Expense management software has quietly become corporate-card software: the three biggest names in the category today — Expensify, Ramp, and Brex — all bundle a physical/virtual corporate card with the receipt-capture and approval tooling. That changes how you should compare them, because the “free” tier isn’t really free if it’s subsidized by card interchange revenue rather than your subscription fee. We checked each vendor’s own pricing and help pages directly in November 2026 to see what’s actually self-serve versus what requires a sales call.
If you’re also evaluating core bookkeeping tools alongside expense management, our Best Accounting Software for Freelancers and Small Business comparison covers QuickBooks Online, Xero, and Wave, which is a natural next step once your expense data needs somewhere to land.
At a Glance
| Tool | Starting Price | Free Plan? | Best For |
|---|---|---|---|
| Expensify | $5/member/month (Collect, pay-per-use) | Only for a single individual tracking personal expenses — no approvals, payments, cards, or accounting sync | Solo users and small teams who want simple receipt capture without a corporate card program |
| Ramp | $0/user/month (Free plan) | Yes — a genuinely usable free plan including the corporate card | Small and mid-size businesses that want card issuing, AP automation, and approvals without a subscription fee |
| Brex | $0/user/month (Essentials) | Yes — free plan includes global corporate cards and core approvals | Startups and companies with international teams that need multi-currency cards and entities |
Short Verdict
Ramp and Brex both offer a free, full-featured starting tier built around their own corporate card, which makes either one the better default for a small business that wants expense management and a card program in a single sign-up with no subscription cost. Expensify is different: it’s priced per-member with no card-program requirement, which suits a business that already has a card provider (or no company card at all) and just wants receipt capture, approvals, and accounting sync layered on top. Between Ramp and Brex, Ramp’s free plan is the more AP-automation-focused of the two, while Brex leans toward global/multi-entity teams with cards accepted in 210+ countries even on its free tier.
What It Is: Three Different Business Models
It helps to understand how each company actually makes money, because it explains the pricing structure:
- Expensify is a software subscription first. You pay per active or included member for the Collect or Control plan; its own corporate card (the Expensify Card) is optional, and using it unlocks a discount on your subscription rather than being required to use the product at all.
- Ramp and Brex are both built around the corporate card as the primary product, with expense management, bill pay, and accounting sync layered on as software. Both can offer a genuinely free software tier because they earn revenue from card interchange fees rather than from your subscription.
Practically, this means Expensify is the better fit if you don’t want to switch your corporate card provider, and Ramp or Brex are the better fit if you’re open to (or actively want) a new corporate card as part of the deal.
Pricing Breakdown (as published, November 2026)
| Vendor | Plan | Price | Key Features |
|---|---|---|---|
| Expensify | Free “Submit” workspace | $0 | Individual expense tracking only — no approvals, payments, company cards, or accounting integrations |
| Collect | $5/unique member/month, pay-per-use | Receipt scanning, simple one-step approval workflow, connects to QuickBooks/Xero; no multi-level approvals or multiple card connections | |
| Control | $18/included member/month billed annually (or $36/member/month pay-per-use); discounted to as low as $9–$18/member/month with Expensify Card usage | Multi-step approval workflows, multiple corporate card connections, ERP integrations (NetSuite, Sage Intacct) | |
| Ramp | Free | $0/user/month | Corporate card, automated invoice OCR for accounts payable, auto-receipt collection/matching, configurable approval workflows |
| Plus | $15/user/month plus a platform fee based on team size (20% off with annual billing) | Automatic card locking for missing receipts, AI-driven approval recommendations, routing by vendor/department/GL code | |
| Enterprise | Not published — contact sales | Annual billing only; built on top of Plus features | |
| Brex | Essentials | $0/user/month | Unlimited global corporate cards (210+ countries), one local card program, up to 2 entities, accounting integrations, multi-level approval chains, AI custom rules |
| Premium | $12/user/month | Adds advanced receipt data extraction, local-currency cards in 50+ countries, dynamic spend-limit approval chains, multiple expense policies | |
| Enterprise | Not published — contact sales | Local card issuance/collections/reimbursements/policies on top of Premium | |
| Smart Card | Not published — contact sales | A separate procurement-focused product: merchant card controls and custom approvals |
Both Ramp Plus and Expensify Control add a fee on top of the base per-member number — Ramp calls it a “platform fee based on team size” without publishing the exact figure, and Expensify charges extra for any active member above your committed annual subscription size. Neither gives a single clean per-seat number you can multiply by headcount without talking to sales or reading the fine print, so treat the prices above as starting points rather than your final bill.
Pros and Cons
Expensify
- Pros: No requirement to adopt a new corporate card; works alongside whatever card program you already have; Collect plan is cheap for a small team that just needs receipt capture and basic approvals.
- Cons: The only free option is for a single individual with no approvals, payments, or accounting sync — not usable as a business-wide free plan; Control’s pay-per-use rate ($36/member/month) is the most expensive list price of the three vendors unless you commit to annual billing and use the Expensify Card for a discount.
Ramp
- Pros: The free plan is a real, usable business plan (not a stripped-down trial) and already includes OCR invoice extraction, receipt matching, the corporate card, and configurable approval workflows; Plus adds genuinely useful AP routing on top.
- Cons: Plus plan’s “platform fee based on team size” isn’t published as a number, making it hard to estimate total cost in advance; Enterprise pricing requires a sales call with no published starting point.
Brex
- Pros: Free Essentials tier includes global card acceptance in 210+ countries and up to 2 entities, which is unusually generous for a $0 tier; strong fit for startups with international spend or multiple legal entities from day one.
- Cons: Advanced receipt data extraction is reserved for Premium ($12/user/month) and above, not included free; local-currency card issuance beyond one program also requires upgrading; Enterprise and the separate Smart Card product both require contacting sales with no published price.
Who It’s a Good Fit For
- Choose Expensify if you want to keep your existing corporate card or bank and bolt on receipt capture, approvals, and accounting sync without switching card providers.
- Choose Ramp if you want a genuinely free, full-featured starting plan with a corporate card and AP automation, and you’re comfortable with a per-user fee plus an unpublished platform fee once you outgrow the free tier.
- Choose Brex if your business operates across multiple countries or legal entities and you want global card acceptance built into even the free plan.
Who Should Look Elsewhere
- Teams that need a hard, all-in dollar figure for a growing headcount should be cautious with Ramp Plus and Expensify Control — both carry fees on top of the base per-member price that aren’t fully published.
- Businesses that specifically don’t want to adopt a new corporate card (for banking relationship, credit, or compliance reasons) should default to Expensify rather than Ramp or Brex, since the latter two are built around their own card as the core product.
- Anyone needing enterprise-tier pricing published up front, without a sales call, won’t find it at any of the three vendors — Ramp Enterprise, Brex Enterprise, and Brex Smart Card are all quote-only.
Bottom Line
For most small businesses starting from scratch in 2026, Ramp or Brex’s free tier is the lower-friction entry point because it bundles a usable corporate card with real expense-management features at $0/user. Expensify remains the right call specifically when you don’t want to change your card provider, or when your workflow is simpler than a full card program — its Collect plan at $5/member/month is cheap for that narrower use case. Whichever you pick, budget time to get an actual quote for Plus/Control/Premium tiers before committing, since none of the three vendors’ published entry-level numbers are the full story once you add platform fees, overage charges, or a path to the enterprise tier.
FAQ
Which of these three has a truly free plan for a small business?
Ramp and Brex both do — their Free and Essentials plans respectively are full business plans (not single-user trials) that include a corporate card, receipt handling, and approval workflows at $0 per user per month. Expensify’s only free option is a single-individual “Submit” workspace with no approvals, payments, company cards, or accounting integrations, so it doesn’t function as a free plan for a team.
Do I have to switch corporate card providers to use Ramp or Brex?
Their free and entry-level plans are built around issuing you their own corporate card, so yes — you’re expected to use their card for the bundled pricing to make sense. Expensify is the option that layers onto a card program you already have rather than replacing it.
Which vendor publishes exact pricing for its top tier?
None of them. Ramp Enterprise, Brex Enterprise, and Brex Smart Card are all quote-only with no published starting price. Expensify does publish numbers for its Collect and Control plans, but Control’s per-member overage fee above your committed subscription size, and Ramp Plus’s “platform fee based on team size,” are also not spelled out as fixed dollar amounts.
Do all three include receipt scanning/OCR?
Yes, in some form, on their core plans. Expensify includes receipt scanning on Collect; Ramp advertises automated invoice extraction (OCR) for accounts payable and auto-receipt matching on its Free plan; Brex includes automatically generated receipts on Essentials, with more advanced receipt data extraction reserved for its paid Premium tier and above.
Can I use any of these alongside a separate invoicing tool?
Yes — expense management (what your team spends) and invoicing (what you bill clients) are complementary rather than competing categories. If you need the billing side of that picture, see our Best Invoicing & Billing Software for Freelancers comparison.
Sources
- Expensify – Billing Overview & Plan Pricing
- Expensify – Compare Collect and Control Plans
- Ramp – Pricing
- Brex – Pricing
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