Sales tax tools are now available on every ThriveCart plan – here’s your guide to getting started.
If you sell online, tax compliance has probably crossed your mind at some point. Maybe you’re just starting out and new to taxes. Maybe you’ve looked into it and set it aside. Maybe you’re handling it with a third-party tool.
We want to help you sell more, simply, by giving you the tools to stay compliant and focus on what you do best: scaling your sales!
Today, we’re announcing that ThriveCart’s long-standing, built-in sales tax calculation and collection features are now available to every merchant across all ThriveCart plans.
Key insights, at a glance:
- ThriveCart’s new tax collection features are available on all plans.
- Merchants can now automatically calculate and collect sales tax at checkout, removing the need for subscription-based third-party tax-collecting software.
- Exclusive to Pro+ users, there’s a 30% discount vs. Standard plan pricing (0.35% vs 0.5%) plus sales-boosting tax-inclusive pricing (optional), proven to increase sales by up to 22% vs tax exclusive pricing in certain regions.
Note: the Pro+ pricing above applies to users subscribed after May 1st 2026.
Sales tax tools are now available on every plan
Until now, ThriveCart’s tax calculation and collection features were only available on Pro+ and Legacy plans. They are now available to every ThriveCart merchant, regardless of plan, providing tax calculation and collection in the following territories:
- USA
- Canada
- European Union (EU)
- Some non-EU countries like the UK, Switzerland, Norway, and Liechtenstein
- Australia
- New Zealand
- Chile
- Mexico
That means you can now calculate and collect sales tax directly at checkout, automatically, with no subscription-based third-party software needed. ThriveCart handles the calculation, applies the correct rate for the customer’s jurisdiction, verifies VAT IDs for EU buyers, and applies the reverse charge mechanism where applicable. You get a compliant sale, while we handle the complexity. Set this at the account or product level, for maximum flexibility.
This isn’t something new for ThriveCart. We’ve processed hundreds of millions in tax payments for our merchants over the last 5+ years, after being first introduced in 2021.
Alongside this, tax-inclusive pricing – the ability to display prices with tax already included in the final price – is available to Pro+ accounts, available exclusively when Stripe Connect+ is a selected payment method on checkouts. Tax-inclusive pricing has been proven to lead to an average sales increase of 22%.
New tools to help you stay on top of compliance
We’re also introducing two new in-platform tools to help make sure nothing slips through the cracks:
- Dashboard notifications: A banner appears if you have live products without sales tax enabled, along with a filter so you can quickly see which products need attention.
- Compliance prompts: Every time you take a product live without tax configured, a reminder appears giving you the option to set it up before proceeding.
These tools are purely informational. They’re there to keep you aware of your exposure – because as the scenarios below show, the cost of a missed obligation tends to grow the longer it goes unaddressed.
→ For more detailed guidance, see our support article on enabling sales tax collection.
Why tax compliance matters more than you may realize
Sales tax obligations for online sellers have become significantly more complex since the Supreme Court’s 2018 South Dakota v. Wayfair ruling, which established that sellers could owe tax in states where they have no physical presence, based purely on revenue volume. Every U.S. state with a sales tax now has its own economic nexus threshold. Some are $100,000 in annual sales. Some are just 200 transactions. Rates, exemptions, and filing frequencies vary by state, county, and city.
Most sellers know this, in theory. But knowing about it and staying on top of it are two very different things.
The consequences of getting it wrong can be severe. According to sales tax expert Diane Yetter, President of the Sales Tax Institute, “every error you make is an average of 9% of your gross revenue” – and in a worst case, “not being compliant with sales tax could put your company out of business.”
Here’s what that looks like in practice:
Scenario 1: The back-tax bill
Yetter describes a client with $700,000 in sales into New Jersey. For a single year of non-compliance, they were looking at $46,000 in unpaid tax – and that’s before penalties and interest. Add those in, and the total can reach $70,000 for just one year in one state.
Scenario 2: Penalty stacking across multiple states
Sales tax penalties typically range from 5% to 25% of unpaid tax, depending on the state and how long the situation has been unaddressed. In Texas, the failure-to-file penalty alone can reach up to 20%. These percentages apply per filing period – so a seller with three years of unfiled returns across multiple states isn’t looking at one penalty. They’re looking at penalty calculations for each quarterly or monthly period, stacking across every state, compounding alongside interest the entire time.
Scenario 3: The acquisition that almost didn’t happen
Yetter notes that her team regularly performs tax due diligence for buyers evaluating acquisitions. “When we’re looking at the data of the seller, we’re finding exposure. We make recommendations to the buyer that you either walk away from a deal if the exposure is too big, or you reduce the purchase price because the value is lower.” Unresolved sales tax liabilities don’t just cost you in the present – they can depress the value of your business when it matters most.
And it’s not just in the U.S. Canada, the UK, the EU, Australia and many other countries may have applicable sales tax legislation. These may apply if you’re selling to customers in those regions, even if you’re not based there.
None of this is designed to alarm you unnecessarily. The vast majority of sellers who have tax gaps simply didn’t know they had them, or kept meaning to sort it out. But the cost of delay is real, and it compounds every month.
That’s exactly what ThriveCart’s built-in tax tools are designed to protect against.
Set, forget… and sell more, simply.
FAQ
Q: Is there a fee for using the calculate and collect sales tax features?
A: Yes, ThriveCart passes on costs associated with tax calculation and collection. This is a market standard rate of 0.5% per eligible transaction – a small per-eligible-transaction price for compliance, security, and peace of mind. Please see a full fee schedule for the payment processors offered through ThriveCart here.
Q: Does the tax processing fee apply to all of my transactions?
A: No. The fee only applies to transactions where ThriveCart’s tax engine actively does work – meaning it calculated and collected sales tax, or verified a customer’s VAT ID and applied the reverse charge. If tax isn’t enabled on a product, or if a calculation takes place but results in no tax being due and no reverse charge applies, no fee is charged.
Q: I’m a long-time user. What happens to me?
A: If you’re a Legacy or Pro+ (grandfathered or subscribed before May 1, 2026) user, you already have access to all the tax calculation and collection tools. No charge is being announced in this release.
Q: Will ThriveCart tell me when to apply taxes?
A: We will remind you to set up taxes when setting your product(s) live; however, tax compliance is your sole responsibility. Nothing in this article or within the ThriveCart dashboard, support articles, or anywhere else is financial or accounting advice, and you should seek your own counsel from a licensed professional about your own compliance requirements. If you don’t enable sales tax on your products, no tax calculation takes place and no processing fee applies. The compliance tools we’ve introduced – the dashboard banner and the product-save prompt – are informational only. They cannot be used to enable tax on your behalf, and they don’t affect your transactions.
Q: Will I see these fees listed somewhere in my account?
A: Yes. All applicable fees will be reflected in your transaction records. If you have questions about a specific transaction, our support team is available to walk you through exactly what was applied and why.
Q: Will ThriveCart offer tax remittance?
A: Yes! This is coming in late Q3, 2026. Please see our public roadmap here.
