Accounting & Tax
Avalara MyLodgeTax
Full-service lodging tax compliance for short-term rental operators
Best for Scale
Set-and-forget tax compliance for operators who can absorb the per-property cost
From $27/listing • No free trial
Comparison
Avalara MyLodgeTax vs Clearing
Pricing, pros and cons, and buyer-fit side-by-side. Pick the one that matches your operation — or see why neither should.
Accounting & Tax
Clearing
Trust accounting and bookkeeping built for short-term rental managers
Solid Option
Specialist bookkeeping for STR managers who actually need trust accounting
From $25 • No free trial
✓Editorial verdict
Which Should You Pick: Avalara MyLodgeTax or Clearing?
Pick Avalara MyLodgeTax if your real pain is multi-jurisdiction lodging tax registration, calculation, filing, and remittance across 5+ properties. Pick Clearing if your bottleneck is bookkeeping, trust accounting with segregated owner funds, and multi-OTA reconciliation layered onto your existing PMS. They solve different problems and many PMCs run both.
Editorial perspective from the Avalara MyLodgeTax side; factual claims about Clearing are drawn from its review.
Pricing Side-by-Side
Avalara MyLodgeTax
Full pricing →From $27/listing • No free trial
Standard
$27/property/mo
One-time $299 setup fee per property
1-5 properties
- Automated tax calculation across 11,000+ jurisdictions
- License and permit registration management
- End-to-end tax return filing and remittance
- Native PMS integrations (OwnerRez, Streamline)
Commercial
Custom quote
6+ properties (commercial pricing)
- Everything in Standard
- Volume-based discounts on per-property fee
- Dedicated account support
- Multi-state portfolio reporting
Clearing
Full pricing →From $25 • No free trial
Up to 5 listings
$25/mo
- Bookkeeping baseline
- PMS, Stripe, and Airbnb data ingestion
11-20 listings
$9.25 per unit/mo
- Bookkeeping baseline
- Per-unit pricing kicks in
100+ listings
$8.50 per unit/mo
- Bookkeeping baseline at lowest published per-unit rate
- Suitable for portfolios at scale
Trust accounting add-on
$2.50 per unit/mo + $199-$499 setup
- Virtual bank accounts to segregate rental funds
- ACH disbursement to homeowners
What each tool does well — and where it falls short
What Avalara MyLodgeTax does well
Manages the entire tax lifecycle from registration through remittance
Avalara handles license registration, tax calculation, return filing, and payment to applicable jurisdictions — eliminating the need to manually navigate multi-state obligations.
PMS integrations enable hands-off compliance workflows
Native connections to OwnerRez and Streamline automatically import booking data, removing manual entry from the compliance process.
Enterprise infrastructure supporting up to 40,000+ properties
Commercial pricing tiers for 6+ property portfolios and architecture built for scale mean the platform grows with your business.
Covers 11,000+ tax jurisdictions across the US
Operators expanding into new markets don't need to research local tax requirements manually — Avalara's jurisdiction database handles the complexity.
What Clearing does well
Broad PMS and payment-processor integration coverage
The integrations page lists Hostaway, Guesty, Hospitable, Lodgify, OwnerRez, Stripe, and others — unusually wide for a bookkeeping-layer product, which reduces lock-in if you switch PMSes.
Trust accounting is the headline feature, not a bolt-on
The homepage title is 'Trust accounting for Property Managers' and the platform supports virtual bank accounts to keep owner funds segregated — a compliance step generalist tools push back to the operator.
Vendor case studies cite quantified time savings
Named customers on the customer-story page report cuts like 'up to 70%' fewer month-end hours across 300+ properties and one operator saving 50+ hours monthly.
Where Avalara MyLodgeTax falls short
Per-property costs compound quickly for growing portfolios
At $27/month plus $299 one-time setup per property, a 10-property portfolio runs $270/month and $2,990 upfront before any volume discounts apply.
Customer support receives consistent negative feedback
Users report long wait times, unclear escalation paths, and being directed to paid third-party support to resolve issues.
Scope limited strictly to lodging and occupancy taxes
Won't handle 1099 filing, HOA applications, or zoning compliance — operators still need separate solutions for those obligations.
Where Clearing falls short
Plan tier pricing requires a sales call
Both Pro and Ultimate plans show 'Talk with Sales' on the pricing page, and a third-party directory notes a demo is required before purchase. Apples-to-apples comparison requires booking a call.
Trust accounting is priced separately from the bookkeeping base
It's $2.50 per unit per month plus a one-time implementation fee scaling from $199 to $499 by portfolio size — meaningful budget for a 50-listing operator.
Very limited independent review signal
shorttermrentalsoftware.com lists '0 reviews currently listed' and Capterra/G2 don't surface a populated page, so buyers lean heavily on vendor-published case studies.
Which Should You Pick
Pick Avalara MyLodgeTax if
Professional property managers with 5+ properties needing comprehensive compliance automation across multiple jurisdictions.
Skip Avalara MyLodgeTax if
You have 1–4 properties — the $299 setup fee and $27/month per listing make the math hard to justify at small scale.
Pick Clearing if
Property managers running 10-300+ short-term rental units who need automated trust accounting, owner statements, and reconciliation across multiple OTAs and PMSes.
Skip Clearing if
You're a single-listing host, you need a PMS replacement (Clearing layers on top of one), or you require self-serve plan-tier pricing without a sales call.
Where Avalara MyLodgeTax and Clearing actually differ
- Avalara MyLodgeTax is single-purpose lodging tax compliance covering registration, filing, and remittance across 11,000+ jurisdictions; Clearing is a bookkeeping and trust-accounting platform with virtual bank accounts, owner statements, and ACH disbursement.
- Avalara charges $27/mo per listing plus a $299 one-time setup fee per property; Clearing publishes a $25/mo floor up to 5 listings, $9.25/unit at 11–20, and $8.50/unit at 100+, with a $2.50/unit trust-accounting add-on plus $199–$499 setup.
- Avalara files returns and remits payments to government tax jurisdictions; Clearing does not file or remit lodging or occupancy taxes on your behalf.
- Clearing lists 30+ named integrations including Hostaway, Guesty, Hospitable, Lodgify, OwnerRez, Stripe, and QuickBooks Online; Avalara integrates with only OwnerRez and Streamline for booking data ingest.
- Avalara is built to scale from 5 up to 40,000+ properties with commercial pricing at 6+ listings; Clearing has no tax registration, no return filing, and no jurisdiction database — its scope is the back-office close, not government remittance.
Common objections
- If I'm already running Clearing for bookkeeping, doesn't that cover my lodging taxes?
- No. Clearing reconciles bookings, generates owner statements, and segregates owner funds in trust accounts, but it does not register for lodging tax licenses, calculate jurisdiction-specific rates, or file and remit returns. If you operate in jurisdictions where your OTA doesn't fully collect, Avalara fills a compliance gap Clearing was never designed to cover.
- Avalara's $27/mo per listing is more expensive than Clearing's $9.25/unit at the same scale. Is the compliance automation really worth the premium?
- They're solving different problems, so the per-listing comparison isn't apples to apples. Avalara's fee buys active filing and remittance work — a single missed lodging tax return can trigger penalties and license issues that exceed a year of fees. Clearing's fee buys ongoing bookkeeping and trust accounting. Most multi-jurisdiction operators need both.
- I'm on Hostaway or Guesty — can I even use Avalara?
- That's a real limitation. Avalara has no native Hostaway or Guesty connectors — its PMS integrations are limited to OwnerRez and Streamline. You can still use Avalara, but the data pipeline won't be hands-off the way Clearing's PMS-agnostic integrations make their workflow. Factor that operational cost into the decision if tight PMS integration matters.
Keep Digging
Avalara MyLodgeTax
Set-and-forget tax compliance for operators who can absorb the per-property cost
Clearing
Specialist bookkeeping for STR managers who actually need trust accounting