Avalara
👤 Scott McFarlane (+ Rory Rawlings, Jared Vogt) (Rawlings knew sales-tax software cold; McFarlane and Vogt were repeat SaaS founders who'd built and sold MetaInfo (1998).)🌐 siteLinkedIn
A boring, mandatory, forever-updating tax problem nobody wanted - until Wayfair made it every online seller's problem.
Will it work? · our read
Rode the ruling. The Wayfair windfall is spent. The core calc is commoditizing as Stripe Tax and modern rivals bundle it cheaper; the moat now is switching cost and content depth, not novelty.
01How the money moves
E-commerce seller connects AvaTax to its cart, billing or ERP
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Each order pings Avalara for the exact rate across 13,000+ jurisdictions
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Seller pays subscription + per-transaction fees - and Avalara files the returns
02The numbers
$1B+Stated2023, founder-stated
2023
the sentence on the page
and CEO Scott McFarlane . 2023 was a year of transformation for Avalara, including surpassing the $1 billion in year-to-date revenue milestone. "Congratulations to the 60 organizations that have…
Private since 2022; McFarlane says revenue topped $1B in 2023.
$1B+ revenue in 2023 (founder-stated); $699M filed in 2021, its last SEC-reported year before Vista took it private.
🔒
You have the verdict. Members get the work behind it.
- The CENTS scorecard — where it's strong, where it's soft
- The founder's key move, and the counter-move
- How it could die — the evidence, and how sure we are
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See a full teardown, free → ImportYetiSourcesSources last checked 25 August 2026
SEC 8-K (Aug 2022) - Vista $8.4B take-private at $93.50/shareGeekWire (2018) - founding on Bainbridge Island, orange-shirt culture, IPO after 14 yearsSouth Dakota v. Wayfair - the June 21, 2018 ruling that legalized economic nexusForbes (2018) - Scott McFarlane, the three founders, MetaInfo backgroundCNBC (2025) - Avalara refiles to return to public markets
Headline $1B+ (2023) is founder-stated (Scott McFarlane, interviews) - Avalara has been private since Oct 2022 and no longer files, so it is not independently audited. The $699M (FY2021) revenue and $8.4B Vista buyout are FILED from Avalara's SEC filings while public (NYSE: AVLR, 2018-2022) and are first-party verified. The 'IPO days before Wayfair' timing and the content moat are documented facts; the commoditization/'dies' thesis is our read, not Avalara's. Jurisdiction (13,000+) and integration (1,400+) counts are Avalara's own figures. We never score you.