Expense Management & Corporate Cards

For full accounting (where these expenses ultimately land) see Accounting. For personal expense tracking see Self-Hosted Personal Apps. For travel-and-spend in an ERP see ERP Systems.

Modern corporate cards (free, US-focused)

• ★ Brex — corporate cards + expense + bill pay; free for startups (revenue from interchange + paid tiers). Default for venture-backed US startups.
• ★ Ramp — corporate cards + expense + AP automation; free; rebates. Brex's main competitor; aggressive product velocity in 2024–26.
• Mercury IO — checking + cards; pairs well with Brex / Ramp.
• Rho — competitor; free.
• Airbase (now Paylocity Spend) — combines AP + cards; paid.
• Bill.com Spend & Expense (formerly Divvy) — free corporate cards + expense.

EU / UK corporate cards

• ★ Pleo — Danish; cards + expense; small free tier; popular across EU.
• Spendesk — French; cards + expense + AP; paid.
• Soldo — UK / EU; paid; free trial.
• Moss — German; paid.
• Qonto — French SMB business banking + cards.

Hosted expense reporting (no card)

• ★ Zoho Expense Free — up to 3 users; full receipt capture / mileage / approvals. The most usable genuinely-free hosted expense tool.
• Expensify Free — pay-per-active-user above small free thresholds; SmartScan; widely deployed.
• SAP Concur — enterprise incumbent; paid.
• Rydoo, Certify, Webexpenses, Emburse — alternative paid tools.

Open source / self-host

• ★ Akaunting — free OSS accounting with expense module; paid app marketplace adds advanced features. See Accounting.
• ERPNext Expense Claim — full reimbursement workflow inside ERPNext; free.
• Odoo Expenses — Community has the basics; OCR receipt scanning is in Enterprise.
• Tricount — group expenses (split bills); free / freemium; not enterprise but useful for small teams.
• Splitwise — same niche; free with paid pro.
• Firefly III — personal finance with expense categorization; see Self-Hosted Personal Apps.

Bill pay / AP automation (often bundled)

• ★ Bill.com — incumbent for SMB AP; paid.
• ★ Ramp Bill Pay — bundled free.
• Brex AP — bundled free.
• Melio — free for ACH; paid for credit-card-funded payments.
• Routable, Tipalti, Stampli — mid-market AP.

Receipt capture / OCR

• Brex / Ramp / Pleo — all bundle SMS / email / app receipt capture.
• Veryfi, Klippa, Mindee — receipt-OCR APIs; free tiers.
• Expensify SmartScan — bundled.
• Roll your own — see OCR & Vision; Mistral OCR / Tesseract / cloud-vision APIs are increasingly viable.

Per diem / travel

• Navan (formerly TripActions) — travel + expense combined; free for travelers, biller-pays.
• TravelPerk — same niche.
• Expensify — supports per-diem rules.
• SAP Concur Travel — enterprise.

Mileage tracking

• MileIQ — paid app; popular with US sales / contractor crowd.
• Everlance — same niche; free tier.
• Most modern expense tools (Brex / Ramp / Zoho / Expensify) include mileage.

Pick this if…

• Default US startup: Brex or Ramp (genuinely free).
• Default EU SMB: Pleo or Qonto.
• Free hosted, just expense reports: Zoho Expense Free.
• Already on ERPNext / Odoo: the bundled expense module.
• Just need receipt OCR for an internal tool: Veryfi / Mindee / Mistral OCR.
• You're paying $20+ /user/month for expense software but no cards: consider Brex / Ramp — the cards are usually free in lieu of a fee.