Ramp vs Expensify: 2026 Pricing Compared

Ramp is cheaper to start and Expensify is cheaper to leave. Ramp Free costs $0 per user a month and already covers corporate cards, expense management, travel and basic accounts payable; Expensify Collect is a flat $5 per member a month. At the top of each range Ramp Plus is $15 per user a month, or $12.00 with the 20 percent annual discount, against $18 per member a month for Expensify Control on an annual commitment. The catch on both sides is not the headline. Ramp will not open an account without $25,000 of cash in a US business bank account, and Expensify's widely quoted $9 Control rate only exists if you move your card spend onto the Expensify Card.

Every figure below was read from ramp.com, Expensify's own help documentation and both companies' support material in September 2026, in the US view. Where a number is conditional we say what the condition is rather than quoting the best case.

What Ramp and Expensify cost, side by side

The shape of that table matters more than any single row. Ramp's cheapest option is genuinely free and its expensive option carries a fee it will not quantify. Expensify has no free tier at all, but every number it charges is published and none of them depend on your headcount clearing a threshold.

Is Expensify cheaper than Ramp?

Not at the entry tier, and it is not close. Ramp Free is $0 and Expensify Collect is $5 per member a month, so a 30 person company pays $1,800 a year for Collect and nothing at all for Ramp Free. Both cover the core job: capture receipts, submit and approve expenses, sync to accounting.

At the upper tier it depends on one decision. Expensify Control lists at $18 per member a month annually against Ramp Plus at $12.00 annually, so Ramp wins on list by a third. Run all your spend on the Expensify Card and Control drops to $9, at which point Expensify is the cheaper of the two and Ramp's unquantified platform fee makes the gap wider still. That single choice, whose card you carry, moves this comparison further than anything on either pricing page.

How does the Expensify Card discount actually work?

It is proportional, not a switch, and that is the part most write-ups get wrong. The discount is calculated from the percentage of all approved USD expenses in your workspace during the billing month that were incurred on the Expensify Card, and it scales up to a maximum of 50 percent. Put every dollar through the card and Control halves from $18 to $9. Put half your dollars through it and you land in the middle.

So $9 is a floor you earn, not a price you select, and it is worth modeling honestly before you build a budget on it. A company with an established corporate card program, an Amex it likes, or spend concentrated in categories the card does not suit will not reach the full discount and should plan around a number closer to $18. Our breakdown of what Expensify costs works through the tiers in more detail, and Expensify alternatives covers the wider field if the card condition is a problem.

Do Ramp and Expensify charge fees for booking travel?

Yes, one of them does, and this is where the annual totals separate for any company that actually travels.

Two hundred trips a year is a 25 person company where half the team flies twice a quarter, which is unremarkable for a sales organization. At that volume Expensify's travel fees cost $3,000 while Ramp's cost nothing, and $3,000 buys back more than the entire Control subscription for a small team. Ramp states the zero fee commitment without qualification: no platform fee and no booking fee no matter how many employees are on the platform or how many trips they book, with Priceline behind the inventory.

If your company books almost no travel, ignore this section entirely. It is the single largest swing factor between these two products and it is worth exactly nothing to a company that meets on video.

Which one can you actually sign up for?

This gets skipped and it should not, because it disqualifies more buyers than price does. Expensify sells software, so it asks what you would expect: create a workspace and pay per member. Ramp extends credit, so it underwrites you.

Ramp requires at least $25,000 in cash in a US business bank account linked to the application, and an incorporated entity, meaning a corporation, LLC or LP, with nonprofits explicitly welcome. Sole proprietors and unregistered businesses are not accepted. You also need most operations and corporate spending in the US, an EIN, and a US physical address that is not a PO box, virtual office, registered agent address or mail forwarding address. In exchange there is no personal credit check and no personal guarantee, which is a genuinely good trade for a founder who does not want a company card on their personal credit file.

The practical consequence: a profitable two person consultancy operating as a sole proprietorship can buy Expensify this afternoon and cannot open a Ramp account at all. That is not a criticism of either company, it is a fork in the decision tree that belongs at the top of your evaluation rather than three weeks in.

Ramp vs Expensify for a small business

For a small US company that is incorporated and holds $25,000 in the bank, Ramp Free is difficult to argue against. It is $0, it includes cards, expense, travel and basic accounts payable, and there is no per trip fee waiting behind it. Most teams under 30 people never need to leave that tier, and our guide to what Ramp costs covers when Plus starts to earn its keep.

Expensify earns its place in two situations. The first is when you cannot qualify for Ramp, which is the sole proprietor and thin balance sheet case above. The second is when you already run everything on cards and are willing to move that spend to the Expensify Card, because a $9 Control seat with a mature approval and policy engine is strong value and Expensify has been building that engine for a long time.

One operational note that applies whichever you pick. Both products reconcile cleanly when a direct card feed is available, and both get tedious when it is not, which is the usual state of affairs with a smaller regional bank. If you are stuck keying figures off a statement by hand, it is faster to convert the PDF statement into a spreadsheet first and import the result than to work line by line inside the expense tool.

Which should you choose?

Choose Ramp if you qualify for it, book travel with any regularity, and want the entry tier to be genuinely free. The combination of a $0 plan and a written zero travel booking fee commitment is hard to beat, and the platform fee only enters the conversation if you upgrade to Plus.

Choose Expensify if you cannot clear Ramp's cash and entity requirements, or if you will realistically put most of your spend on the Expensify Card and collect the full 50 percent discount. Its pricing has no unquantified components, which is worth something on its own when you are building a budget you have to defend.

If Brex is also on your list, the comparison changes again, because Brex undercuts Ramp on published seat price while setting a much higher bar to get approved. We work through both sides of that in Ramp vs Brex, and the corporate travel software pricing pillar sets out every charging model in the category so you can convert per seat, per report and per trip pricing onto one line.

One last thing worth saying plainly: none of these tools decide what a trip actually contains. They book it, card it and account for it. If the part eating your week is building the day by day plan itself, that is a different product, and it is the one we make.