For business · Free trial and demo
Corporate travel software free trial and demo: which travel management software you can try free, and which is demo only
Somewhere between the shortlist and the contract, every corporate travel software evaluation hits the same wall: you want to put the thing in front of two real travelers for two weeks before you commit a budget to it, and half the market will not let you without a scheduled call first. So people search for a free trial, find a demo request form, and assume the vendor is hiding something.
Day-by-day itinerary · a cost on every line · rebuilds any day on request
The short answer
The free trial has mostly disappeared from corporate travel software and been replaced by a permanently free tier. Navan Business, Engine, Perk Starter and Routespring Basic cost nothing forever because supplier commission funds them, so none of them runs a trial. The vendors that still offer one are the subscription products: Zoho Expense gives 14 days with no card, Ramp Plus and Expensify give 30 days, and SAP Concur gives 15 days on Concur Expense only. There is no free trial of Concur Travel, and enterprise platforms such as Coupa, Amex GBT and BCD Travel are demo and quote only. Whether a vendor offers a trial tells you how it makes money, not how confident it is in the product.
Usually it is not hiding anything. It is just funded differently. This page sorts the whole category by that one question, with every price and trial length read at the vendor's own site in August 2026 and attributed in the tables. Then it does the arithmetic almost nobody does, which is what a permanently free plan actually bills you once your team starts booking on it, because on two of the vendors below the free plan is the most expensive one you can be on.
Tell it your trip get a full itinerary
Plans change it rebuilds any day on request
Why it works
Three things the trial question tells you before you sit through any demo
A trial is a revenue model, not a confidence signal
Vendors paid by supplier commission give the software away permanently and have no reason to time-limit anything. Vendors paid by subscription have to end your access at some point, so they run 14 to 30 days. Vendors paid through a negotiated enterprise contract cannot hand you a working environment at all without configuration work, so they send you a demo form. Three different answers to the same buyer question, and none of them is about product quality.
The product you can trial is rarely the one you searched for
SAP Concur runs a genuine 15 day trial with no credit card, and it covers Concur Expense only. There is no trial of Concur Travel and none of Concur Invoice; both are demo request only. That gap matters because the thing most people are evaluating when they type a Concur trial query is the travel side, and the honest answer is that it does not exist as a self-serve trial.
Free is a per booking price in disguise
Perk Starter is $0 with a 5 percent booking fee capped at $30. Routespring Basic is $0 for the first 5 bookings a month and 3 percent after that. Neither is free once your team books. On a 500 trip year at the 2026 US average trip cost, both land near $15,000, which is more than most paid subscriptions in this category. Run the breakeven before you pick the free row.
What it handles
Tell it your trip, get a costed day-by-day itinerary
Share your destination, dates and budget and TripAgent.ai writes a day-by-day itinerary with real places, times and a cost estimate on every line. You set the preferences, approve anything, and let it run.
- Writes a full day-by-day itinerary from a destination, dates, a party size and a total budget, so there is something concrete to evaluate in minutes
- Prices every line and totals the day and the trip against the budget you gave it
- Rewrites any single day when you ask it to, so a moved meeting does not restart the plan
- Exports the priced plan as a PDF you can send to whoever approves the spend
- Starts on a free account with a real quota, then $19 a month flat, with no seats and no per trip fee
- Needs no sales call, no implementation and no configuration before it produces output
- Is honest that it is not a travel management platform: no booking, no policy engine, no approvals, no card and no spend export
Honest comparison
Can you start without talking to sales?
Every row below was read at the vendor site in August 2026. The middle column is the only question that matters when you are trying to get a pilot running this week rather than next quarter.
| Vendor and product | Start without a sales call? | What you actually get |
|---|---|---|
| Navan Business | Yes, self-serve | Travel free for companies up to 300 employees, expense free for the first 5 monthly expensing users, then $15 per user a month |
| Engine | Yes, self-serve | No platform fee and no booking fee, funded by hotel commission. Its own pricing page says "Engine is free. Not a free trial. Actually free." The optional FlexPro cancellation cover is $2,000 a year for the whole company |
| Routespring | Yes, and it advertises the fact | Basic at $0 for 5 bookings a month then 3 percent per booking. Its pricing page says "No unnecessary sales calls or product demos." |
| Perk, formerly TravelPerk | Yes, self-serve | Starter at $0 with a 5 percent booking fee capped at $30 per booking, Premium from $99 a month, Pro from $299 |
| Ramp | Yes, self-serve | Ramp Free permanently, plus a 30 day trial of Ramp Plus at $15 per user a month with a platform fee |
| Brex | Yes for Essentials and Premium | Essentials at $0 with a self-serve start, Premium at $12 per user a month, Enterprise and Smart Card by quote |
| Zoho Expense | Yes, self-serve | 14 day trial with no credit card, then a genuinely free plan for up to 3 users at 20 receipt scans each a month |
| Expensify | Yes, self-serve | 30 day trial on a Collect or Control workspace, with a payment card requested toward the end of it |
| SAP Concur Expense | Yes for the trial itself | 15 days, no credit card, provisioned by SAP against your business email domain so the clock starts at setup |
| SAP Concur Travel and Concur Invoice | No | No trial exists for either product. Demo request only |
| ITILITE | Get started is self-serve, no trial published | $10 per trip, or $7 per trip on a pre-funded wallet, expense at $9 per active user a month or $6 billed annually |
| Navan Enterprise, Coupa, Emburse, Amex GBT, BCD Travel | No | Demo and quote only. Pricing is negotiated and the environment needs configuring before it does anything |
Which corporate travel software offers a free trial?
Four of them, and they are all subscription products: Zoho Expense at 14 days with no credit card, Ramp Plus and Expensify at 30 days, and SAP Concur at 15 days on Concur Expense only. Every other major platform in this category has replaced the trial with a permanently free tier or with a demo request. The full picture is below, with the length, the card requirement and what happens when the clock runs out.
| Vendor | Free trial | Length | Card required | What you drop to afterwards |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Zoho Expense | Yes | 14 days | No | A free plan for up to 3 users, 20 receipt scans each a month, 5 GB of storage |
| Ramp Plus | Yes | 30 days | Not stated | Ramp Free, which is the core card and expense product at no cost |
| Expensify | Yes | 30 days on a Collect or Control workspace | Requested toward the end of the trial | A free individual plan, or $5 per member a month on Collect |
| SAP Concur Expense | Yes | 15 days | No | Nothing. Concur has no free tier, so the trial ends in a quote |
| SAP Concur Travel | No trial exists | Not applicable | Not applicable | Demo request only |
| Navan Business | No trial, and none needed | Not applicable | No | Free permanently below 300 employees, funded by supplier commission |
| Engine | No trial, and none needed | Not applicable | No | Free permanently, funded by hotel commission |
| Perk Starter | No trial, and none needed | Not applicable | No | Free permanently, with a 5 percent booking fee capped at $30 |
| Routespring Basic | No trial, and none needed | Not applicable | No | Free for 5 bookings a month, then 3 percent per booking |
| Brex Essentials | No trial, and none needed | Not applicable | No | Free permanently, with Premium at $12 per user a month above it |
| ITILITE | None published | Not applicable | Not applicable | Usage pricing at $10 per trip, or $7 on a pre-funded wallet |
| Coupa, Emburse, Amex GBT, BCD Travel | No | Not applicable | Not applicable | Demo and negotiated quote |
Read the last column rather than the first. A 30 day trial that ends in a free plan (Ramp, Expensify, Zoho) is a soft landing: if the evaluation stalls because someone went on vacation, you keep the data and pick it up later. A 15 day trial that ends in a quote, which is what Concur offers, is a countdown. Plan the Concur trial around a specific week when the two people testing it are actually at their desks, because the clock starts when SAP provisions the environment against your business email domain, not when you submit the form.
Are there any AI travel management solutions that offer a trial period or demo?
Yes on both counts, but they split cleanly. The AI-branded expense and spend tools (Ramp, Brex, Zoho Expense, Expensify) all let you start the same day, either on a trial or on a free tier. The AI-branded corporate travel platforms (Navan, Perk, Routespring, Engine) skip the trial entirely and give you a working free account instead, because their revenue comes from the bookings rather than the seat. The only part of the market that genuinely gates you behind a scheduled call is the enterprise tier: Navan above 300 employees, Coupa, Emburse, Amex GBT and BCD Travel.
If what you want is to see AI plan a trip rather than to see a dashboard, that is a smaller thing to evaluate and it should not take a quarter. The planner at the top of this page takes a destination, dates, a party size and a total budget and returns a priced day-by-day itinerary without an account, a call or a card. That is the whole product, not a guided tour of one.
Why the free trial is disappearing from corporate travel software
Because the category changed how it charges. Ten years ago almost everything here was a per seat subscription and a trial was the standard way to sell one. Today the travel booking side is largely commission funded, which means the software costs the vendor nothing to hand out and the incentive runs the other way: they want you in it permanently, booking, not evaluating for two weeks. Engine states this in one line on its own pricing page. "Engine is free. Not a free trial. Actually free."
Once you sort the market by revenue model, the trial policy stops looking arbitrary.
| How the vendor gets paid | What it offers a buyer | Why | Who does this |
|---|---|---|---|
| Supplier and hotel commission | A permanent free tier, no trial | The software is the acquisition channel. Ending your access would end their revenue | Navan Business, Engine, Perk Starter, Routespring Basic |
| Per user subscription | A 14 to 30 day trial, then a free or entry tier | The subscription is the revenue, so access has to expire, but a free tier keeps the account warm | Zoho Expense, Ramp Plus, Expensify, Brex |
| Per expense report filed | A short trial on the expense product only | Expense has no inventory behind it, so it can be provisioned quickly. Travel cannot | SAP Concur |
| Percentage of booking value | A free entry plan that bills per booking | The free plan is the meter. You pay when you use it, not before | Perk, Routespring, Expensify Travel |
| Negotiated enterprise contract | No trial. Demo and quote only | Implementation, policy configuration and integrations make an empty trial environment useless | Navan Enterprise, Coupa, Emburse, Amex GBT, BCD Travel |
The practical consequence for a shortlist is that "offers a free trial" is a terrible filter. It will drop Navan and Engine, which are two of the cheapest ways to run corporate travel in the US, and keep Concur, which is the one that ends in a sales process. Filter on "can two of my people use this next Monday" instead, and the answer changes for almost every row above.
Is Concur free, and is there a Concur Travel free trial?
Concur is not free and there is no free trial of Concur Travel. What exists is a 15 day trial of Concur Expense, with no credit card, provisioned by SAP against your business email domain. It covers receipt capture, building and submitting expense reports, adding users, testing your configuration and loading your own financial data. Concur Travel and Concur Invoice are demo request only, and Concur publishes no list price for any of the three.
This is worth spelling out because the search and the product do not line up. Most people typing a Concur trial query are evaluating the booking tool, since that is the part a travel manager owns, and that is precisely the part with no self-serve path. The structural reason is inventory: a booking tool has to be connected to live air and hotel content and to your negotiated rates before it does anything meaningful, and an expense product has no equivalent dependency.
If you need a number to plan against rather than a trial, our page on how much Concur costs works through the roughly $7 per expense report figure and what drives it, and the SAP Concur free trial covers exactly what the 15 days include and the self-serve alternatives if you need the travel side.
What a free plan actually costs once your team starts booking
This is the section that changes shortlists. Two of the free plans above are not free at all once trips start flowing through them, because the price is a percentage of what you book rather than a monthly fee. Below is the same company on every plan: 500 trips a year at the 2026 US average business trip cost of $1,128 (Engine and Morning Brew, State of Business Travel), so $564,000 of booked travel.
| Plan | Published price | Cost at 500 trips a year | The line nobody checks |
|---|---|---|---|
| Perk Starter | $0 plus 5 percent per booking, capped at $30 | $15,000 | The $30 cap binds on any trip over $600, so this is really a flat $30 per booking |
| Perk Premium | $99 a month plus 3 percent, uncapped | $18,108 | Costs more than the free plan at a $1,128 average trip. Premium only wins on price below about $920 a trip |
| Routespring Basic | $0 for 5 bookings a month, then 3 percent | $14,890 | The 60 free bookings a year stop mattering fast |
| Routespring Economy | $49 a month plus 2 percent | $11,868 | Beats the free plan above about 232 trips a year, roughly 19 a month |
| Routespring Business | $349 a month plus 1 percent | $9,828 | The cheapest row in this table, and it is the most expensive subscription |
| Navan Business | $0, supplier commission funded | $0 | Free below 300 employees. Above that it is a quote |
| Engine | $0, hotel commission funded | $0 plus optional FlexPro at $2,000 a year | Lodging led. It solves one line of the program well rather than the whole thing |
Two findings sit in that table and they point in opposite directions, which is why the arithmetic is worth doing rather than assuming.
On Perk, the free plan is the cheaper one at normal US trip costs. Because Starter caps its 5 percent fee at $30 per booking while Premium charges 3 percent uncapped, the cap binds on any trip over $600 and Starter settles at a flat $30 a booking. Premium is $36.22 a booking on the same volume. Premium is still worth paying for if you need what it adds above the free tier, but do not pay for it expecting a lower bill.
On Routespring the opposite holds. Moving off the free Basic plan onto Economy at $49 a month saves about $3,000 a year at 500 trips, and the crossover is around 232 trips a year. Any company booking more than about 19 trips a month is paying to stay on the free plan.
The wider point is the one made on our travel management software cost per employee page: subscription price is the small variable in this category. A percentage of booking value grows with your business without anyone approving an increase, and it will pass the subscription line long before anyone notices.
How to run a real two week evaluation when there is no trial
Most of what a trial is for can be done on a free tier or in a demo environment, provided you decide what you are testing before the call rather than during it. The failure mode is sitting through a 45 minute guided tour of a configured account that looks nothing like yours and then having no basis for a decision.
Pick two travelers who actually book, not two people from the evaluation committee, and give them one real trip each. Then measure four things: how long the first booking takes end to end, how many support touches it needed, whether the itinerary that came out is something the traveler would follow without rebuilding it themselves, and what the finance side sees afterwards. Those four answers separate vendors far better than a feature matrix does.
For the demo-only vendors, ask for a sandbox loaded with your own data rather than a walkthrough, and ask specifically what a change or cancellation looks like, since that is where the real cost of a platform shows up and it is never in the demo script. Ask in writing for the minimum committed users or spend, the term length, and every fee expressed as a percentage rather than a fixed amount.
If the shortlist is still forming, the vendor by vendor numbers are on corporate travel software pricing, and the platform landscape is on travel management software.
What TripAgent.ai is, and what it is not
TripAgent.ai is not on the comparison tables above and does not belong on them. It is not a travel management platform. There is no booking (no GDS, no supplier inventory, no reservation system), no travel policy engine, no approval routing, no corporate card, no reconciliation and no export of spend to finance. An account is one person, so there are no seats to price and nothing here competes with Navan, Concur, Ramp or Perk.
What it does is the planning slice. Give it a destination, dates, a party and a total budget and it writes the day-by-day itinerary in morning, afternoon and evening blocks, prices every line, totals the trip against the budget, rewrites any single day when you ask it to, and exports a PDF. You take that plan and make the reservations wherever you already do.
On the question this page is about, there is nothing to trial and nothing to schedule. The planner at the top of this page runs without an account and shows real output. A free account with a real quota sits under the paid plans, which are $19, $39 and $79 a month flat, with no per traveler and no per trip charge.
Why TripAgent.ai
One travel agent that plans, sequences and prices for you
Not a blank search box, not a dozen research tabs, and not a bare list of attractions. Your whole trip planned day by day, with real places, times and a cost on every line, and any day rebuildable in one click.
Day-by-day itinerary
TripAgent.ai turns your destination, dates and budget into a realistic day-by-day plan, with the right pace and travel times built in, not a blank search box.
Prices everything
Every place, meal and ticket carries a cost estimate, with a total per day and for the trip, matched to your budget, so you know the number before you go looking to book.
Rebuilds any day on request
A change of plans or a closed attraction, and you rebuild that one day while the rest of the trip stays exactly as it was.
Good questions
Free trial and demo questions buyers actually search
Explore more
More ways to plan and cost your trip with TripAgent.ai
AI travel agent
Tell it where, when and your budget, and it plans and prices the whole trip.
Learn moreAI itinerary generator
Generate a complete day-by-day itinerary in seconds, priced line by line and ready for you to book yourself.
Learn moreAI trip planner
A trip planner that plans every day and prices it, instead of leaving you a checklist.
Learn moreStop juggling tabs. Tell us the trip and it plans itself.
Share your destination, dates and budget and TripAgent.ai writes a day-by-day itinerary with real places, times and a cost estimate on every line.
A cost on every line · day-by-day itinerary · rebuilds any day on request