Log In

Don't have an account?Sign Up
Thank you! Your submission has been received!
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.
Triple Whale Discount Request
Uh oh... you've got deals inbound 🚀
1
Name
2
Email
3
URL
1
Name
2
Email
3
URL
1
Name
2
Email
3
URL
Back
Next
Uh oh...you've got deals inbound 🚀
Confirming we've received your tool requests. You can expect to be connected to the right folks at the tool(s) within a few hours by our team.
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.

Kintsugi Review: Is It Worth Using Kintsugi For Tax Management?

Joe Neihaus is an expert in the world of ecommerce, direct-to-consumer and digital growth. He is always writing about the latest ecommerce brands that hit the market, the newest tools helping brands grow and more.
Table of Contents
Last Updated:
January 21, 2025
Summary

Kintsugi is a sales tax compliance platform that automates and simplifies the tax challenges created by the 2018 Wayfair decision. Through AI-powered monitoring and automation, the platform helps brands navigate over 12,000 tax jurisdictions while staying compliant with constantly changing regulations. Key features include real-time tax regulation monitoring, automated compliance tracking, and comprehensive communications management.

For D2C brands, Kintsugi is transforming sales tax compliance through AI-powered automation and intelligent data management. The platform makes compliance fast and painless through AI-assisted product classification, real-time tax monitoring, and integrated filing tools.

Kintsugi's key features, like TaxGPT and its seamless tech stack integrations, make it a standout choice for brands wanting to manage their tax compliance efficiently and accurately.

In this breakdown, we'll discuss how Kintsugi's powerful tools can streamline the complex tax compliance processes in ecommerce and examine which features are most popular for brands. 

Let’s get started.

First, What is Kintsugi?

Kintsugi is a tool that helps with all things sales taxes. Sales tax compliance changed dramatically in 2018 when the Supreme Court ruled in South Dakota v. Wayfair that states could require out-of-state sellers to collect and remit sales tax. This decision effectively abolished the longstanding "physical presence" standard, creating new hiccups for ecommerce brands selling across state lines. 

And as operators ourselves, we know firsthand how this can add frustrating complexity to already complex business operations.

The difficulty of this becomes clear when you consider the numbers: brands must now navigate over 12,000 tax jurisdictions, each with its own rates, rules, and regulations. Even more challenging, these tax laws and rates regularly change at both state and local levels. For brands selling nationwide, which is pretty much everyone on Shopify, this means monitoring and managing sales tax obligations across multiple states, significantly increasing compliance requirements and risks.

Kintsugi's platform addresses these challenges through three core products that work together:

  • Kintsugi Intelligence - Provides AI-powered automation, with a sophisticated machine learning engine that scans tax regulation web pages every 15 minutes to ensure calculations remain compliant with current rules across all jurisdictions
  • Kintsugi Mail - Offers comprehensive communications management to streamline tax-related correspondence
  • Kintsugi Sheets - Enables advanced data analysis and reporting for better visibility into tax compliance

What Does Kintsugi Solve For Brands?

Kintsugi helps ecommerce brands manage their sales tax compliance in a fully hands-off manner. Brands are able to onboard directly with Kintsugi through Shopify, connect all of their data sources and sales channels and then simply let Kintsugi manage sales tax tracking, remittance and compliance automatically. The tool turns a once incredibly cumbersome and time-consuming task into an easy, fully-automated one for brands.

Kintsugi Intelligence

Kintsugi Intelligence is one of the most advanced AI solutions for sales tax compliance in the US - it transforms what traditionally required teams of tax professionals into automated processes that take just minutes. 

Essentially, the tool ingests complex U.S. sales tax regulations into over 300,000 lines of code, enabling instant handling of everything from nexus calculations to product classifications—and delivers it all to you with an easy interface, such as the first screen you see when you log in. 

We appreciate how simple the main overview is (especially the colored map component):

Kintsugi Dashboard

Product classification, traditionally one of the most time-consuming aspects of tax compliance, showcases the power of Kintsugi's AI approach. 

Consider this scenario - in New York City, clothing and footwear under $110 are exempt from sales tax, while Texas collects sales tax on clothing with exemptions only during tax holidays for items under $100. Multiply these variations across thousands of jurisdictions and product types, and the issue becomes clear.

Kintsugi Tax

Kintsugi Intelligence tackles this through their robust AI platform that can analyze product descriptions, categories, and historical classifications to automatically suggest appropriate tax treatments. 

The system learns from each interaction, continuously improving its accuracy. The bulk classify feature takes this efficiency even further—with a single click, you can classify your entire product catalog, with the AI handling nuanced decisions about taxability across different jurisdictions.

Transaction management receives similar intelligent treatment. Traditional methods often require manual CSV file adjustments to match specific system requirements—a process that could take hours and introduce costly errors. 

Kintsugi Intelligence eliminates these headaches by accepting any CSV format and automatically standardizing it. This helps to recognize and properly categorize transaction data regardless of format (and save you countless hours while reducing error risk)

Auto File and Register ensures you never miss a deadline. By simply enabling automatic registration and filing in your configurations and completing a one-time setup form, Kintsugi handles all your filing obligations automatically. 

It even includes VDAs (Voluntary Disclosure Agreements) automatically in the registration process, providing both educational resources about VDAs and the registered agreement directly to your inbox.

Kintsugi Dashboard

TaxGPT, Kintsugi's AI-powered tax consultant, represents another breakthrough in compliance automation. Unlike basic chatbots, TaxGPT leverages deep learning models trained on vast amounts of tax regulations and real-world scenarios. 

Available 24/7 through Slack support, it provides instant, contextual guidance on complex tax situations, helps interpret notices, and even suggests proactive compliance measures based on your business patterns. You can make great use of TaxGPT  when trying to deal with complex scenarios like voluntary disclosure agreements or multi-state filing requirements.

The integration capabilities set Kintsugi Intelligence apart from competitors. While other platforms often require weeks of technical setup and custom coding, Kintsugi offers true no-code integrations with nine major ERP systems, e-commerce platforms, and accounting software—with more being added regularly. 

All it takes is one click, and within 3 minutes your data is fully synced with the platform. "Integration process was self-serve and it was easy to navigate and set everything up," reported one customer who switched from Avalara. The platform maintains connectors for popular systems like QuickBooks, Shopify, NetSuite, and many others.

Kintsui Mail

Kintsugi Mail is the most intelligent virtual mailbox we’ve seen for sales tax compliance. The feature addresses a critical pain point for brands operating across multiple jurisdictions: managing the flood of physical and electronic tax communications while ensuring timely responses to government notices.

When state tax mail arrives at your designated secure address, it enters a carefully controlled workflow via Kintsugi. Trained specialists open and process each piece in a secure facility, following strict chain-of-custody protocols. 

Each document is professionally scanned at high resolution and processed through advanced OCR technology, ensuring every detail is captured accurately.

The platform's automated distribution system shows particular ingenuity in how it handles communications. Once processed, documents are automatically categorized by type, urgency, and required action using AI classification. 

Another key aspect to Kintsugi Mail is their notice management. Rather than simply forwarding communications, the system analyzes each document's content and automatically initiates appropriate responses when possible. 

For routine notices, the platform can generate and submit responses automatically, pulling relevant data from your transaction history. For more complex issues, it provides recommended actions and response templates, streamlining the handling of even sophisticated tax matters.

The registered agent service feature transforms how businesses manage their multi-state presence. Through your Stable address, Kintsugi acts as your registered agent across all 50 states and territories. This eliminates the need to coordinate with multiple registered agents and creates a single, reliable point of contact for all government communications. 

The service includes automatic forwarding of legal notices, maintenance of state registrations, and proactive notifications about upcoming compliance requirements.

Kintsugi Sheets

Tax compliance, data management and reporting can quickly become overwhelming for brands.

Kintsugi Sheets helps brands turn raw data into actionable insights about how their business.

Kintsugi Sheets offers powerful automated syncing capabilities that eliminate the need for manual updates. While traditional approaches require constant data entry and manipulation, Kintsugi allows you to schedule automatic syncs with your Google Sheets account on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis. 

The tool handles complex data relationships automatically and helps to maintain referential integrity across different data sets and ensuring consistency in your compliance reporting.

Kintsugi Sheets Integration

The Flashbacks feature solves a critical challenge in compliance record-keeping. The system automatically creates comprehensive data snapshots at regular intervals, providing point-in-time visibility into your tax compliance status. 

These snapshots prove invaluable during audits, allowing you to reconstruct exact tax positions for any given date. Businesses can easily demonstrate compliance history, track changes over time, and respond to audit requests with confidence. 

Kintsugi Sheets Integration

Data analysis reaches new levels of sophistication with the Drilldown feature. Users can dynamically expand and join different data sets, creating custom views that reveal patterns in tax obligations and compliance status. 

The system supports complex queries without requiring SQL knowledge, allowing business users to explore their data intuitively. This deep visibility helps businesses identify trends in tax liability, optimize their compliance processes, and make more informed decisions about their operations in different jurisdictions.

Other Kintsugi Features To Mention

Exposure Monitoring System: provides unprecedented visibility into tax obligations across jurisdictions. It monitors exposure in real-time (not just current nexus status) and also projects future obligations based on transaction patterns and changing regulations.

Direct Shopify Integration: it's not necessarily a "feature" you might think of off the bat, but Kintsugi is available directly on the App Store and integrates right with Shopify which is great. A lot of other tax tools, like Numeral, require you to use a third-party data pipeline tool like Fivetran to integrate with Shopify.

Kintsugi Pricing

While competitors often charge based on transaction volume or revenue, Kintsugi's model aligns directly with your actual compliance requirements.

The Starter tier, available for free, offers brands essential tax compliance monitoring and basic automation tools. Unlike competitors who charge for basic features, Kintsugi includes powerful capabilities in their free tier: basic data connections, address validations, nexus calculations, exposure monitoring, and risk assessments. The inclusion of no-code integrations with major platforms makes this tier particularly valuable for businesses just beginning to navigate multi-state compliance.

Kintsugi Pricing

For brands filing in 10 states or fewer, the Growth tier at $100 per filing represents exceptional value. This tier includes everything from the Starter plan plus crucial automation features like AI-assisted product categorization and comprehensive filing capabilities. The per-filing pricing model ensures you only pay for what you use, making it particularly cost-effective compared to competitors' flat-rate models that often charge regardless of filing volume.

For brands operating in more than 10 states, the Premium tier offers enterprise-level features with custom pricing based on specific needs. This tier includes advanced capabilities like automated filing, VDA handling, and direct access to tax experts. The addition of error insurance and SLA agreements makes this tier particularly attractive for businesses where compliance accuracy is mission-critical.

  • Starter: Free
  • Growth: $100 every time Kintsugi interacts with a state
  • Premium: Custom

To put these prices in perspective, consider the traditional costs of multi-state compliance: CPA firms typically charge $200-500 per state filing, not including registration fees or consulting time. Manual compliance often requires dedicated staff time, with associated salary and training costs. 

And when you compare Kintsugi to established players like Avalara ($29-999/mo) or Webgility ($199-499/mo), Kintsugi's pricing reflects its more advanced AI capabilities. 

While you might pay slightly more for Kintsugi, you're getting real-time tax regulation monitoring, AI-powered product classification, and automated compliance checks, features that would typically require multiple tools or significant manual oversight. 

Breakdown Conclusion

Getting started with Kintsugi takes just 3-5 days, with a store audit and nexus assessment in the first 1-2 days, followed by registration and back-filing setup. 

The platform includes automatic notifications about approaching thresholds and changing regulations, which means that even if you aren’t hitting thresholds just yet, it can add value to your brand by getting you prepared.

Of course, the best way to see if the tool is right for you is to trial it for yourself. Kintsugi offers a low-risk pricing and a per-filing model, so you can get a feel for the product and how it will function in your brand before paying. 

Here are a few helpful links for Kintsugi:

If you do want to get set up with Kintsugi, they offer 1-800-D2C community members a Friends Rate discount for the platform and a premium onboarding experience. You can redeem that by filling out the quick form on their tool profile here.