, "by": 3, "edge": "vertex-tax", "key": "reliability", "name": "Reliability", "vertex-tax": 65, "weight": 16 }, { "key": "performance", "name": "Performance", "pending": true, "weight": 10 }, { "avalara": 85, "by": 11, "edge": "avalara", "key": "schema", "name": "Schema \u0026 documentation", "vertex-tax": 74, "weight": 13 }, { "avalara": 84, "by": 33, "edge": "avalara", "key": "ergonomics", "name": "Agent ergonomics", "vertex-tax": 51, "weight": 13 }, { "avalara": 65, "by": 8, "edge": "avalara", "key": "security", "name": "Security \u0026 auth", "vertex-tax": 57, "weight": 14 }, { "avalara": 30, "by": 30, "edge": "avalara", "key": "payments", "name": "Payments \u0026 pricing", "vertex-tax": 0, "weight": 10 }, { "key": "tasks", "name": "Task success", "pending": true, "weight": 10 }, { "avalara": 79, "by": 17, "edge": "avalara", "key": "maintenance", "name": "Maintenance \u0026 community", "vertex-tax": 62, "weight": 7 }, { "avalara": 79, "by": 11, "edge": "avalara", "key": "transparency", "name": "Transparency \u0026 trust", "vertex-tax": 68, "weight": 7 } ], "summary": "Avalara AvaTax scores 68.8 (B) on agent readiness against Vertex O Series's 54.7 (C), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Both do tax calculate.", "verdicts": { "avalara": "The REST API has a public Swagger file with 491 operations, a Markdown page per endpoint and a 90-day trial with no card. Production rate limits and prices per transaction are not published, the API patch notes stop at April 2023, and the tax calculation service was degraded for about 23 hours on 5 and 6 October 2026.", "vertex-tax": "Public OpenAPI 3.0 specs cover calculation, transaction management, tax area lookup and tax configuration, and guides are served as Markdown. Access needs a sales contract. No price, free tier, sandbox signup, calculation rate limit, idempotency key or official SDK was found in the reviewed documentation." } }, "kind": "anchor.page", "links": { "api": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json", "html": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/avalara-vs-vertex-tax", "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/avalara-vs-vertex-tax.json", "llms": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt", "markdown": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/avalara-vs-vertex-tax.md", "slim": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/avalara-vs-vertex-tax.min.md" }, "markdown": "Avalara AvaTax scores 68.8 (B) on agent readiness against Vertex O Series's 54.7 (C), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Both do tax calculate.\n\n- Avalara AvaTax: grade B, 68.8/100, rank #162 of 629. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/avalara.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/avalara.json\n- Vertex O Series: grade C, 54.7/100, rank #464 of 629. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/vertex-tax.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/vertex-tax.json\n\n## Which one, for what\n\n### Avalara AvaTax (B)\n\nGood for: An agent that must calculate and record US sales tax at address level, with VAT and GST in other countries, and hand the records to filing.\n\nAhead on:\n- Schema \u0026 documentation, 85 against 74\n- Agent ergonomics, 84 against 51\n- Security \u0026 auth, 65 against 57\n- Payments \u0026 pricing, 30 against 0\n- Maintenance \u0026 community, 79 against 62\n- Transparency \u0026 trust, 79 against 68\n\nWatch for: Production rate limits are not published. The only numbers found are the trial limits and 5 calls a minute on report exports\n\n### Vertex O Series (C)\n\nGood for: An agent working inside a company that already has an O Series licence, for quotes, invoice tax, tax area lookups and tax configuration across sales tax, use tax and VAT.\n\nWatch for: No public price, free tier or self-serve signup. The security guide sends new users to the Vertex sales team for an account\n\n\n## Score by category\n\n| Category | Weight | Avalara AvaTax | Vertex O Series | Edge |\n| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |\n| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 62 | 65 | Vertex O Series +3 |\n| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |\n| Schema \u0026 documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 85 | 74 | Avalara AvaTax +11 |\n| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 84 | 51 | Avalara AvaTax +33 |\n| Security \u0026 auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 65 | 57 | Avalara AvaTax +8 |\n| Payments \u0026 pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 30 | 0 | Avalara AvaTax +30 |\n| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |\n| Maintenance \u0026 community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 79 | 62 | Avalara AvaTax +17 |\n| Transparency \u0026 trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 79 | 68 | Avalara AvaTax +11 |\n| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |\n| **Total** | | **68.8 · B** | **54.7 · C** | |\n\n## Facts side by side\n\n| Fact | Avalara AvaTax | Vertex O Series |\n| --- | --- | --- |\n| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |\n| Vendor | Avalara, Inc. | Vertex, Inc. |\n| Hosted endpoint | `https://rest.avatax.com/api/v2` | `https://calcconnect.vertexsmb.com/vertex-ws/v2` |\n| Transports | HTTP, Streamable HTTP | HTTP |\n| Auth | OAuth or key | OAuth |\n| Pricing | Paid | Paid |\n| x402 | no | no |\n| Licence | Proprietary service under the Avalara Service Terms. The SDKs on GitHub are Apache-2.0. The MCP repository holds a README only, with no licence file | Proprietary service under a customer agreement with Vertex, Inc. that isn't published |\n| Tools exposed | 10 | none |\n| Read-only variant documented | no | no |\n| llms.txt | yes | no |\n| MCP registry | `com.avalara/avatax` | not listed |\n| Last release | 2026-09-16 | 2026-09-25 |\n| Terms last updated | 2023-05-01 | no date given |\n| Privacy policy last updated | 2022-08-08 | no date given |\n| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | not found in the text |\n| Terms restrict automated access | not found in the text | not found in the text |\n| Terms restrict benchmarking | yes | not found in the text |\n| Terms or service can change without notice | not found in the text | not found in the text |\n| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not found in the text | not found in the text |\n| Popularity | 5 stars, 331k npm/wk, 38k PyPI/wk | none |\n\n## Verdicts\n\n**Avalara AvaTax.** The REST API has a public Swagger file with 491 operations, a Markdown page per endpoint and a 90-day trial with no card. Production rate limits and prices per transaction are not published, the API patch notes stop at April 2023, and the tax calculation service was degraded for about 23 hours on 5 and 6 October 2026.\n\n**Vertex O Series.** Public OpenAPI 3.0 specs cover calculation, transaction management, tax area lookup and tax configuration, and guides are served as Markdown. Access needs a sales contract. No price, free tier, sandbox signup, calculation rate limit, idempotency key or official SDK was found in the reviewed documentation.\n\n## Before you call either\n\n### Avalara AvaTax\n\n1. Omit `type` or send SalesOrder for an estimate. A type ending in Invoice is recorded, and `commit` set to true locks it for reporting\n2. Retry a timed-out invoice with CreateOrAdjustTransaction, not CreateTransaction, which errors when a committed transaction has the same code\n3. Use sandbox-rest.avatax.com with sandbox credentials for tests. Production is rest.avatax.com and the two accounts are separate\n4. Add `$include=SummaryOnly` or LinesOnly to shrink transaction responses, and page lists with `$top` (1,000 at most) and `$skip`\n5. Call /api/v2/utilities/ping first. It answers without credentials and shows whether the credentials sent were accepted\n\n### Vertex O Series\n\n1. Cache the access token for its 3,599-second life. The standard token endpoint allows 10 requests per 8 hours, and tokenguard.vertexcloud.com returns a cached token\n2. Send no `Authorization: Bearer` header to /oauth/token, and put the client id and secret in the body or a Basic header. Credentials in the URL are rejected\n3. Set `saleMessageType` to QUOTATION for an estimate. INVOICE is stored for reporting and remittance\n4. Call GET /v2/transaction-exists/{transactionid} before retrying a failed INVOICE. No idempotency key is documented\n5. Delete, reverse or roll back a Cloud transaction within 90 days of calculation. Later requests can cause calculation errors or duplicates\n\n## Questions\n\n### Which is better for AI agents, Avalara AvaTax or Vertex O Series?\n\nAvalara AvaTax scores 68.8 (B) on agent readiness against Vertex O Series's 54.7 (C), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories.\n\n### Do Avalara AvaTax and Vertex O Series need an API key?\n\nAvalara AvaTax takes an API key or an OAuth sign-in. Vertex O Series uses an OAuth sign-in.\n\n### Can an agent call Avalara AvaTax and Vertex O Series without installing anything?\n\nYes. Avalara AvaTax has a hosted endpoint at https://rest.avatax.com/api/v2 and Vertex O Series at https://calcconnect.vertexsmb.com/vertex-ws/v2.\n\n\n## For agents\n\n- This comparison as JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/avalara-vs-vertex-tax.json, and with the fewest tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/avalara-vs-vertex-tax.min.md\n- Over MCP at https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (no key): `compare_tools {\"a\": \"avalara\", \"b\": \"vertex-tax\"}`. From a terminal: `anchor compare avalara vertex-tax`\n- Each listing in full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/avalara.json and https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/vertex-tax.json\n\n## Other comparisons with Avalara AvaTax or Vertex O Series\n\n- [Anrok vs Avalara AvaTax](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anrok-vs-avalara.md)\n- [Anrok vs Vertex O Series](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anrok-vs-vertex-tax.md)\n- [Avalara AvaTax vs Quaderno](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/avalara-vs-quaderno.md)\n- [Avalara AvaTax vs TaxJar](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/avalara-vs-taxjar.md)\n- [Quaderno vs Vertex O Series](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/quaderno-vs-vertex-tax.md)\n- [TaxJar vs Vertex O Series](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/taxjar-vs-vertex-tax.md)\n", "meta": { "attribution": "Anchor Terminal (https://www.anchorterminal.com)", "docs": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/docs/", "generatedAt": "2026-10-08", "license": "CC-BY-4.0", "method": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/", "methodology": "0.4", "openapi": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/openapi.json", "preview": false, "run": "2026-10-01", "runLabel": "October 2026 research run" }, "page": { "breadcrumbs": [ { "name": "Home", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/" }, { "name": "Compare", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/" }, { "name": "Avalara AvaTax vs Vertex O Series", "url": "" } ], "description": "Avalara AvaTax scores 68.8 (B) on agent readiness against Vertex O Series's 54.7 (C), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Both do tax calculate. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.", "facts": [ "Avalara AvaTax B 68.8", "Vertex O Series C 54.7", "scores" ], "h1": "Avalara AvaTax vs Vertex O Series", "image": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/assets/og/compare-avalara-vs-vertex-tax.png", "path": "/compare/avalara-vs-vertex-tax", "published": "2026-10-01", "section": "tools", "title": "Avalara AvaTax vs Vertex O Series for AI agents, B 68.8 vs C 54.7", "toc": null, "updated": "2026-10-08", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/avalara-vs-vertex-tax" }, "tokens": { "markdown": 2050, "slim": 680 }, "version": 1 }