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Last updated Nov 12, 2024

Compare The 9 Best Expensify Alternatives And Competitors

Written by Kavitha Simha
12 minute read

Want to see the future of procure-to-pay?

Compare the 9 best Expensify alternatives and competitors.

Expensify began as an accidental concept in 2008, evolving from card technology to a full-fledged expense management system with SmartScan, corporate cards, bill payment, and invoicing features.

While Expensify sets the industry benchmark and is a widely adopted expense management system, especially for small to mid-market companies, it does have some limitations. Product innovation is not one of its strong suits, and with its per-user-based pricing model, the software can quickly become costly for growing businesses.

If you’re in search of cost-effective solutions or require advanced P2P features, this guide on the top Expensify alternatives is worth exploring.

Comparison criteria.

While we have listed Expensify alternatives that share similar features, we have also taken the following into consideration:

  • Scope and depth of features.
  • Ease of implementation.
  • Pricing structure.
  • User reviews.

Overview: Expensify alternatives and competitors.

Competitor Top Feature Primary Market G2 Rating Pricing
Airbase P2P Mid-market 4.8 $$
Center Expenses Small to large businesses 4.6 $$
Navan Expenses Small to large businesses 4.7 $$
Payhawk Expenses Small to large businesses 4.5 $$$
Routespring Expenses Small to large businesses 4.9 $$$
Spendesk Expenses Small to mid-market 4.7 $$$
SAP Concur Expenses Mid-market to enterprises 4.0 $$$
Zoho Expense Expenses Small businesses and enterprises 4.5 $$

1. Airbase.

Airbase offers advanced features to cater to the financial operation needs of mid-market to enterprise-level companies. Unlike Expensify, which primarily focuses on expense reporting, Airbase offers holistic procure, pay, close solutions through its Guided Procurement, Accounts Payable Automation, Expense Management, and Corporate Cards modules.

3-way PO matching enhances accounting efficiency 1

3-way PO matching enhances accounting efficiency

Best features.

  • Advanced AP automation: Removes the accounting hassles with seamless bill creation, PO matching, GL integration, and auto-generation of codes and tags.
  • Multi-subsidiary support: Allows businesses to manage separate bank accounts, GL mappings, and reporting for each subsidiary, streamlining financial management across multiple entities.
  • Comprehensive procurement solution: Guides employees on creating compliant purchase requests while admins can create custom forms and approval workflows.
  • Simplified approval process: Enables IT, legal, and finance teams to review and approve requests right from within their preferred tech stack, including Ironclad, Jira, and DocuSign.
  • Smart expense management: Helps boost spend under management with pre-approved corporate cards, touchless expense reporting, mileage tracking, travel booking integration, and custom approval flows.
  • International payment capabilities: Facilitates fast payments to vendors in 200+ countries and 145+ currencies through ACH, check, virtual card, international wires, or vendor credits.

Airbase G2 rating: 4.8/5

Airbase pricing.

Airbase offers Standard, Premium, and Enterprise packages to cater to the needs of different businesses with optional add-ons for travel, purchase orders, and approval workflows. Users have the flexibility to either opt for the integrated platform or purchase individual modules of Guided Procurement, AP Automation, Expense Management, and Corporate Cards.

Customers and best suited for:

  • Company size: Mid-market to large enterprises (with 50 to 10,000 employees).
  • Solution needs: Businesses looking for a scalable solution for Guided Procurement, Account Payable Automation, Expense Management, and Corporate Cards, and those seeking an all-in-one procure, pay, close solution by adopting the full suite.

Take a tour of Airbase.

Explore Airbase with a self-guided tour.

2. Center.

Center is similar to Expensify in that it offers travel and expense management features in addition to corporate cards. However, users favor Center over Expensify, citing the former as easier to implement and use.

On-the-go receipt submissions for quick reimbursements

On-the-go receipt submissions for quick reimbursements

Best features.

  • Travel booking tools: Enables travel and expense management in one platform with easy trip booking and visibility into off-platform bookings.
  • Expense reports: Makes it easy to create and submit expense reports by auto-populating expense fields.
  • Corporate cards: Offers individual or department cards for convenient expense management.
  • Expense automation: Streamlines accounts payable processes with dynamic approval workflows, custom fields, ERP integrations, and intelligent expense auditing.
  • Expense tracking: Provides visibility into all transactions, including unsubmitted expenses.
  • Invoicing: Allows creation of printable PDFs with relevant transaction details and receipts for invoicing.

Center G2 rating: 4.6/5

Center pricing.

While there is no license or platform fee, Center charges transaction fees per travel booking and card transaction.

Customers and best suited for:

  • Company size: Small and mid-market companies.
  • Solution needs: Companies that are looking for affordable travel and expense management solutions.

3. Navan.

Navan is on our list of Expensify alternatives, given its focus on travel and expense management. Navan outperforms Expensify in ease of deployment, integrations, and scalability.

Granular view of company-wide spend

Granular view of company-wide spend

Best features.

  • Linking corporate cards: Allows users to connect their Mastercard or Visa to the platform while retaining rewards.
  • Spend control: Enables users to set custom spend controls to remove out-of-policy purchases.
  • Reconciliation and reimbursements: Categorizes and reconciles transactions and facilitates reimbursement in multiple currencies.
  • Automated expense reports: Syncs the details automatically once employees add a corporate card or upload receipts.
  • Travel booking tools: Supports the creation of travel spend policies and simplifies booking of individual and group travel in addition to offering consulting services for travel management.
  • Expense reports: Offers real-time visibility into travel bookings and expenses on a customizable dashboard.

Navan G2 Rating: 4.7/5

Navan pricing.

Navan does not charge a platform fee and users can set up an account for free.

Customers and best suited for:

  • Company size: Small to medium-sized businesses and enterprises.
  • Solution needs: Businesses looking for an easy-to-use expense management and travel booking solution.

4. Payhawk.

Payhawk is among the alternatives to Expensify to consider if you are looking for expense management features along with AP automation and multi-subsidiary support. Unlike Expensify which is designed for small to medium businesses, Payhawk caters to the complex needs of enterprises.

With Payhawk users can set individual or team spend limits

With Payhawk, users can set individual or team spend limits

Best features.

  • Corporate cards: Enables a choice of debit and credit corporate expense cards, issued as virtual, plastic, or metal cards with spend controls.
  • Multi-subsidiary management: Consolidates spend across subsidiaries in a centralized dashboard.
  • Purchase requests: Streamlines purchases with easy submission of purchase requests, PO matching, custom approvals, and direct vendor payments.
  • Invoice handling: Uses OCR to capture invoices and allows users to split invoices, schedule payment runs, and export data.
  • Reimbursements: Fast tracks reimbursements in over 50 currencies and across 160 countries, from the platform.

Payhawk G2 rating: 4.5/5

Payhawk pricing.

Payhawk offers a tiered pricing plan, like most Expensify competitors, across Premium Cards, All-In-One Spend, and Enterprise packages. For single-entity businesses with fewer than 50 employees, Payhawk offers an exclusive plan priced at £149 per month, with a validity period of 24 months.

Customers and best suited for:

  • Company size: Single-entities, small to mid-market businesses, and enterprises.
  • Solution needs: Multi-entity businesses looking for global corporate card and payment solutions in addition to procurement, AP automation, and expense management.

5. Routespring.

If you are looking for Expensify alternatives that focus on travel management, Routespring is a suitable option. Apart from end-to-end support for business travel management, Routespring offers insights into travel spend.

Routespring offers in-app travel bookings and approvals

Routespring offers in-app travel bookings and approvals

Best features.

  • Travel app: Provides travelers with a user-friendly travel app for travel booking and requests.
  • In-app approvals: Allows admins to set travel policies and controls while approving travel requests via the mobile app.
  • Centralized payments: Collates billing information for all travel expenses in one dashboard for easy payment.
  • Expense tracking: Tracks receipts and expenses on the platform to ensure policy compliance.
  • Calendar integration: Syncs travel itineraries with popular calendar apps and business tools.
  • Expense categorization: Enables the use of custom tags to categorize travel expenses.
  • Travel analytics: Enables custom report creation and offers insights into travel trends based on travelers, departments, and projects.

Routespring G2 Rating: 4.9/5

Routespring pricing.

Routespring offers flexible pricing plans to suit various business needs. The Economy plan, with no monthly fee, includes a cost of $8 per booking. The Business plan costs $999 per month for 500 bookings while the First plan offers unlimited bookings at $4,999 per month. The Custom plan offers tailored features and pricing.

Customers and best suited for:

  • Company size: Small, medium, and large businesses.
  • Solution needs: Routespring caters to the travel and expense management needs of businesses of all sizes.

6. Spendesk

As one of the top Expensify competitors, Spendesk offers many features that are lacking in Expensify, including accounting automation, unlimited virtual cards, and smart categorization of expenses. Spendesk has recently acquired Okko to offer procurement solutions.

Spendesk automatically categorizes VAT and expense accounts

Spendesk automatically categorizes VAT and expense accounts

Best features.

  • Corporate cards: Offers corporate cards with customizable spend limits and the ability for managers to top up the cards as needed.
  • Expense management: Streamlines receipt capturing and expense reporting in addition to automating approval workflows.
  • Subscription management: Groups recurring payments and subscriptions in the platform for easy management.
  • AP automation: Leverages machine learning to extract VAT details and automate expense account allocation while matching POs with invoices.
  • Invoicing: Automates approvals, enables centralized invoice processing, and helps track payments.

Spendesk G2 rating: 4.7/5

Spendesk pricing.

Spendesk has not listed the pricing information on its website.

Customers and best suited for:

  • Company size: Small, medium, and large businesses.
  • Solution needs: Companies that prioritize spend management, AP automation, and budget planning.

8. SAP Concur.

SAP Concur offers an integrated travel and expense management solution for businesses of all sizes. Apart from these features, Concur also offers AP automation with approval workflows, automated invoice capture, and ERP synchronization.

Expense reports can be generated with just a few clicks

Expense reports can be generated with just a few clicks

Best features.

  • Expense management: Streamlines expense reporting with mobile apps for receipt submission and approval flows, while the Concur Drive app automatically captures mileage.
  • Invoice processing: Utilizes AI and OCR technology to extract invoice details from emails, faxes, or mobile submissions, routing them through approval workflows.
  • PO matching: Supports PO creation, item receipt matching, and integration with ERP systems for seamless invoicing.
  • Payment solutions: Provides Payment Manager for managing bulk payments through third-party app integrations.
  • Attendee spending tracking: Enables tracking of spend for each individual at an event or meeting.
  • Total spend visibility: Offers complete visibility into total company spending, down to each detailed transaction.

SAP Concur G2 rating: 4.0/5

SAP Concur pricing.

Pricing information is not available on the website.

Customers and best suited for:

  • Company size: Medium-sized businesses to large enterprises.
  • Solution needs: Businesses looking for travel, expense, and budget management tools.

7. SAP Concur.

SAP Concur offers an integrated travel and expense management solution for businesses of all sizes. Apart from these features, Concur also offers AP automation with approval workflows, automated invoice capture, and ERP synchronization.

Multiple ways to make online payments

Generates expense report name and number automatically

Best features.

  • Travel booking: Simplifies business travel arrangements and ensures policy compliance with a self-booking tool.
  • Receipt imports: Utilizes auto-scan to parse and convert receipts into expenses in 15 languages while importing receipts from different cloud platforms.
  • Report types: Offers the ability to create different report types by grouping expenses, making it easy for employees to add relevant expenses under the category.
  • Mileage tracking: Captures mileage data via GPS for precise expense reporting.
  • Spend analytics: Offers valuable insights into corporate card expenditures through an intuitive dashboard for enhanced financial oversight.
  • Approval workflows: Enables creation of multi-level approval processes for purchase requests.

Zoho Expense G2 rating: 4.5/5

Zoho Expense pricing.

There are four packages available: Free, Standard, Premium, and Custom. The Standard plan costs $4 per user/month when billed annually while the Premium plan is priced at $7 per user/month.

Customers and best suited for:

  • Company size: Self-employed individuals, small businesses, and enterprises.
  • Solution needs: Companies and individuals looking for affordable travel and expense management solutions.

Airbase vs Expensify.

In this section, we take a deeper dive into an Airbase vs Expensify comparison.

What does Airbase do?

Airbase seeks to simplify financial management for mid-market and early enterprise companies by eliminating manual processes. With advanced features, such as Guided Procurement, AP Automation, Expense Management, and Corporate Cards, the all-in-one platform helps businesses improve compliance, accelerate month-end closing, and gain 360-degree visibility into spend.

Airbase solutions.

Guided Procurement.

This module optimizes the intake process, starting from requisition to payment. Admins can use the drag-and-drop, no-code, multi-layered approval workflow builder to customize approval flows and purchase requests. With critical documents captured at every step, Airbase ensures compliance and mitigates risk. Employees can raise a purchase request and receive guidance from the platform every step of the way. Expensify doesn’t offer this comprehensive intake workflow.

Accounts Payable Automation.

Airbase’s AP automation module is more sophisticated in comparison to what Expensify offers and succeeds in eliminating manual work. Unlike Expensify, Airbase supports multi-subsidiary functionality, providing visibility into global spend across subsidiaries. The platform also offers a dedicated vendor portal that simplifies onboarding and collaboration with vendors. In addition to capturing bills and invoices using smart technology, Airbase fast-tracks payments to vendors by supporting payments across 200+ countries and in 145+ currencies through ACH, check, virtual card, international wires, or vendor credits. Apart from auto-categorizing expenses, Airbase automatically tags, codes, and syncs transactions into the GL.

Expense Management.

Airbase makes it easy for its customers to manage expenses and make rapid reimbursements and direct payments from within the platform. Users can easily capture receipts through the Airbase mobile app and let the platform automatically populate expense details using OCR technology and generative AI. The AI-powered expense reporting that predicts “purpose” can be reviewed for accuracy and when correct makes for a fully touchless expense reporting experience.

Automated approval workflows ensure compliance with company policies, flagging or blocking out-of-policy requests for immediate clarity. Payments are triggered based on approvals with global reimbursements possible across 44 countries and 14 currencies.

Corporate Cards.

Unlike Expensify’s corporate card offering, Airbase’s corporate card programs provide advanced controls and customization options to help businesses streamline spend. Administrators can set individualized limits and approval workflows tailored to specific employees or departments. Airbase also scores over Expensify by offering dynamic virtual cards, which can be created instantly for one-time use or recurring subscriptions in addition to straight-line amortization. With support for multi-subsidiary functionality, Airbase offers visibility into global spend, a feature not available in Expensify’s offering.

What does Expensify do?

Expensify enables small to mid-market businesses to manage their expenses by providing tools for bill payments, employee reimbursements, invoicing, and travel booking. While the company focused on receipt scanning technology initially, it later added bill payment and corporate card features.

Expense management.

Expensify offers the expected expense management features that you would find in its competitors, such as a receipt scanner, OCR technology to parse the information, and approval workflows. Expensify also pulls expenses from corporate cards and travel apps, such as Uber and Lyft.

However, the process of creating an expense report is not entirely automated. The SmartScan process auto-populates details such as the amount, date, and merchant but the user has to manually enter the category, description, tax, and tags.

Expensify supports direct ACH reimbursements for companies with a U.S. bank account. Users can link their bank accounts in Canada, the E.U., the U.K., and Australia for international reimbursements. Payments from these linked bank accounts can take up to 4 business days to process.

Invoicing.

Invoicing is a feature that has been recently launched in New Expensify, Expensify’s upgraded version. With this feature, users can create an invoice using pre-built templates while the software calculates discounts, taxes, and other fees. Once the user sends the invoice via email, the platform creates a chat to enable communication with clients.

Bill payments.

Expensify automatically captures bill details using SmartScan and makes it easy for admins to review and process the payments. Businesses can automate the approval and payment process directly from their business bank account.

Users can effortlessly monitor the status of their payments, whether they are paid, due, or overdue, all consolidated within the Expensify app. However, the bill payment module is at a nascent stage and lacks the advanced features that Airbase offers, such as international bill payments and the ability to create and manage purchase orders.

Corporate cards.

With Expensify, users can generate unlimited virtual cards with spend controls and import personal or company-issued credit cards into the platform.

Virtual cards can be used for digital one-time purchases and recurring subscriptions. Expensify also offers its own corporate card with features, such as access to travel safety, credit, cashback rewards, and custom approval workflows.

Users can view the transaction details on a reconciliation dashboard while identifying unapproved or unexported expenses.

In summary.

Based on our comparison between Airbase and Expensify, it’s evident that Expensify provides traditional expense management and invoicing features for small and medium businesses. Airbase caters to mid-market to early enterprise companies, offering comprehensive automation throughout the entire purchase lifecycle — from procurement to payment to close.

Airbase excels over Expensify in several areas, including advanced, configurable approval flows, native PO support, amortization for all spend types, international subsidiary support, and unlimited user roles with granular access controls.

Unlike Expensify, Airbase eliminates manual work for accounting and procurement teams, as it doesn’t require customers to export expense data to Excel for analysis.

While both platforms offer real-time reporting, Airbase stands out with its comprehensive reporting across all payment types. Another key differentiator is Airbase’s award-winning customer support which is known for its prompt responses and quick resolution.

See how Airbase represents the next generation of P2P solutions — book a demo with us!

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